I wish I could say I had known Eddie "Bozo" Miller. Or even that I had heard of him prior to this morning. One look at the picture that ran with his Obituary told me I had to read about him. The more I read, the more I thought I would have liked him. Consider the first two sentences used to describe him: 

"A son of vaudevillians, Miller liked to do everything in high style, whether it was betting on horses, managing boxing fights or competitive gorging. He once claimed he outdrank a lion in a martini contest."

While "Competitive Eating" ranks 83rd on my list of "sporting events" to watch -- above the new American Gladiators but below the  Olympic Biathlon -- the fact Mr. Miller's drinking of 2 quarts of liquor in an hour put him in the Guiness Book of World Records has to be respected. If he really had 10-12 Martinis with lunch, you can imagine he would be the life of any party, which is perhaps why he was able to claim dinner guests like Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Lauren Bacall, and Joan Crawford.

Mr. Miller, although we never met, for the virility with which you approached your life, a sympathetic haberdasher says Farewell.

New unemployment numbers were released last week. The Dow shed 200+ points. A barrel of oil hit $100 for the first time ever. The Federal Reserve is considering an interest rate cut.  I could care less. None of those numbers concern me anymore. From now on, I am only concerned with the CLEWI -- the Cost of Living Extremely Well Index -- created by Forbes magazine back in the 1970's. Like the CPI, it tracks the prices of a basket of goods; unlike the CPI, it ignores bread & milk in favor of caviar & a case of Dom Perignon.

I expect new interest in the CLEWI with the release of a new book called All the Money in the World: How the Forbes 400 Make -- and Spend -- Their Fortunes. Published to coincide with the 25th anniversary of the Forbes 400 -- a list of the 400 richest Americans -- the book covers everything from how various fortunes were made and sometimes lost, philanthropy, trophy wives, and which universities have churned out the most members of the 400 (spoiler alert: it's MIT). The ease with which the book can be read, and its subjects, made it an easy choice for this month's Not Oprah's Book-of-the-Month selection.

Some favorite fun-facts of mine from the book: 

• By calculating each individual's wealth at their peak and comparing it to the U.S. GDP at the time, and then converting it to 2006 dollars, Bill Gates, with a fortune of $53B, would only be the 13th richest American ever. John D. Rockfeller would be #1 with a fortune, in today's dollars, of $305 BILLION.
• In 2006, the average net worth of Forbes 400 members without a college degree exceeded the average net worth of those with a degree ...by $2.8 Billion!
• While the CPI has doubled since the Forbes 400 was started in 1982, the CLEWI has quadrupled. But the richest have no reason to worry -- the wealth of the Forbes 400 has grown by a factor of 10! In other words, as a percentage of their wealth, the richest among us are spending less than ever to enjoy John Lobb shoes, Davidoff cigars, a Rolls-Royce Phantom, and of course, a subscription to Forbes (4 of the 41 items comprising the CLEWI).
  

Just think, some of the Forbes 400 might be living even better by shopping our Winter Sale -- it shocks the conscience just to think about it.