There was an article in the Times...

...yesterday, "For the Rich, Cargo Vans on Steroids," that I just can't seem to get out of my mind. Apparently, some of New York's wealthier residents have taken to customizing large vans, like the one above:

Steve Kantor admits that he likes to travel in style. He is an affable investment banker, concerned about flaunting his wealth, but he drives around Manhattan in what looks like a simple black delivery van.

Of course, most vans do not have chauffeurs, as Mr. Kantor’s has. Or a built-in office, custom installed.

“I have two big-screen televisions; I have a couch in the back that goes into a bed,” Mr. Kantor said. “I have four chairs that go back and massage you. It has a desk, a table and an intercom so you can have meetings in there if you want to.”
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Some owners use them as mobile offices, outfitted with fine leather chairs and Persian rugs; vans may also double as a child’s playroom on wheels, complete with a built-in vacuum to clean what the children dirty.

And while some owners say they are drawn to the vehicles’ vanilla exteriors, their outsize profiles cannot help but draw attention: at more than 22 feet long and nearly 9 feet tall, they look like cargo vans on steroids, their high roof lines dwarfing nearly all that surrounds them on the streets of New York. And that’s before the satellite dishes are raised.
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Jill Kargman, a writer and mother of three who lives on the Upper East Side, said that play dates adhered to a certain pecking order: those that start in one of these ultra-luxury vans are preferable because they can “just bop into a souped-up bulletproof living room on wheels,” she said.

The most popular model is made by Mercedes: a stripped-down, basic version of the van, the Sprinter, starts at $41,315; Mr. Kantor’s version, which Mercedes-Benz Manhattan arranged to have customized, is fitted with satellite television, a Wi-Fi network and flat-screen monitors, and sells for $189,000. Even that is not quite enough for some New Yorkers, who employ designers to install even pricier custom details that easily drive up the total cost to $500,000.

$500,000! For a car! Some people pay less than that for a house. And some of those people are having those houses foreclosed upon.

Now, my nephew thinks I'm a Marxist. I'm not. I'm actually a capitalist. Heck, I'm a hedge fund manager. So I don't think these people should have their vans taken away from them. I don't think they should be illegal, and I certainly don't think they're immoral.

But ... I do think that in a time when the unemployment rate is over 9 percent and many people are really, really hurting, they are at least ... in bad taste. Especially when you consider that one of the major political parties in this country is almost solely focused on cutting taxes on the rich while slashing programs for the most vulnerable among us.