Christie's Auctioned Francis Bacon TripTych Sets Money Record for Artwork

You know the financial system and the order of values in the country are totally out of whack when one "art" piece fetches more money at a Christie's auction than the TOTAL annual Congressional appropriation for the National Endowment for the Arts.

This also shows just how misinformed the people in Congress and state legislatures are, who are quick to cut government expenses by starting especially at the doors of the arts and sciences, without having any conception of how value is created in society, how the markets work and what the rich spend their money on, when the have that money

Legislatures are full of people long on theory and short on pragmatism.

If political reactionaries are going to support a society totally skewed toward the top in terms of the distribution of income and wealth, then they had better support the disciplines that create the people who produce the products that the wealthy purchase -- mirroring market forces that thus serve as a voluntary form for the "redistribution" of money toward the poorer sectors.

The rich do not "buy" poverty -- but they do buy what poverty produces, and art is at the top of the list.

Rather than reading the partisan dailies, the misguided might be better off reading the leading publications on art news.

For a starter, take a look at the New York Times: Art Is Hard to See Through the Clutter of Dollar Signs.