Hunting men and women for sport has become the No. 3 most popular vacation activity for world’s ultrawealthy, according to a new survey released today by Businessweek Magazine.
Swimming in pools filled with $100 bills filled the second spot in the survey for the third year in a row, while yachting remained in the top spot.
Unwitting men and women are typically captured on American streets, transported to a remote Caribbean island owned by National Rifle Association head Wayne LaPierre, then given a 20-minute head start into the woods, where they are hunted by wealthy CEOs and business owners in Jeeps and armed with bolt-action hunting rifles and crossbows.
“My company has more than $2 trillion in assets and more than 250,000 employees,” said JPMorgan Chase CEO Jamie Dixon. “Dealing with that kind of pressure is enormously stressful. Coming here, hunting people – sometimes even my own employees – relieves that pressure and allows me to return to my duties refreshed.”
Dixon, who earned $18.7 million in compensation in 2012, was on his fifth trip in as many years, bagging four trophies, including a 14-year-old boy with Down syndrome whom he was having stuffed and mounted for his Colorado vacation home.
Former vice president Dick Cheney’s last heart transplant came from a Tennessee father of four who happened to share Cheney’s blood type, according to hospital records. Cheney is said to have shot Ben Meadows, 42, in the legs with a Remington Model 673 Guide rifle from 45 yards away, then removed the still-beating heart from the churchgoing family man. Cheney was then taken to the island’s field hospital, where it was successfully transported into the Wyoming Republican’s chest.
Meadow’s family would later receive a handwritten letter of gratitude from Cheney, along with a $100 check to help pay for funeral expenses.
Hunting “the most dangerous game” has long been practiced in secret, and has been a long-time rite of passage for many a rising corporate star fresh out of Harvard’s secretive Skull and Bones Society. But the sport has come out of the shadows in recent years after the U.S. Justice Department refused to prosecute the businessmen for fear of weakening the country’s economy.
“These men and women run some of the most powerful corporations in the world,” Attorney General Eric Holder said during a Friday press conference. “If we were to prosecute, it could have a negative impact on the national economy, perhaps even the world economy.”
Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan, who made $7.4 million in 2012, stood behind a visibly teary-eyed Holder during the press conference holding his wrists and slapping him while taunting, “Why are you hitting yourself? Why are you hitting yourself?”
In a similar study, for the sixth year in a row, the No. 1 vacation activity among most Americans was looking at old Disneyland brochures with your crying 8-year-old daughter while telling her, “Maybe next year.”
[Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore, Flickr]