Icahn v Kerkorian: Battle of the bankrupt billionaires

I had to laugh when I looked at today's Wall Street Journal front page lead story (above), headlined "Icahn Battles Kerkorian In Big Vegas Showdown."

Talk about dumb money.

Here you've got two aging megamoguls (Icahn's 73, Kerkorian 91) doing the only thing they know how to do: spending every waking moment playing Monopoly — albeit with real money.

I wonder: if they stay busy enough (Icahn once told his wife, when she was upset he was so busy she couldn't talk to him while they were at their summer place in the Hamptons, to phone him like everyone else did), does that enable them to keep their attention focused on the future instead of looking down, à la Roadrunner, at the bottomless canyon below?

Bankrupt?

Yes, without a doubt.

Because the only currency with any real value is time, and both of these guys, while they may have limitless money, are on borrowed time.

The highly-leveraged iteration.

One heartbeat away, as they say of the vice-president.

Grace note: the black borders around their photos in the paper (top).

I wonder if that's a tacit editorial concurrence with my take.

Nah, couldn't be.

Could it?

"Tombstone" has more than one meaning....