This guy's carefree spending has provided many people with a livelihood.
It would be funny if he cruised around Somalia. Somalia would immediately jump several other countries in self worth...
Not the issue. Government spending provides many people with a livelihood. That doesn't make it an investment that is good for society.
The question, if we're going to talk about job creation, is how many jobs were created by this project as opposed to the same amount of money invested more productively.
I agree it's his money, although many if not most of these guys are more likely to be crony capitalists than free market types, and he should be able to spend it as he likes.
But if you defend his decisions on a job-creation basis, it opens those decisions up to criticism on the same basis.
At $1500 an ounce for gold and much more for platinum, and the fact that working with gold and platinum in this fashion are fairly specialized skills, not that many.