The saga of media outlets that really should know better asking us to feel sorry for people who are slightly less rich than they used to be continued last week, with Bloomberg News offering a shoulder to media mogul Ted Turner so he could cry about the indignity of having to get buy with used private jets rather than new ones:

While contemporaries such as News Corp. Chief Executive Officer and Chairman Rupert Murdoch, Liberty Media Corp.’s John Malone and Viacom Inc.’s Sumner Redstone keep competing in the media industry, Turner says that he doesn’t have enough money to get back in the business. He now focuses on nuclear disarmament, global climate change, women’s rights, and the environment…

“If you were around at the time, I gave everybody a hundred thousand dollars if they came up with anything,” Turner said. “I just couldn’t hold onto it. I wanted to keep it moving. I get a dollar, I give it to you, you spend it, somebody else gets it. You know, pass it around. You know, it’s kind of like a joint — you just pass it around, light it up, you know, share with your friends.”

Turner said he has learned to live with less, yet he still bemoans the decline in his net worth.

“To drop out of that league, that was hard to do,” Turner said. “I’ve had the experience of being on top and riding the roller coaster down again, nearly to the bottom. You know, if you economize and don’t buy new airplanes or long-range jets, or that sort of thing, you can get by on a billion or two.”

“You can get by on a billion or two.” If you’ve been laid off in this sagging economy, I’m sure those words will come as great comfort to you.

Meanwhile, reporter Paul Sullivan takes to the pages of the New York Times with a warning for all those who e-mailed complaints about a slobbering piece he had written about the woes of the wealthy: class warfare is hazardous to your health!

The vehemence in these e-mail messages made me wonder why so many people were furious at those who had more than they did. And why are the rich shouldering the blame for a collective run of bad decision-making? After all, many of the rich got there through hard work. And plenty of not-so-rich people bought homes, cars and electronics they could not afford and then defaulted on the debt, contributing to the crash last year.

But in this recession, anger flows one way…

The line from my last column that prompted the most responses was about how the wealthy weren’t sleeping well either. The vitriol in the e-mail showed just how deep the anger against the rich is.

Yet put simply, this is not healthy. After all, if you’re wealthy and no one likes you, you still have lots of money. But if you spend your free time obsessing about the rich, you could end up in worse shape emotionally, personally and financially.

“People who get caught up in this paranoia spend all night reading these blogs, and six months later they haven’t done anything to better themselves,” [Manhattan psychologist Dr. Eric Dammann] said. “Even if they’re right, there is a lot of wasted energy put into this. They need to look at the mistakes they’ve made in their life.”

Gosh, Dr. Dammann sure seems concerned for our health! I wonder how he got that way? Another Sullivan column, this one from February, supplies the answer:

Mr. Dammann, the psychoanalyst, said he had many clients who after losing 50 percent of their net worth still had tens of millions of dollars left.

To them, lots of money in the bank was not freedom or security. It was who they were. “As their net worth shrinks, their self-worth shrinks,” he said.

And another clue comes from his profile in Psychology Today:

I have training in a number of therapy modalities (interpersonal psychotherapy, psychoanalysis, coaching), and have found an eclectic and flexible approach which takes into account the particular client and their goals to be crucial… One further area of specialization is Family Wealth Counseling, working with individuals and estate planners on balancing work and finances with other aspects of a meaningful life.

I’m sure that the fact that these poor, poor rich people are his client base has absolutely nothing to do with his advice to the rest of us that we’d all be happier and healthier if we just got off their case already.

What I’m not sure about, though, is why the New York Times feels the need to have a reporter dedicated to covering the pity parties thrown by Dammann and the other hangers-on of the plutocracy whom Sullivan covers with such tender concern.