In case you missed it, Larry Ellison bought one of the Hawaiian Islands yesterday.

Yes, you read that correctly- an individual purchased not just an entire island, but the sixth largest island in Hawaii. Forbes has a nice write up on it here where they speculate that the purchase price was $500 million. For context:

…a half billion dollars for a man worth $36 billion is the equivalent of a family with a $1 million net worth buying a used Chevy Impala: $15,000.

Adorable, right? Granted, the island was already privately owned, so it wasn’t exactly an earth-shattering property exchange, but still, this story got us thinking… with the wealth gap continuing to expand, and state and local governments struggling financially (not to mention national governments… but this is not another Eurocrisis piece, we promise)– will we start to see more of this type of thing? We know Josh Brown is partial to the idea of the “party” indicator, but maybe if we combine the ideas of parties and lavish purchases into the “Absurd Excesses” indicator, we’ll really be on to something. Until then, watch out for headlines like:

• Oprah Buys Rest of Maui for $2.5 Billion
• Zuckerburg agrees to 25 year lease for San Francisco Bay
• Buffet heir gets a deal on Grand Canyon – just $876 Million
• Carlos Slim buys Cozumel as Wedding Present for Daughter
• Mark Cuban buys 75% of homes in Scarsdale, NY to surround David Stern
• Sick of their neighbors – Walton Family buys entire state of Arkansas.
• NY Mayor Michael Bloomberg claims historic Ellis Island as his own – purchases for $1 billion.
• If you can’t beat ‘em, join them: Mitt Romney in talks to buy 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue for a cool $2 billion.

What headline are you waiting for?