This week in The Price Point, Holly Cara Price takes a look at the Michael Jackson Aftermath, and she discovers how mourning the star has become its own business.

The Price Point ~ by Holly Cara Price, Agent Provocateur and Head Snoop at Snoop* du Jour

Here’s a recipe for you. Take one aging celebrity, mix in a hefty scoop of childhood mistreatment, add a few dozen helpings of bad publicity for charges of pedophilia and just plain bizarre behavior, add a lethal cocktail of dangerous prescription drugs, plus the loss of billions of dollars due to years of mismanagement and serve over a lifestyle most of us could never even dream of. There’s really only one way out of that mess, and it happened last week to Michael Joseph Jackson: Death.

For most of his short, anguished time on earth he was larger than life, but in death MJ seems to have eclipsed all other dead celebs (okay, except for, um, Jesus) for sheer marketability and money-making ability. And talk about a TV ratings bonanza; holy mamasay-mamasah, the whole world stopped to make room for the breaking news of Jackson’s death last Thursday, June 25th. Iran? Forgotten. Mark Sanford? Luckiest guy in the world, apparently. Recession? Snore. New Iphone? Whatever. Perhaps you remember that for a few minutes, right before MJ was rushed to the hospital, the world had been transfixed by the cellphone video of 26 year old Neda Soltani, killed in living color during a protest in Tehran. The stunning video of Neda’s death made the situation in Iran immediate and present to us; it made it real. Such is the power of the internet, which transcends all media, making it immediate in every sense.

MJ needed no such boost to make his death relevant to the world. Love him, hate him, you can’t help but acknowledge that he changed the world of music forever. But watching the carrion circling him now is horrific. I worry most about the three children, who have just inherited the biggest therapy bills known to humankind (although possibly, eventually, also the biggest book deals of all time). Their lives up to now must have set new standards for weirdness; what’s incredibly sad is that that was nothing compared to their future.

Jermaine told NBC News, in tears, that he wishes it had been him who died instead of Michael, and Debbie Rowe has suddenly declared she wants the two kids she gave birth to, after saying just the opposite a few days ago. Way to go, Deb. Break up a family that’s just lost their father. She’s obviously ripe for a reality show. Maybe she can get signed on to the Octomom’s TV deal or something equally tasteless.

It’s now clear that Jackson’s money-making abilities are, if anything, even more pronounced after his death (it’s the Kurt Cobain / Anna Nicole Smith / Elvis Presley / Heath Ledger syndrome). Downloads of Jackson’s music set a new standard for internet music sales in the past week. News of his death nearly brought down the largest and most robust media sites on the web.

And this is only the first week, people. This story will go on forever. There will always be someone else crawling out of the woodwork saying they sat next to him in second grade or something along those lines. Any unreleased audio and video material will be doled out to the public, who are exhibiting an insatiable appetite for anything related to MJ.

My favorite comment yet about this circus comes from Rush Limbaugh, who said on his radio show: “Michael Jackson’s biggest successes took place in the 80’s . . . he flourished under Reagan, he languished under Clinton/Bush, and died under Obama . . . I mean, facts are facts, a timeline’s a timeline . . .”

Death. It’s a whole new media strategy for success. The only problem is, you’re not around to enjoy the spoils.