mega-rich

Fortunes of Change: The Rise of the Liberal Rich and the Remaking of America
by David Callahan
Published 9 Aug 2010

His cousin Franklin would draw even more hostility, as Time noted in 1936: “With few exceptions, members of the so-called Upper Class frankly hate Roosevelt.”4 Today, both men would find plenty of company in their liberal politics among fellow swells. Many super-rich Americans donate exclusively to Democrats; more corporate executives are embracing causes such as gay rights and environmentalism; prominent billionaires have publicly called for tax increases on high earners; and the mega-rich have begun to bankroll liberal organizations with unprecedented sums of money. Meanwhile, the traditional politics of class are turning upside down in many places as America’s most affluent communities throw new support to the Democratic Party—a party cintro.indd 3 5/11/10 6:29:09 AM 4 fortunes of change that has tacked notably to the left since the Clinton era.

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Because the cost of all of this varies by place, I don’t offer a dollar threshold to define the rich. Also, this book is really about two different classes of the wealthy: I explore the changing beliefs of the ultra-affluent class as a whole—those in the top 1 percent of households—which is quite a large group, but also the political activism and philanthropy of the mega-rich, a much smaller group of people who have personal fortunes of hundreds of millions or billions of dollars. The ranks of both the ultra-affluent and the super-rich have soared in the last fifteen years and remain very large today, despite the financial crash. According to the authoritative World Wealth Report, there were 2.5 million high-net-worth individuals in the United States at the end of 2008, who were defined as people who each had at least $1 million in investable assets.

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Robert Redford had been involved with NRDC since its earliest days, but the organization didn’t start to raise truly big money in Hollywood until the late 1990s, when Alan Horn and director Rob Reiner spent three full days taking Adams around to visit all of the heads of major Hollywood studios. Soon the contributions were rolling in. Reiner also arranged for Adams to meet Laurie David, who was married to Larry David, the mega-rich producer of Seinfeld and Curb Your Enthusiasm. David became an ardent fan of NRDC and a prominent donor. She joined the board of directors and shook other money trees around town. In 2004, David put together a star-studded fund-raiser for the group that brought in celebrity donors such as Tom Hanks, Leonardo DiCaprio, and Michelle Pfeiffer.

Affluenza: When Too Much Is Never Enough
by Clive Hamilton and Richard Denniss
Published 31 May 2005

That time has gone . . .’8 This suggests a new distinction between the specialised luxury consumption that is confined to the mega-rich and the forms of luxury consumption characteristic of the bulk of the population. Of course, the luxury spending of the mega-rich sets a benchmark for the general populace, a benchmark that must, by its nature, keep rising in order to remain out of reach of all but the few. This requires continued creativity on the part of the mega-rich and on the part of those who supply them. The boom in sales of luxury cars—sales have more than doubled since 19939—is depriving the mega-rich of their exclusivity. In response, the prestige car makers are now offering vehicles made to order and costing up to $1 million, thereby excluding the ordinary rich and the middle class.

Seriously Curious: The Facts and Figures That Turn Our World Upside Down
by Tom Standage
Published 27 Nov 2018

How to measure the black market for cigarettes Mapping the rise and fall of witch-hunting Globally curious: peculiar proclivities from around the world Why spaghetti is smuggled across the Sahara Why so many places are called Guinea – and turkeys don’t come from Turkey Why New Zealand has so many gang members Why the exorcism business is booming in France Why China has the world’s worst flight delays Why Somaliland is east Africa’s strongest democracy Why yurts are going out of style in Mongolia Which cities have the highest murder rates? Why young Britons are committing fewer crimes How car colours reflect Britain’s national mood Why Swedes overpay their taxes Mapping the world’s mega-rich Why nobody knows how many Nigerians there are Why Chinese children born in the year of the dragon are more successful Sexual selection: love, sex and marriage Why the sperm-bank business is booming How porn consumption changed during Hawaii’s false alarm Why transgender people are being sterilised in some European countries How opinions on acceptable male behaviour vary by age, sex and nationality What porn and listings sites reveal about Britain’s gay population Attitudes to same-sex relationships around the world Why couples do more housework than single people What men and women think about their partners’ careers and housework How fracking boosts birth rates What explains Europe’s low birth rates?

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Sweden’s negative interest rates, which had been expected to rise in early 2018, were instead extended, which suggests that overpayment of taxes will also go on longer than expected. It sounds like the sort of problem a government in southern Europe would be delighted to have. In Sweden, however, officials would much prefer taxpayers to cool it – and pay a bit less in tax. Mapping the world’s mega-rich High-net-worth individuals Global wealth*, $trn Source: Capgemini *Individuals with at least $1m of investable assets The global number of high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) grew by 7.5% to 16.5m in 2017, according to the World Wealth Report by Capgemini, a consulting firm. HNWIs have at least $1m in investable assets, excluding their main home, its contents and collectable items.

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For more explainers and charts from The Economist, visit economist.com Index A Africa child marriage 84 democracy 40 gay and lesbian rights 73, 74 Guinea 32 mobile phones 175–6 see also individual countries agriculture 121–2 Aguiar, Mark 169 air pollution 143–4 air travel and drones 187–8 flight delays 38–9 Akitu (festival) 233 alcohol beer consumption 105–6 consumption in Britain 48, 101–2 craft breweries 97–8 drink-driving 179–80 wine glasses 101–2 Alexa (voice assistant) 225 Algeria food subsidies 31 gay and lesbian rights 73 All I Want for Christmas Is You (Carey) 243 alphabet 217–18 Alternative for Germany (AfD) 223, 224 Alzheimer’s disease 140 Amazon (company) 225 America see United States and 227–8 Angola 73, 74 animals blood transfusions 139–40 dog meat 91–2 gene drives 153–4 size and velocity 163–4 and water pollution 149–50 wolves 161–2 Arctic 147–8 Argentina gay and lesbian rights 73 lemons 95–6 lithium 17–18 Ariel, Barak 191 Arizona 85 arms trade 19–20 Asia belt and road initiative 117–18 high-net-worth individuals 53 wheat consumption 109–10 see also individual countries Assange, Julian 81–3 asteroids 185–6 augmented reality (AR) 181–2 August 239–40 Australia avocados 89 forests 145 inheritance tax 119 lithium 17, 18 shark attacks 201–2 autonomous vehicles (AVs) 177–8 Autor, David 79 avocados 89–90 B Babylonians 233 Baltimore 99 Bangladesh 156 bank notes 133–4 Bateman, Tim 48 beer consumption 105–6 craft breweries 97–8 Beijing air pollution 143–4 dogs 92 belt and road initiative 117–18 betting 209–10 Bier, Ethan 153 Bils, Mark 169 birds and aircraft 187 guinea fowl 32–3 birth rates Europe 81–3 United States 79–80 black money 133–4 Black Power 34, 35 Blade Runner 208 blood transfusions 139–40 board games 199–200 body cameras 191–2 Boko Haram 5, 15–16 Bolivia 17–18 Bollettieri, Nick 197 bookmakers 209–10 Borra, Cristina 75 Bosnia 221–2 brain computers 167–8 Brazil beer consumption 105, 106 Christmas music 243, 244 end-of-life care 141–2 gay and lesbian rights 73 murder rate 45, 46 shark attacks 202 breweries 97–8 Brexit, and car colours 49–50 brides bride price 5 diamonds 13–14 Britain alcohol consumption 101–2 car colours 49–50 Christmas music 244 cigarette sales 23–4 craft breweries 98 crime 47–8 Easter 238 gay population 70–72 housing material 8 inheritance tax 119 Irish immigration 235 life expectancy 125 manufacturing jobs 131 national identity 223–4 new-year resolutions 234 police body cameras 191 sexual harassment 67, 68, 69 sperm donation 61 see also Scotland Brookings Institution 21 Browning, Martin 75 bubonic plague 157–8 Bush, George W. 119 C cables, undersea 193–4 California and Argentine lemons 95, 96 avocados 90 cameras 191–2 Canada diamonds 13 drones 188 lithium 17 national identity 223–4 capitalism, and birth rates 81–2 Carey, Mariah 243 Carnegie Endowment for International Peace 21 cars colours 49–50 self-driving 177–8 Caruana, Fabiano 206 Charles, Kerwin 169 cheetahs 163, 164 chess 205–6 Chetty, Raj 113 Chicago 100 children birth rates 79–80, 81–3 child marriage 84–5 in China 56–7 crime 47–8 and gender pay gap 115–16, 135–6 obesity 93–4 Chile gay and lesbian rights 73 lithium 17–18 China air pollution 143–5 arms sales 19–20 avocados 89 beer consumption 105 belt and road initiative 117–18 childhood obesity 93 construction 7 dog meat 91–2 dragon children 56–7 flight delays 38–9 foreign waste 159–60 lithium 17 rice consumption 109–10 Choi, Roy 99 Christian, Cornelius 26 Christianity Easter 237–8 new year 233–4 Christmas 246–7 music 243–5 cigarettes affordability 151–2 black market 23–4 cities, murder rates 44–6 Citizen Kane 207 citrus wars 95–6 civil wars 5 Clarke, Arthur C. 183 Coase, Ronald 127, 128 cocaine 44 cochlear implants 167 Cohen, Jake 203 Colen, Liesbeth 106 colleges, US 113–14 Colombia 45 colours, cars 49–50 commodities 123–4 companies 127–8 computers augmented reality 181–2 brain computers 167–8 emojis 215–16 and languages 225–6 spam e-mail 189–90 Connecticut 85 Connors, Jimmy 197 contracts 127–8 Costa Rica 89 couples career and family perception gap 77–8 housework 75–6 see also marriage cows 149–50 craft breweries 97–8 crime and avocados 89–90 and dog meat 91–2 murder rates 44–6 young Britons 47–8 CRISPR-Cas9 153 Croatia 222 Croato-Serbian 221–2 D Daily-Diamond, Christopher 9–10 Davis, Mark 216 De Beers 13–14 death 141–2 death taxes 119–20 democracy 40–41 Deng Xiaoping 117 Denmark career and family perception gap 78 gender pay gap 135–6 sex reassignment 65 Denver 99 Devon 72 diamonds 13–14, 124 digitally remastering 207–8 Discovery Channel 163–4 diseases 157–8 dog meat 91–2 Dorn, David 79 Dr Strangelove 207 dragon children 56–7 drink see alcohol drink-driving 179–80 driverless cars 177–8 drones and aircraft 187–8 and sharks 201 drugs cocaine trafficking 44 young Britons 48 D’Souza, Kiran 187 E e-mail 189–90 earnings, gender pay gap 115–16, 135–6 Easter 237–8 economy and birth rates 79–80, 81–2 and car colours 49–50 and witch-hunting 25–6 education and American rich 113–14 dragon children 56–7 Egal, Muhammad Haji Ibrahim 40–41 Egypt gay and lesbian rights 73 marriage 5 new-year resolutions 233 El Paso 100 El Salvador 44, 45 emojis 215–16 employment gender pay gap 115–16, 135–6 and gender perception gap 77–8 job tenure 129–30 in manufacturing 131–2 video games and unemployment 169–70 English language letter names 217–18 Papua New Guinea 219 environment air pollution 143–4 Arctic sea ice 147–8 and food packaging 103–4 waste 159–60 water pollution 149–50 Equatorial Guinea 32 Eritrea 40 Ethiopia 40 Europe craft breweries 97–8 summer holidays 239–40 see also individual countries Everson, Michael 216 exorcism 36–7 F Facebook augmented reality 182 undersea cables 193 FANUC 171, 172 Federer, Roger 197 feminism, and birth rates 81–2 fertility rates see birth rates festivals Christmas 246–7 Christmas music 243–5 new-year 233–4 Feuillet, Catherine 108 films 207–8 firms 127–8 5G 173–4 flight delays 38–9 Florida and Argentine lemons 95 child marriage 85 Foley, William 220 food avocados and crime 89–90 dog meat 91–2 lemons 95–6 wheat consumption 109–10 wheat genome 107–8 food packaging 103–4 food trucks 99–100 football clubs 211–12 football transfers 203–4 forests 145–6, 162 Fountains of Paradise, The (Clarke) 183 fracking 79–80 France career and family perception gap 78 Christmas music 244 exorcism 36–7 gender-inclusive language 229–30 job tenure 130 sex reassignment 66 sexual harassment 68–9 witch-hunting 26, 27 wolves 161–2 G gambling 209–10 games, and unemployment 169–70 Gandhi, Mahatma 155 gang members 34–5 Gantz, Valentino 153 gas 124 gay population 70–72 gay rights, attitudes to 73–4 gender sex reassignment 65–6 see also men; women gender equality and birth rates 81–2 in language 229–30 gender pay gap 115–16, 135–6 gene drives 153–4 Genghis Khan 42 genome, wheat 107–8 ger districts 42–3 Germany beer consumption 105 job tenure 130 national identity 223–4 sexual harassment 68, 69 vocational training 132 witch-hunting 26, 27 Ghana 73 gig economy 128, 130 glasses, wine glasses 101–2 Goddard, Ceri 72 Google 193 Graduate, The 207 Greece forests 145 national identity 223–4 sex reassignment 65 smoking ban 152 Gregg, Christine 9–10 grunting 197–8 Guatemala 45 Guinea 32 guinea fowl 32–3 guinea pig 32 Guinea-Bissau 32 Guo Peng 91–2 Guyana 32 H Haiti 5 Hale, Sarah Josepha 242 Hanson, Gordon 79 Hawaii ’Oumuamua 185 porn consumption 63–4 health child obesity 93–4 life expectancy 125–6 plague 157–8 and sanitation 155 high-net-worth individuals (HNWIs) 53 Hiri Motu 219 holidays Easter 237–8 St Patrick’s Day 235–6 summer holidays 239–40 Thanksgiving 241–2 HoloLens 181–2 homicide 44–6 homosexuality attitudes to 73–4 UK 70–72 Honduras 44, 45 Hong Kong 56 housework 75–6, 77–8 Hudson, Valerie 5 Hungary 223–4 Hurst, Erik 169 I ice 147–8 Ikolo, Prince Anthony 199 India bank notes 133–4 inheritance tax 119 languages 219 rice consumption 109 sand mafia 7 sanitation problems 155–6 Indonesia polygamy and civil war 5 rice consumption 109–10 inheritance taxes 119–20 interest rates 51–2 interpunct 229–30 Ireland aitch 218 forests 145 St Patrick’s Day 235–6 same-sex marriage 73 sex reassignment 65 Italy birth rate 82 end of life care 141–2 forests 145 job tenure 130 life expectancy 126 J Jacob, Nitya 156 Jamaica 45 Japan 141–2 Jighere, Wellington 199 job tenure 129–30 jobs see employment Johnson, Bryan 168 junk mail 189 K Kazakhstan 6 Kearney, Melissa 79–80 Kennedy, John F. 12 Kenya democracy 40 mobile-money systems 176 Kiribati 7 Kleven, Henrik 135–6 knots 9–10 Kohler, Timothy 121 Kyrgyzstan 6 L laces 9–10 Lagos 199 Landais, Camille 135–6 languages and computers 225–6 gender-inclusive 229–30 letter names 217–18 and national identity 223–4 Papua New Guinea 219–20 Serbo-Croatian 221–2 Unicode 215 World Bank writing style 227–8 Latimer, Hugh 246 Leeson, Peter 26 leisure board games in Nigeria 199–200 chess 205–6 gambling 209–10 video games and unemployment 169–70 see also festivals; holidays lemons 95–6 letter names 217–18 Libya 31 life expectancy 125–6 Lincoln, Abraham 242 lithium 17–18 London 71, 72 longevity 125–6 Lozère 161–2 Lucas, George 208 M McEnroe, John 197 McGregor, Andrew 204 machine learning 225–6 Macri, Mauricio 95, 96 Macron, Emmanuel 143 Madagascar 158 Madison, James 242 MagicLeap 182 Maine 216 Malaysia 56 Maldives 7 Mali 31 Malta 65 Manchester United 211–12 manufacturing jobs 131–2 robots 171–2 summer holidays 239 Maori 34–5 marriage child marriage 84–5 polygamy 5–6 same-sex relationships 73–4 see also couples Marteau, Theresa 101–2 Marx, Karl 123 Maryland 85 Massachusetts child marriage 85 Christmas 246 Matfess, Hilary 5, 15 meat dog meat 91–2 packaging 103–4 mega-rich 53 men career and family 77–8 housework 75–6 job tenure 129–30 life expectancy 125 polygamy 5–6 sexual harassment by 67–9 video games and unemployment 169 Mexico avocados 89, 90 gay and lesbian rights 73 murder rate 44, 45 microbreweries 97–8 Microsoft HoloLens 181–2 undersea cables 193 migration, and birth rates 81–3 mining diamonds 13–14 sand 7–8 mobile phones Africa 175–6 5G 173–4 Mocan, Naci 56–7 Mongolia 42–3 Mongrel Mob 34 Monopoly (board game) 199, 200 Monty Python and the Holy Grail 25 Moore, Clement Clarke 247 Moretti, Franco 228 Morocco 7 Moscato, Philippe 36 movies 207–8 Mozambique 73 murder rates 44–6 music, Christmas 243–5 Musk, Elon 168 Myanmar 118 N Nadal, Rafael 197 national identity 223–4 natural gas 124 Netherlands gender 66 national identity 223–4 neurostimulators 167 New Jersey 85 New Mexico 157–8 New York (state), child marriage 85 New York City drink-driving 179–80 food trucks 99–100 New Zealand avocados 89 gang members 34–5 gene drives 154 water pollution 149–50 new-year resolutions 233–4 Neymar 203, 204 Nigeria board games 199–200 Boko Haram 5, 15–16 population 54–5 Nissenbaum, Stephen 247 Northern Ireland 218 Norway Christmas music 243 inheritance tax 119 life expectancy 125, 126 sex reassignment 65 Nucci, Alessandra 36 O obesity 93–4 oceans see seas Odimegwu, Festus 54 O’Reilly, Oliver 9–10 Ortiz de Retez, Yñigo 32 Oster, Emily 25–6 ostriches 163, 164 ’Oumuamua 185–6 P packaging 103–4 Pakistan 5 Palombi, Francis 161 Papua New Guinea languages 219–20 name 32 Paris Saint-Germain (PSG) 203 Passover 237 pasta 31 pay, gender pay gap 115–16, 135–6 Peck, Jessica Lynn 179–80 Pennsylvania 85 Peru 90 Pestre, Dominique 228 Pew Research Centre 22 Phelps, Michael 163–4 Philippe, Édouard 230 phishing 189 Phoenix, Arizona 177 Pilgrims 241 plague 157–8 Plastic China 159 police, body cameras 191–2 pollution air pollution 143–4 water pollution 149–50 polygamy 5–6 pornography and Britain’s gay population 70–72 and Hawaii missile alert 63–4 Portugal 145 Puerto Rico 45 punctuation marks 229–30 Q Qatar 19 R ransomware 190 Ravenscroft, George 101 Real Madrid 211 religious observance and birth rates 81–2 and Christmas music 244 remastering 207–8 Reynolds, Andrew 70 Rhodes, Cecil 13 rice 109–10 rich high-net-worth individuals 53 US 113–14 ride-hailing apps and drink-driving 179–80 see also Uber RIWI 73–4 robotaxis 177–8 robots 171–2 Rogers, Dan 240 Romania birth rate 81 life expectancy 125 Romans 233 Romer, Paul 227–8 Ross, Hana 23 Royal United Services Institute 21 Russ, Jacob 26 Russia arms sales 20 beer consumption 105, 106 fertility rate 81 Rwanda 40 S Sahara 31 St Louis 205–6 St Patrick’s Day 235–6 salt, in seas 11–12 same-sex relationships 73–4 San Antonio 100 sand 7–8 sanitation 155–6 Saudi Arabia 19 Scotland, witch-hunting 25–6, 27 Scott, Keith Lamont 191 Scrabble (board game) 199 seas Arctic sea ice 147–8 salty 11–12 undersea cables 193–4 secularism, and birth rates 81–2 Seles, Monica 197 self-driving cars 177–8 Serbia 222 Serbo-Croatian 221–2 Sevilla, Almudena 75 sex reassignment 65–6 sexual harassment 67–9, 230 Sharapova, Maria 197 sharks deterring attacks 201–2 racing humans 163–4 shipping 148 shoelaces 9–10 Silk Road 117–18 Singapore dragon children 56 land reclamation 7, 8 rice consumption 110 single people, housework 75–6 Sinquefeld, Rex 205 smart glasses 181–2 Smith, Adam 127 smoking black market for cigarettes 23–4 efforts to curb 151–2 smuggling 31 Sogaard, Jakob 135–6 Somalia 40 Somaliland 40–41 South Africa childhood obesity 93 diamonds 13 gay and lesbian rights 73 murder rate 45, 46 South Korea arms sales 20 rice consumption 110 South Sudan failed state 40 polygamy 5 space elevators 183–4 spaghetti 31 Spain forests 145 gay and lesbian rights 73 job tenure 130 spam e-mail 189–90 sperm banks 61–2 sport football clubs 211–12 football transfers 203–4 grunting in tennis 197–8 Sri Lanka 118 Star Wars 208 sterilisation 65–6 Strasbourg 26 submarine cables 193–4 Sudan 40 suicide-bombers 15–16 summer holidays 239–40 Sutton Trust 22 Sweden Christmas music 243, 244 gay and lesbian rights 73 homophobia 70 inheritance tax 119 overpayment of taxes 51–2 sex reassignment 65 sexual harassment 67–8 Swinnen, Johan 106 Switzerland sex reassignment 65 witch-hunting 26, 27 T Taiwan dog meat 91 dragon children 56 Tamil Tigers 15 Tanzania 40 taxes death taxes 119–20 Sweden 51–2 taxis robotaxis 177–8 see also ride-hailing apps tennis players, grunting 197–8 terrorism 15–16 Texas 85 Thailand 110 Thanksgiving 241–2 think-tanks 21–2 Tianjin 143–4 toilets 155–6 Tok Pisin 219, 220 transgender people 65–6 Trump, Donald 223 Argentine lemons 95, 96 estate tax 119 and gender pay gap 115 and manufacturing jobs 131, 132 Tsiolkovsky, Konstantin 183 Turkey 151 turkeys 33 Turkmenistan 6 U Uber 128 and drink-driving 179–80 Uganda 40 Ulaanbaatar 42–3 Uljarevic, Daliborka 221 undersea cables 193–4 unemployment 169–70 Unicode 215–16 United Arab Emirates and Somaliland 41 weapons purchases 19 United Kingdom see Britain United States and Argentine lemons 95–6 arms sales 19 beer consumption 105 chess 205–6 child marriage 84–5 Christmas 246–7 Christmas music 243, 244 drink-driving 179–80 drones 187–8 end of life care 141–2 estate tax 119 fertility rates 79–80 food trucks 99–100 forests 145 gay and lesbian rights 73 getting rich 113–14 Hawaiian porn consumption 63–4 job tenure 129–30 letter names 218 lithium 17 manufacturing jobs 131–2 murder rate 45, 46 national identity 223–4 new-year resolutions 234 plague 157–8 police body cameras 191–2 polygamy 6 robotaxis 177 robots 171–2 St Patrick’s Day 235–6 sexual harassment 67, 68 sperm banks 61–2 Thanksgiving 241–2 video games and unemployment 169–70 wealth inequality 121 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) see drones V video games 169–70 Vietnam weapons purchases 19 wheat consumption 110 Virginia 85 virtual reality (VR) 181, 182 Visit from St Nicholas, A (Moore) 247 W Wang Yi 117 Warner, Jason 15 wars 5 Washington, George 242 Washington DC, food trucks 99 waste 159–60 water pollution 149–50 wealth getting rich in America 113–14 high-net-worth individuals 53 inequality 120, 121–2 weather, and Christmas music 243–5 Weinstein, Harvey 67, 69 Weryk, Rob 185 wheat consumption 109–10 genome 107–8 Wilson, Riley 79–80 wine glasses 101–2 Winslow, Edward 241 wireless technology 173–4 witch-hunting 25–7 wolves 161–2 women birth rates 79–80, 81–3 bride price 5 career and family 77–8 child marriage 84–5 housework 75–6 job tenure 129–30 life expectancy 125 pay gap 115–16 sexual harassment of 67–9 suicide-bombers 15–16 World Bank 227–8 World Health Organisation (WHO) and smoking 151–2 transsexualism 65 X Xi Jinping 117–18 Y young people crime 47–8 job tenure 129–30 video games and unemployment 169–70 Yu, Han 56–7 Yulin 91 yurts 42–3 Z Zubelli, Rita 239

Nothing Is True and Everything Is Possible: The Surreal Heart of the New Russia
by Peter Pomerantsev
Published 11 Nov 2014

“Performance” was the city’s buzzword, a world where gangsters become artists, gold diggers quote Pushkin, Hells Angels hallucinate themselves as saints. Russia had seen so many worlds flick through in such blistering progression—from communism to perestroika to shock therapy to penury to oligarchy to mafia state to mega-rich—that its new heroes were left with the sense that life is just one glittering masquerade, where every role and any position or belief is mutable. “I want to try on every persona the world has ever known,” Vladik Mamyshev-Monroe would tell me. He was a performance artist and the city’s mascot, the inevitable guest at parties attended by the inevitable tycoons and supermodels, arriving dressed as Gorbachev, a fakir, Tutankhamen, the Russian President.

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The winter air is rent with cries from thousands of puffed up lips, begging to be let in. This is not about fashion, about cool; this is about work. Tonight is the one chance for the girls to dance and glance their way over the usually impossible barriers of money, private armies, security fences. For one evening a week the most divided city in the northern hemisphere, where the mega-rich live fenced off in a separate, silky civilization, opens a little, narrow sluice into paradise. And the girls pile and push and crawl into that little sluice, knowing full well that it will be open for one night only before it shuts them back out in a mean Moscow. Oliona walks lightly to the front of the line.

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Then came the ad that took Ruslana and transformed her life. Nina Ricci. The magical tree. The pink apple . . . and stardom. The ad catapulted Ruslana into the jet set. Jerry Epstein, the head of Bear Sterns, famous for his love of teenage girls (he was later jailed for statutory rape), flew her down to his private Caribbean island. The new Russian mega-rich were especially keen to be seen with the new Russian supermodel. She spent more and more time in Moscow, found herself in the VIP lounge of all the clubs. The dream life of all the gold diggers and wannabes: she was living it. It was Moscow she fell in love with, felt most at home in. Her rise chimed together with the city’s.

The Trouble With Billionaires
by Linda McQuaig
Published 1 May 2013

Indeed, one of the central tenets of ‘globalization’ is that citizenship is no longer relevant to those who control pools of capital. Why, then, the big fuss about where billionaires call home? It may seem that the very wealthy, even if they aren’t obliged to invest where they live, are at least obliged to pay taxes where they live. But there isn’t even much truth in this, given that so much of the wealth of the mega-rich is stashed in offshore tax havens, beyond the reach of national tax authorities. According to compilations by the Tax Justice Network, the global rich have hidden some £13 trillion in tax havens – as much as the combined GDPs ‌of the US and Japan.7 This raises the question of whether Britain’s extensive effort to woo the rich to British soil even makes sense economically.

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Vast numbers of citizens are effectively denied entry to the main activities of our society because they lack money, the basic ticket of admission. Furthermore, it is our contention that there is no moral legitimacy to the claim of the rich to such a large share of the nation’s resources. Perhaps stung by charges of moral illegitimacy coming from protest groups including UK Uncut, the mega-rich have strained to come up with fresh justifications for their oversized portion. One line of argument that has gained currency, at least among the rich, is the notion that today’s vast fortunes were earned in a ‘meritocracy’. The argument emphasizes the notion that inherited wealth plays a smaller role today than in the past.

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• • • We maintain that billionaires do not deserve their massive fortunes, that members of the ultra-wealthy elite are not morally entitled to keep the large share of their gains permissible under today’s tax laws. In taking this position, we are not denying the enormous contribution made by some of the mega-rich, including innovators such as Bill Gates and Mark Zuckerberg. These men have truly changed the way people live today – a fact that perhaps puts them in a category quite different to, say, the stars of the handbag industry or the world of cable TV sports. Bill Gates may be the hardest case to contest, given that he is credited with nothing less than making the computer revolution accessible to hundreds of millions of people and donating billions of dollars to worthwhile causes.

Posh Boys: How English Public Schools Ruin Britain
by Robert Verkaik
Published 14 Apr 2018

School fees jumped by 3.5 per cent between 2016 and 2017, outstripping increases in wages and prices, although this was the lowest rise since 1994.7 It is now estimated that the average cost of educating a child from nursery to Year 13 (upper sixth) is £286,000 per child for a day school and £550,000 for a boarder.8 For a child at a top public school like Eton or Harrow, families could end up paying £600,000 per child. The public schools are now coming under increasing pressure from politicians, education reformers and the Charity Commission to take action to address the deficit between the education of the mega-rich and the subsidised schooling of poorer students. For years the schools had been saying that the free scholars attending public school are children whose families are the poorest of the poor. So how many of the 5,742 free pupils come from genuinely socially disadvantaged backgrounds? Or to put it another way: how many of them qualify for a free school meal?

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Many of these families have made their fortunes in the chaotic liberalisations of the economies of the former Soviet Union and China and have chosen to base their lives in Britain. A key strategy in retaining and spreading their Western wealth is buying public school educations for their children. In turn, the public schools are committed to guarding the privacy of these mega-rich families who use them to assimilate into the British elite. There is another cost to the country. The education and elevation of a narrow group of people who come from boarding schools based in the south of England and focused on London, Oxford and Cambridge only exacerbates Britain’s economic north–south divide.

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mhq5j=e3; http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/greedy-george-osborne-facing-furious-10049285 51 https://www.byline.com/column/67/article/2049 11 Boys’ Own Brexit 1 Stuart Jeffries, The Guardian, 26 May 2014. 2 http://www.dulwich.org.uk/college/about/history 3 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/ukip/11291050/Nigel-Farage-and-Enoch-Powell-the-full-story-of-Ukips-links-with-the-Rivers-of-Blood-politician.html 4 https://www.channel4.com/news/nigel-farage-ukip-letter-school-concerns-racism-fascism 5 Michael Crick, Channel 4 News, 19 September 2013. 6 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nigel-farage-open-letter-schoolfriend-brexit-poster-nazi-song-dulwich-college-gas-them-all-a7185336.html 7 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/nigel-farage-fascist-nazi-song-gas-them-all-ukip-brexit-schoolfriend-dulwich-college-a7185236.html 8 Interview with the author at Dulwich College, 12 January 2018. 9 www.facebook.com/myiannopuolos, accessed 24 January 2018. 10 https://www.linkedin.com/in/sam-farage-85b406b2; http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/nigel-farage/11467039/Nigel-Farage-My-public-school-had-a-real-social-mix-but-now-only-the-mega-rich-can-afford-the-fees.html 11 Simon Kupar, Financial Times, 7 July 2016. 12 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/01/05/project-fear-brexit-predictions-flawed-partisan-new-study-says/; http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/25/how-project-fear-failed-to-keep-britain-in-the-eu--and-the-signs/ 13 Odey declined to be interviewed. 14 Sunday Times, 23 April 2017, p. 4; http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/brexit-leave-eu-campaign-arron-banks-jeremy-hosking-five-uk-richest-businessmen-peter-hargreaves-a7699046.html 15 https://inews.co.uk/news/technology/cambridge-analytica-facebook-data-protection/ 16 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-43581892 17 https://inews.co.uk/news/technology/cambridge-analytica-facebook-data-protection/ 18 https://www.reuters.com/article/us-facebook-cambridge-analytica-leave-eu/what-are-the-links-between-cambridge-analytica-and-a-brexit-campaign-group-idUSKBN1GX2IO 19 https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2018/mar/24/aggregateiq-data-firm-link-raises-leave-group-questions https://www.businesstimes.com.sg/government-economy/brexit-campaigners-breached-uk-vote-rules-lawyers-say 20 https://dominiccummings.com/2016/10/29/on-the-referendum-20-the-campaign-physics-and-data-science-vote-leaves-voter-intention-collection-system-vics-now-available-for-all/ 21 A Very British Coup, BBC2, 22 Sepptember 2016. 22 http://www.standard.co.uk/business/business-focus-the-billionaire-hedge-fund-winners-who-braved-the-brexit-rollercoaster-a3284101.html 23 http://fortune.com/2014/12/03/heineken-charlene-de-carvalho-self-made-heiress/ 24 http://www.cityam.com/262239/david-camerons-ex-adviser-daniel-korski-launches-major 25 Tim Shipman, All Out War: Brexit and the Sinking of Britain’s Political Class (London: William Collins, 2017), p. 610. 12 For the Few, Not the Many 1 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/politics/Jeremy_Corbyn/11818744/Jeremy-Corbyn-the-boy-to-the-manor-born.html 2 http://www.castlehouseschool.co.uk/about-the-school/fees/ 3 Rosa Prince, Comrade Corbyn: A Very Unlikely Coup (London: Biteback Publishing, 2017), p. 29.

The Rich and the Rest of Us
by Tavis Smiley
Published 15 Feb 2012

In his critique of upper-class opulence, Mark Twain coined the phrase “Gilded Age” to define such affluence in the late 19th century.64 Critics wrote commentaries, gave speeches, and convened public meetings that challenged and mocked the massively rich capitalists. The Carnegies, Rockefellers, and other mega-rich industrialists and financiers were caricatured as “robber barons”—pompous, mustachioed men in black top hats, coats, and tails. In fact, Rich Uncle Pennybags, the mascot for the popular board game Monopoly, is based on the robber baron caricature. By 1886, stronger and more organized labor unions such as the Knights of Labor—rooted in common working-class values—demanded higher wages, shorter hours, safer working conditions, and bargaining rights for the working man.

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In 2009, when almost 3 million people lost their private health insurance, America’s health insurance companies increased profits by 56 percent. According to a Health Care for America Now (HCAN) report, the nation’s five largest for-profit insurers closed 2009 with a combined profit of $12.2 billion.98 Meanwhile, as more and more Americans are figuring out how to feed families on $150 a month, the mega-rich have gone back to spending on luxury items. USA TODAY declared in early 2011 that wealthy Americans have apparently decided it’s “okay to splurge again.”99 The market is zinging again with purchases like $80,000 battery-powered bicycles; $525,000 timepieces; $630,000 sports cars; $1 million yachts; and vacation homes in posh locales such as Cape Cod, Massachusetts, and Hilton Head, South Carolina.

The death and life of the great American school system: how testing and choice are undermining education
by Diane Ravitch
Published 2 Mar 2010

My second article, titled “Foundations: Playing God in the Ghetto” (1969), discussed the Ford Foundation’s role in the protracted controversy over decentralization and community control that led to months of turmoil in the public schools of New York City.4 This question—the extent to which it is appropriate for a mega-rich foundation to take charge of reforming public schools, even though it is accountable to no one and elected by no one—will be treated in this book. The issue is especially important today, because some of the nation’s largest foundations are promoting school reforms based on principles drawn from the corporate sector, without considering whether they are appropriate for educational institutions.

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We must be sure that schools have the authority to maintain both standards of learning and standards of behavior. In this book, I will describe the evidence that changed my views about reforms that once seemed promising. I will explain why I have concluded that most of the reform strategies that school districts, state officials, the Congress, and federal officials are pursuing, that mega-rich foundations are supporting, and that editorial boards are applauding are mistaken. I will attempt to explain how these mistaken policies are corrupting educational values. I will describe the policies that I believe are necessary ingredients in a good system of public education. I will not claim that my ideas will solve all our problems all at once and forever.

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Hess of the American Enterprise Institute has written that the major foundations—especially Gates, Broad, and Walton—are the beneficiaries of remarkably “gentle treatment” by the press, which suspends its skeptical faculties in covering their grants to school reform. “One has to search hard to find even obliquely critical accounts” in the national media of the major foundations’ activities related to education, Hess reports. Furthermore, he writes, education policy experts steer clear of criticizing the mega-rich foundations; to date, not a single book has been published that has questioned their education strategies. Academics carefully avoid expressing any views that might alienate the big foundations, to avoid jeopardizing future contributions to their projects, their university, or the district they hope to work with.

Inequality and the 1%
by Danny Dorling
Published 6 Oct 2014

Most importantly, only 14 per cent agreed that the gap was ‘about right’.5 Only one in seven people thought the rich deserved to be so rich, and most of that minority appeared to have little appreciation of just how much better off the 1 per cent were, even when compared to those just below them.6 In the UK, dwindling numbers believe the rich generate wealth which all the rest of us get to share, but among them are some prominent people who use their position to promote this belief. There are many multi-millionaires who financially support right-wing think tanks to argue on their behalf. An even smaller, richer group with great influence are the mega-rich owners of newspapers and television channels, but they all now face growing opposition. Alan Denney Occupy London, 2011 Around the world, a majority of the global protests that have occurred since January 2006 have centred on issues of economic justice. In 2006 there were just 59 large protests recorded worldwide.

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Elitist views and behaviour are now seeping into the mainstream, so that even the poor are heard to call for lower taxes. That is how deep the confusion goes. A 2011 study of eighteen OECD countries found that the optimal top tax rate for the marginal earnings of the very rich might be over 80 per cent. With that, a country could increase productivity (which could be green productivity), while ‘no one but the mega rich would lose out’.30 The authors of the study show top tax rates to have fallen since the 1970s, and the income share of the richest 1 per cent to have grown in almost perfect correlation (see Figure 6.4). Source: Figure 4 in: Alvaredo, Atkinson, Piketty and Saez (2013) ‘The Top 1 Percent in International and Historical Perspective’, Journal of Economic Perspectives, 27: 3 (Summer 2013), pp. 3–20 Figure 6.4 The effect of top tax rates on pre-tax incomes of the top 1 per cent since 1960 Countries that have not reduced top income tax rates since the 1960s have also prevented their elites from taking too much.

The Laundromat : Inside the Panama Papers, Illicit Money Networks, and the Global Elite
by Jake Bernstein
Published 14 Oct 2019

Helly Nahmad Gallery, Inc., Supreme Court of the State of New York, April 24, 2017. 22 paintings by the likes of Picasso, Paul Cézanne, and Gustav Klimt: Juliette Gar-side, Jake Bernstein, and Holly Watt, “How Offshore Firm Helped Billionaire Change the Art World for Ever,” Guardian, April 7, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/07/panama-papers-joe-lewis-offshore-art-world-picasso-christies. 23 A high-powered subsection of cultural New York: Carol Vogel, “Prized Picasso Leads the Ganz Collection to a Record Auction of $206 Million,” New York Times, November 11, 1997, http://www.nytimes.com/1997/11/11/arts/prized-picasso-leads-the-ganz-collection-to-a-record-auction-of-206-million.html. 24 Basil’s death in 1994: Michael Moschos, “Obituary: Basil Goulandris,” Independent, May 5, 1994, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-basil-goulandris-1433953.html. 25 Chowaiki decided to give financial backing to the legal effort: Kelly Crow, “The $3 Billion Family Art Feud,” Wall Street Journal, June 30, 2016, https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-3-billion-family-art-feud-1467326777. 26 Talara Holdings also put up a Chagall, Le violoniste bleu: “Marc Chagall—Le Violoniste Bleu,” Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art Day Sale, May 6, 2015, http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2015/impressionist-modern-art-day-sale-n09341/lot.141.html. 27 “an elegy for a lost Golden Age”: “Paul Gauguin—Mata Mua (In Olden Times),” Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, https://www.museothyssen.org/en/collection/artists/gauguin-paul/mata-mua-olden-times. 28 housed more than a thousand paintings: Jonathan Kandell, “Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza, Industrialist Who Built Fabled Art Collection, Dies at 81,” New York Times, April 28, 2002, http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/28/nyregion/baron-thyssen-bornemisza-industrialist-who-built-fabled-art-collection-dies-81.html. 29 the baron’s artworks were divided among thirty to forty companies: Rafael Méndez, “Borja Thyssen usó una sociedad en Nevada para manejar cuentas bancarias en Andorra,” El Confidencial, September 4, 2016, http://www.elconfidencial.com/economia/papeles-panama/2016-04-09/borja-thyssen-cuentas-andorra-mossack-fonseca_1176959/. 30 masking her purchases through offshore companies as her husband did: Mar Cabra and Michael Hudson, “Mega-Rich Use Tax Havens to Buy and Sell Masterpieces,” International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, April 3, 2013, https://www.icij.org/offshore/mega-rich-use-tax-havens-buy-and-sell-masterpieces. 31 she split the company with Borja: Ángeles García, “Las cuentas secretas de los Thyssen,” El País, October 8, 2011, http://elpais.com/diario/2011/10/08/revistasabado/1318024801_850215.html. 32 complained that all her liquidity is tied up in paintings: Chris Hastings, “Art Expert Quits Museum in Fury at £25m Constable Sale,” Daily Mail, June 30, 2012, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2167024/Art-expert-quits-museum-fury-25m-Constable-sale—Baroness-responsible-insists-needs-money-despite-homes-125ft-yacht-700m-art-collection.html. 33 The Constable painting fetched $34 million: Cabra and Hudson, “Mega-Rich Use Tax Havens to Buy and Sell Masterpieces.” 9: THE VIKINGS LOSE THEIR FERRARIS 1 The nation’s three leading banks had ballooned: Charles Forelle, “As Banking ‘Fairy Tale’ Ends, Iceland Looks Back to the Sea,” Wall Street Journal, October 10, 2008, https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB122359763876821355. 2 $403,000 per man, woman, and child: Roger Boyes, Meltdown Iceland: Lessons on the World Financial Crisis from a Small Bankrupt Island (New York: Bloomsbury USA, 2009), p. 144. 3 Joly had taken a job with the Norwegian Agency for International Development: “Investigating Iceland’s Financiers,” Financial Times, November 13, 2009, https://www.ft.com/content/b4979f3a-cf2a-11de-8a4b-00144feabdc0. 4 Iceland was small enough where one could discover the real truth: Author interview with Eva Joly, Brussels, September 2016. 5 the scale of the crisis screamed for a response: Author interview with Ólafur Hauksson, Iceland, September 2016. 6 Landsbanki, which held the deposits of one in three Icelanders: Thor Bjorgolfsson, Billions to Bust and Back: How I Made, Lost and Rebuilt a Fortune (London: Profile Books, 2015), p. 214. 7 took out loans to fund a nationwide buying binge: Boyes, Meltdown Iceland, p. 90. 8 A father-and-son team: Bjorgolfsson, Billions to Bust and Back, p. 3. 9 “Like this we could provide our services much faster”: Email from Jost Dex to MF&Co Legal Department, September 16, 2004. 10 the rating agency Fitch issued a negative grade for Iceland’s economy: “Fitch Ratings Revises Iceland’s Outlook to Negative,” Central Bank of Iceland, February 21, 2006, http://www.cb.is/publications/news/news/2006/02/21/Fitch-Ratings-revises-Icelands-outlook-to-negative-/. 11 Landsbanki lent its own board members 40 billion kronur: Boyes, Meltdown Iceland, p. 160. 12 fraudulently boosting the bank’s share price: “Sigurjón Þ.

…

Helly Nahmad Gallery, Inc., Supreme Court of the State of New York, April 24, 2017. 22 paintings by the likes of Picasso, Paul Cézanne, and Gustav Klimt: Juliette Gar-side, Jake Bernstein, and Holly Watt, “How Offshore Firm Helped Billionaire Change the Art World for Ever,” Guardian, April 7, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/07/panama-papers-joe-lewis-offshore-art-world-picasso-christies. 23 A high-powered subsection of cultural New York: Carol Vogel, “Prized Picasso Leads the Ganz Collection to a Record Auction of $206 Million,” New York Times, November 11, 1997, http://www.nytimes.com/1997/11/11/arts/prized-picasso-leads-the-ganz-collection-to-a-record-auction-of-206-million.html. 24 Basil’s death in 1994: Michael Moschos, “Obituary: Basil Goulandris,” Independent, May 5, 1994, http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/obituary-basil-goulandris-1433953.html. 25 Chowaiki decided to give financial backing to the legal effort: Kelly Crow, “The $3 Billion Family Art Feud,” Wall Street Journal, June 30, 2016, https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-3-billion-family-art-feud-1467326777. 26 Talara Holdings also put up a Chagall, Le violoniste bleu: “Marc Chagall—Le Violoniste Bleu,” Sotheby’s Impressionist and Modern Art Day Sale, May 6, 2015, http://www.sothebys.com/en/auctions/ecatalogue/2015/impressionist-modern-art-day-sale-n09341/lot.141.html. 27 “an elegy for a lost Golden Age”: “Paul Gauguin—Mata Mua (In Olden Times),” Museo Thyssen-Bornemisza, https://www.museothyssen.org/en/collection/artists/gauguin-paul/mata-mua-olden-times. 28 housed more than a thousand paintings: Jonathan Kandell, “Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza, Industrialist Who Built Fabled Art Collection, Dies at 81,” New York Times, April 28, 2002, http://www.nytimes.com/2002/04/28/nyregion/baron-thyssen-bornemisza-industrialist-who-built-fabled-art-collection-dies-81.html. 29 the baron’s artworks were divided among thirty to forty companies: Rafael Méndez, “Borja Thyssen usó una sociedad en Nevada para manejar cuentas bancarias en Andorra,” El Confidencial, September 4, 2016, http://www.elconfidencial.com/economia/papeles-panama/2016-04-09/borja-thyssen-cuentas-andorra-mossack-fonseca_1176959/. 30 masking her purchases through offshore companies as her husband did: Mar Cabra and Michael Hudson, “Mega-Rich Use Tax Havens to Buy and Sell Masterpieces,” International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, April 3, 2013, https://www.icij.org/offshore/mega-rich-use-tax-havens-buy-and-sell-masterpieces. 31 she split the company with Borja: Ángeles García, “Las cuentas secretas de los Thyssen,” El País, October 8, 2011, http://elpais.com/diario/2011/10/08/revistasabado/1318024801_850215.html. 32 complained that all her liquidity is tied up in paintings: Chris Hastings, “Art Expert Quits Museum in Fury at £25m Constable Sale,” Daily Mail, June 30, 2012, http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2167024/Art-expert-quits-museum-fury-25m-Constable-sale—Baroness-responsible-insists-needs-money-despite-homes-125ft-yacht-700m-art-collection.html. 33 The Constable painting fetched $34 million: Cabra and Hudson, “Mega-Rich Use Tax Havens to Buy and Sell Masterpieces.” 9: THE VIKINGS LOSE THEIR FERRARIS 1 The nation’s three leading banks had ballooned: Charles Forelle, “As Banking ‘Fairy Tale’ Ends, Iceland Looks Back to the Sea,” Wall Street Journal, October 10, 2008, https://www.wsj.com/articles/SB122359763876821355. 2 $403,000 per man, woman, and child: Roger Boyes, Meltdown Iceland: Lessons on the World Financial Crisis from a Small Bankrupt Island (New York: Bloomsbury USA, 2009), p. 144. 3 Joly had taken a job with the Norwegian Agency for International Development: “Investigating Iceland’s Financiers,” Financial Times, November 13, 2009, https://www.ft.com/content/b4979f3a-cf2a-11de-8a4b-00144feabdc0. 4 Iceland was small enough where one could discover the real truth: Author interview with Eva Joly, Brussels, September 2016. 5 the scale of the crisis screamed for a response: Author interview with Ólafur Hauksson, Iceland, September 2016. 6 Landsbanki, which held the deposits of one in three Icelanders: Thor Bjorgolfsson, Billions to Bust and Back: How I Made, Lost and Rebuilt a Fortune (London: Profile Books, 2015), p. 214. 7 took out loans to fund a nationwide buying binge: Boyes, Meltdown Iceland, p. 90. 8 A father-and-son team: Bjorgolfsson, Billions to Bust and Back, p. 3. 9 “Like this we could provide our services much faster”: Email from Jost Dex to MF&Co Legal Department, September 16, 2004. 10 the rating agency Fitch issued a negative grade for Iceland’s economy: “Fitch Ratings Revises Iceland’s Outlook to Negative,” Central Bank of Iceland, February 21, 2006, http://www.cb.is/publications/news/news/2006/02/21/Fitch-Ratings-revises-Icelands-outlook-to-negative-/. 11 Landsbanki lent its own board members 40 billion kronur: Boyes, Meltdown Iceland, p. 160. 12 fraudulently boosting the bank’s share price: “Sigurjón Þ.

Dreams of Leaving and Remaining
by James Meek
Published 5 Mar 2019

As President, I am committed to pursuing an economic policy that lifts up all of our citizens, provides hope for all of our communities, and generates wealth for everyday hardworking people and it’s about time. In the end, whatever crumbs the eventual Trump tax bill offers low-earners, the great beneficiaries are the mega-rich: in year one, the poorest Americans paid about sixty bucks less in taxes, while the richest 0.1 per cent got an average incomes gain, after tax, of almost $200,000. That’s the way the ‘hardworking people’ shtick operates. You can be a hedge fund manager with a ten-figure salary. You can be a near full-time partygoer who dabbles in property development, living off the money your great-grandparents made.

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Piketty’s work came as a shock because he showed that the mid-twentieth century, when the average person could and often did become better off faster than those who lived off the return on their capital, was not some new normal, as many thought, but an aberration, and that, since then, we’ve reverted to the mean. The detail of Piketty’s work, however, is less palatable for a left-liberal movement trying to operate on the single country level. The subtlety of his position is that he separates the issue of inequality from the practicalities of trying to run a modern state. For Piketty, taxing the mega-rich isn’t a means to plug holes in a country’s annual budget, but a means to prevent the extreme concentration of wealth in a very few hands, or, as he puts it, the ‘fiscal secession of the wealthiest citizens’. A high marginal tax rate on extremely large incomes is a good thing, he argues, but brings almost nothing into the state’s coffers.

Capital Without Borders
by Brooke Harrington
Published 11 Sep 2016

Jonathan Kandell, “Baron Thyssen-Bornemisza, Industrialist Who Built Fabled Art Collection, Dies at 81,” New York Times, April 28, 2002. 97. Marc Weber, “The New Swiss Law on Cultural Property,” International Journal of Cultural Property 13 (2006): 99–113. 98. Mar Cabra and Michael Hudson, “Mega-rich Use Tax Havens to Buy and Sell Masterpieces,” International Consortium of Investigative Journalists, April 3, 2013, www.icij.org/offshore/mega-rich-use-tax-havens-buy-and-sell-masterpieces. 99. George Marcus, “The Fiduciary Role in American Family Dynasties and Their Institutional Legacy,” in George Marcus, ed., Elites: Ethnographic Issues, 221–256 (Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1983), 222. 100.

Broke: How to Survive the Middle Class Crisis
by David Boyle
Published 15 Jan 2014

The middle classes can afford to rent or buy, but their professional room for manoeuvre is seriously limited, and the enterprises, the local papers, local banks, local food distributors and local shops, which gave previous middle-class generations an economic underpinning, have gone. In the south, it is the other way around. There is work, but it struggles to pay enough to buy or rent because the housing market is increasingly geared to the needs of foreign investors and the mega-rich. And here we get to the nitty-gritty. Because, behind all the headlines and soundbites, it is increasingly difficult even for middle-income earners in mainstream work, including ever larger chunks of the middle classes, to get by without support from the government in the form of Help to Buy, or housing benefit or council tax rebates or tax credits or all the rest of the state’s generosity to its middle-income earners.

…

At average rates of inflation, it should now be worth around £45,000. And according to the Prime Minister, this is not a bubble. So why is middle-class life — and not just housing — becoming unaffordable? As this book sets out, it is partly because of the rise of the monopolies, partly because the economy is geared increasingly to the needs of the mega-rich (see Chapter 5). It is partly because of the economic doctrine of ‘comparative advantage’ — a sensible economic concept pushed to ridiculous lengths — which has allowed the regional enterprises of the UK to atrophy and die (see Chapter 7). It is also because the upper tier is now so much richer that the economy can appear to get by just by serving their needs.

Planet Ponzi
by Mitch Feierstein
Published 2 Feb 2012

In a bold, truthful, un-Ponzi-ish op-ed for the New York Times, Warren Buffett wrote: Our leaders have asked for ‘shared sacrifice.’ But when they did the asking, they spared me. I checked with my mega-rich friends to learn what pain they were expecting. They, too, were left untouched. While the poor and middle class fight for us in Afghanistan, and while most Americans struggle to make ends meet, we mega-rich continue to get our extraordinary tax breaks … Last year my federal tax bill … was only 17.4 percent of my taxable income‌—‌and that’s actually a lower percentage than was paid by any of the other 20 people in our office.

Culture & Empire: Digital Revolution
by Pieter Hintjens
Published 11 Mar 2013

Rather, I think most people have accurately and subconsciously assessed that old money is like salt. It's still essential, of course. Without salt, you die. Yet only fools fight over salt, and only madmen accumulate cellars of the stuff on the off chance that its price will one day go up again. The trillions hoarded by the mega-rich cannot buy friends on the Internet. It cannot buy truth on Wikipedia; it cannot buy success in digital markets, bribe the digital authorities, or convert into any real form of power in digital politics. People have tried this over and over and it keeps failing. Conclusions In this chapter, I've looked at the digital economy and its assets, bouncing off copyrights and patents in the process.

…

As you go to your well-paid job and congratulate yourself on getting a good education and choosing the right parents, the notion of occupation is ridiculous. Yet more and more of us are on the other side. We have at best part-time jobs that give us no security, pensions, or health-care. We are born in debt, and we die even poorer, while the mega-rich get richer. Our cities are desolate and abandoned through utter lack of interest from those with the power to make things better. Society is not just more divided than it should be, it is more divided than we can comprehend. Perhaps, if you are a young white American, the reveal began when you saw the New York Police Department (NYPD) beating and arresting peaceful Occupy Wall Street protesters.

January Fifteenth
by Rachel Swirsky
Published 13 Jun 2022

Elsa’s face was turning red under her foundation. She jabbed a finger, probably at an imaginary Mo. “You know what UBI does? It pays for cults to keep making child brides. It keeps addicts in cocaine when they’re living on the streets. But no one wants to talk about that. No, ninety percent of your freshman floor wants to talk about The mega-rich are parasites and If I had that much money, I’d donate it all to African rhinos and make a pilgrimage to the drowned city of Basra to self-flagellate in front of the endangered fish—and really? Would they? Because I don’t see them giving up everything they have. If they want to blame people like me for children getting skin cancer in Indonesia, then they should take a good look back at themselves.

Giving the Devil His Due: Reflections of a Scientific Humanist
by Michael Shermer
Published 8 Apr 2020

Ever-increasing height in the heels of women’s shoes is another example of a fashion arms race in which everyone would be better off in flats. Once a few start to inch up their heels, the fashion trend takes off, forcing those who would not otherwise do so to engage in an Achilles-tightening arms race. Coming-of-age parties suffer the same positional rank fate. When the mega rich produce a festival fit for a king for their sixteen-year old queen, the next economic tier down must up the catering bill to satisfy teenage wants that have been artificially adjusted upward. Money that should be spent on, say, food, clothes, health care, future college tuition, or mortgage payments, is being wasted on frivolous ceremonial one-upmanship.

…

Taxing away the debt crisis.If, say, we followed Warren Buffett’s proposal for taxing the “super rich” who make between $1 million and $10 million a year at an effective rate of 50 percent, according to the nonpartisan Tax Foundation using figures from the IRS, this would reduce the national debt by a grand total of 1 percent. What about the “mega rich,” those making more than $10 million a year? If we taxed them at 100 percent – that is, we confiscated every last dollar made by every person in the country at this level, the national debt would be reduced by only 2 percent. Taxing the rich will not solve our debt crisis.21 2. Taxing away unhappiness.In what way, exactly, will redistributing money from the rich to the poor increase the latter’s happiness or decrease their unhappiness?

A Short History of Russia
by Mark Galeotti
Published 1 May 2020

However, this was also the Yeltsin who had been the face of resistance to the hardliners’ 1991 coup, who had blocked Gorbachev’s efforts to reconstitute the USSR and who, when faced with a recalcitrant Soviet-legacy parliament in 1993, shelled it into submission. That was against the constitution, so he simply had the constitution revised retroactively to make it legal. Then, in 1996, when it looked like the resurgent Communist Party might actually win the presidency, he turned to the oligarchs, the new mega-rich business magnates who had so profited from his free-for-all economic policies, to support him—or, as some would say, rig the election for him. For most Russians, this was a decade of despair, uncertainty and hardship. While a handful of Russians were becoming immensely rich, most were coping with an economic crisis worse than the Great Depression of 1930s America.

Londongrad: From Russia With Cash; The Inside Story of the Oligarchs
by Mark Hollingsworth and Stewart Lansley
Published 22 Jul 2009

Historically, ‘oligarch’ was a word used to describe active opponents of Athenian democracy during the fifth century bc, when Greece was ruled on several occasions by brutal oligarch regimes that butchered their democratic opponents. Like their ancient Greek counterparts, few of the modern Russian oligarchs became mega-rich by creating new wealth but rather by insider political intrigue and by exploiting the weakness of the rule of law. Driven by a lust for money and power, they secured much of the country’s natural and historic wealth through the manipulation of the post-Soviet-era process of privatization. When Boris Yeltsin succeeded Mikhail Gorbachev as President in 1991, Russia had reached another precarious stage in its complex history.

…

One by one they started buying up art that had been lost to Russia and investing in Putin’s favourite social projects, all designed to counter criticism that the oligarchs enriched themselves and exported their wealth abroad without giving anything back. Buying the world’s rarest and most expensive paintings has always been a privilege open only to the mega-rich. Once you have the mansion, the diamonds, the jet, and the yacht, making a statement requires moving on to possessions that not only inspire envy but are both unique and precious. As Joseph Backstein put it, ‘It’s the logic of consumption. What is a rich Russian? It means you must have an apartment in Moscow, a Bentley, a dacha on Rublyovka, a house in London, a villa in Sardinia, and a yacht.

Who Owns England?: How We Lost Our Green and Pleasant Land, and How to Take It Back
by Guy Shrubsole
Published 1 May 2019

successive influxes Luke Harding, A Very Expensive Poison: The Definitive Story of the Murder of Litvinenko and Russia’s War with the West (Guardian Faber Publishing, 2016). occasional bus tours http://clampk.org/2016­/01/20/kleptocracy­-tours­/ still owns a property Luke Harding, ‘Mega-rich homes tour puts spotlight on London’s oligarchs’, Guardian, 4 February 2016. a US sanctions list Lauren Gambino, ‘Trump administration hits 24 Russians with sanctions over “malign activity”’, Guardian, April 2018. A family friend Harding, ‘Mega-rich homes tour puts spotlight on London’s oligarchs’. Athlone House Thomas Burrows, ‘Ukrainian billionaire oligarch gets the go-ahead to turn derelict mansion into one of London’s finest private homes complete with cigar room, gym and yoga room and worth £130 million’, Daily Mail, 14 September 2016.

Future Perfect: The Case for Progress in a Networked Age
by Steven Johnson
Published 14 Jul 2012

We don’t have a National Endowment for Detergents, because the private sector has proven to be perfectly adept at producing cheap and variegated quantities of household cleaning supplies. But the market has not performed as well with funding experimental or highbrow creative work. And so we build Legrand Stars to make up for that failure: large institutions with vast sums of money, endowed either by mega-rich patrons or the federal government, controlled by small committees of experts who decide which artists are worth supporting. Historically, Jacob Krupnick would have been forced to choose among three paths: He could reconfigure his artistic vision to make it more compatible with the existing marketplace.

Big Mistakes: The Best Investors and Their Worst Investments
by Michael Batnick
Published 21 May 2018

No matter how many times Twain told himself that he was done with Paige and his excuses, he just couldn't look in the mirror and admit he was wrong. Imagine pouring everything you have, financially, mentally, and emotionally, into an investment and admitting defeat. It is excruciating. Few things are harder to do in life and especially in investing than to admit you were wrong. With the help of a friend, Henry “Hell Hound” Rogers, a mega‐rich partner in John Rockefeller's Standard Oil, they took control of the typesetter business from Paige. On life support, Clemens went to look for new investors and found two in Bram Stoker, who would later go on to write Dracula, and the famous actor Henry Irving.12 When the typesetter failed at the Chicago Herald, there would be no more chances.

Damsel in Distressed: My Life in the Golden Age of Hedge Funds
by Dominique Mielle
Published 6 Sep 2021

Or it’d be nifty to own a twenty-bedroom home for your family of four with a dedicated gift-wrapping space and a wraparound river with dolphins. Then you remembered you should first pay the kids’ school tuition, or a friend pronounced you a raving lunatic, and it all stayed at a rather exploratory stage. When the mega-rich have mega-dumb ideas, however, they go through unbridled. The check-and-balance system of absurdity no longer applies. The sushi-loving hedge fund foodie orders the entire menu for dinner because he just cannot decide. The hedge fund party-lover invites guests at an all-night soiree to vandalize with spray paint his $52 million Manhattan penthouse because it is soon to be remodeled.

The Great American Stickup: How Reagan Republicans and Clinton Democrats Enriched Wall Street While Mugging Main Street
by Robert Scheer
Published 14 Apr 2010

Of course, the top echelon of Wall Street insiders would skim the cream off, but, the argument went, the rest of the country would benefit as well. Not only would the economy be stronger, but American individuals, pension plans, and charities could all ride this dragon skyward, through investments and through donations from the mega-rich looking for tax shelters. It is no accident, then, that in each of the recent economic collapses, from Enron to Bernie Madoff, there arose the ever-present laments from charities that were suddenly defunded. The derivatives and swaps involved buying and packaging financial risk and selling it based on a system of corresponding grades.

The Price of Time: The Real Story of Interest
by Edward Chancellor
Published 15 Aug 2022

But within a few years of the crisis, the ‘wealth effect’ – people’s propensity to spend their capital gains – had fallen to half its historic average.51 Having borrowed too much during the credit boom, most Americans were forced to curb their spending. The demand for luxury goods remained robust, however. As an editor of the Forbes 400 list of the Richest Americans enthused, ‘the mega rich are mega richer’ – and they were keen to flaunt it. On the day that Lehman’s failed, Damian Hirst’s ‘Golden Calf’ – a dead calf, pickled in formaldehyde, with hooves and horns tipped in 18-carat gold – was auctioned by Sotheby’s in London for £10 million. The Hirst sale appeared a fitting end to a tawdry period of financial and art market excesses.

…

D., 163–4 Röpke, Wilhelm, 97, 100, 299 Rothbard, Murray, 30 Rothermere, Lord, 93 Roubini, Nouriel, 207, 254 Rousseff, Dilma, 258 Rucellai, Giovanni, 21 Rueff, Jacques, 85, 91, 115‡, 251 Ruskin, John, 180–81 Sainsbury’s (British grocery chain), 160 Saint-Simon, Louis de Rouvroy, Duke of, 50–51, 52, 57 Samuelson, Paul, 246–7 Sarkozy, Nicolas, 292 Savills (property consultants), 174 saving: bonus of compound interest, 190; China’s savings glut, 268–9; as deferred gratification, 29, 188–90; and interest, xxiv, 44, 77, 188–93, 194–9, 205–6; interest as ‘wages of abstinence’, xxiv, xxv, 188–91; savings glut hypothesis, 115–16, 117, 126, 128–9, 132, 191, 252; Terborgh on, 125* savings & loan crisis, US, 111, 145 Say, Jean-Baptiste, 99 Sbrancia, Maria Belen, 290 Scandinavian banking crisis (early 1990s), 136 Schacht, Hjalmar, 82, 92, 312 Schäuble, Wolfgang, 299 Scheidel, Walter, 204 Schumpeter, Joseph, 16, 32, 46, 95, 218; Capitalism, Socialism and Democracy (1942), 126, 140, 296–7; ‘creative destruction’ idea, xx, 140–43, 153, 296–7; on deflation, 100; History of Economic Analysis, xviii; view of intellectuals, 297 Schwartz, Anna, 98, 99, 105, 116 Schwarzman, Steven, 207 Sears (department store), 169–70 secular stagnation, 77, 124–8, 131, 132–9, 151, 205–6 Sée, Henri Eugene, Modern Capitalism (1928), 28* Seneca the Younger, 20–21 Senior, Nassau, 188, 191 Senn, Martin, 193 shadow banks: in Canada, 174–5; in China, 266, 270, 282*, 283–5, 286; collapse in subprime crisis, 221, 283; illiquid products, 226–7; re-emergence after 2008 crisis, 221, 227, 231, 233; structured finance products, 116, 227, 283–5; Trust companies as precursors of, 84*; types of, 221; ‘Ultra-short’ bond exchange-traded funds (ETFs), 227 Shaftesbury, Anthony Ashley Cooper, Earl of, 27 ‘shareholder value’ philosophy, 163–6, 167, 170–71 Shaw, Edward, 286 Shaw, Leslie, 83, 83* Shiba Inu (cryptocurrency), 308 Shin, Hyun Song, 254, 263 Shiyan, Hubei province, 275 Silicon Valley, 148, 151, 173, 176, 204 Silver, Morris, 7, 11 Singer, Paul, 185, 246 Smith, Adam, 14, 174; on monopolies, 162, 298; view of interest, 27, 27*, 31, 183; on wealth, 181; The Wealth of Nations (1776), xxii, 27–8, 27*, 31 Smithers, Andrew, Productivity and the Bonus Culture (2019), 152* Smoot–Hawley Act (1930), 261 socialism, 188, 297, 298 Soddy, Frederick, 181, 242 Solon the ‘Lawgiver’, 9, 18 Solow, Bob, 128 Somary, Felix, 94–5, 308 Sombart, Werner, Modern Capitalism, 22* Soros, George, 148*, 273, 283 South Africa, 258 South America: loans/securities from, 77, 79–80; precious metals from, 49, 168; speculation in bonds from, 64, 65–6, 91; trade during Napoleonic Wars, 70 South Korea, 267 South Sea Bubble (1720), 62, 65*, 68, 69, 307 Soviet Union, 278 Spain, 144–5, 147, 168, 213, 253, 279; mortgage bonds (cédulas), 117 Special Purpose Acquisition Companies (SPACs), 307 speculative manias, xxiii; Borio on, 135; and cryptocurrencies, 177–9; ‘hyperbolic discounting’ during, 176–7; in period from 1630s to 1840s, 64–6, 67–72, 73, 74, 75–6, 77–8, 79–80; technology companies in post-crisis years, 176–9; before Wall Street Crash (1929), 91 see also Mississippi bubble Spencer, Grant, 177 Sraffa, Piero, 42 St Ambrose, 18 St Augustine, 18–19, 202 St Bonaventure, 19 Stable Money League/Association, 87, 96 Standard Oil, 157 state capitalism, 280, 284, 292–5, 297, 298 Stefanel (Italian clothing company), 147 Stein, Jeremy, 231, 233 Steuart, Sir James, 53, 273 ‘sticky prices’ theory, 87* Strong, Benjamin, 82–3, 86–8, 90*, 92, 93, 98, 112 Stuckey’s Bank, 63, 66–7 subprime mortgage crisis, xxii, 114, 116, 117–18, 131, 211, 292; produces ‘dash for cash’, 227; unwinding of carry trades during, 221, 227 Suetonius, The Twelve Caesars, 12 Suez Canal, 78 Sumerian civilization, 4, 6, 8, 15 Summers, Larry, 124–5, 127, 129, 185, 230, 230*, 235, 302 Sumner, William Graham, ‘Forgotten Man’, xx, xxii, 198 Susa, Henry of, 25 Svensson, Lars, 247 Sweden, 174, 241, 242, 244, 245, 247, 294 Sweezy, Paul, 156 Swiss National Bank, 172–3, 293–4 Switzerland, 172, 174, 226, 233, 241, 244, 245 Sydney (Australia), 175 Sylla, Richard, 4, 11, 68, 109 Tacitus, 20–21 Tasker, Peter, 271 Tawney, R.H., 201 tax structures, 164; offshore tax havens, 210 Taylor, John, 116–17, 129, 252 Tencent, 283 Tencin, Claudine Alexandrine Guérin, Madame de, 51 Terborgh, George, 125–6, 127 Tesla, 176–7 Theranos, 149 Thiel, Peter, 263 Third Avenue (investment company), 227–8 Thornton, Daniel, 192 Thornton, Henry, 41–2, 66*, 70, 75 Thornton, Henry Sykes, 66* Tiberius, Roman Emperor, 12 time, concept of, xviii; and act of saving, 188–90; canonical ‘hours’, 21; and Lewis Carroll, 309; in era of ultra-low interest rates, 59, 177; Franklin on, xviii, 22, 28; and Hayek, 32; interest as ‘time value of money’, xxiv, xxv–xxvi, 10, 14–15, 16, 20, 22, 26–7, 28–32; Lord King’s ‘paradox of policy’, 194, 230*; the Marshmallow Test, 29, 189; and medieval scholars, 19–20; Renaissance writings on, 21; secularization of, 21–2; speculators’ misunderstanding of, 59; and thought in ancient world, 20–21; time as individual’s possession, 20, 21, 25; ‘time in production’, xxiv, 14–15, 16, 22, 95, 95†, 141; ‘time preference’ theory, xxiv*, 28–32, 42, 95, 188–9; Thomas Wilson’s ideas, 26–7, 28, 30 Time-Warner, 167 Tooke, Thomas, 69 Toporowski, Jan, 167 Torrens, Robert, 66 Toys ‘R’ Us, 169 trade and commerce: in ancient world, 6, 7–8, 12, 14, 15; Atlantic trade, 59; business partnerships (commenda, societas), 26; commercial classes/interests, 35, 36–7, 38–40, 41, 43, 44, 66–7; commercial importance of time, xviii, 15–16, 21, 22; emergence of modern trade cycle, 62–4; expansion of in Middle Ages, 19, 21–3, 25–6; international trade, 6, 15, 23, 24, 59, 252–3, 261–2; and Italian Renaissance, 21; in medieval Italy, 21–3; mercantile/shipping loans, 6, 12, 14, 22–3, 26, 219 TransAmerica Life Insurance, 199* Trichet, Jean-Claude, 239 Trollope, Anthony, The Way We Live Now, 73 Truman, Harry, 84 The Truman Show (Peter Weir film, 1998), 185–7 Trump, Donald, 185, 261, 262, 291–2, 299, 304, 310 trusts/monopolies: in early twentieth century Europe, 159; Lenin on, 159–60; merger ‘tsunami’ after 2008 crisis, 160–63, 161*, 168–70, 182–3, 237, 298; ‘platform companies’, 161; Adam Smith on, 162, 298; in US robber baron era, 156, 157–9, 203 tulip mania (1630s), 68 Tunisia, 255 Turgot, Anne-Robert Jacques, 15, 28–9, 30, 218 Turkey, xxiii, 252, 258–60, 263 Turkmenistan, 262 Turner, Adair, 292 TXU (energy company), 162 Uber, 149, 150 ‘unicorn’ start-up companies, 148–50, 153, 155, 173, 176–7 Union Pacific Railroad, 157, 158 United States: as bubble economy, 184–7; credit expansion of 1920s, 87–91, 92–4, 96–8, 112, 203; Democrats’ Green New Deal policy, 302; economic expansion (1929–41), 143; economy in Bretton Woods era, 291, 302; financial crisis (1873), 157; foreign securities/loans in 1920s, 91; inflation in 1970s, 108–9; Knickerbocker Panic (1907), 83–4; large-scale immigration into, 78; loan of farm animals in, 4; long-term interest rates (1945–2021), 134; loss of manufacturing jobs to China, 261*, 261; low economic vitality in post-crisis decade, 124, 150–53, 191; monetary policy in 1900s, 83–4, 83*; post-Second World War recovery, 126; public debt today, 291–2, 291*; recessions of early 1980s, 109–10, 151; reversal of global capital flows (late-1920s), 93; robber baron era, 156–9, 203; shift from manufacturing towards services, 167–8, 182; and zombification, 146, 152–3, 155 see also Federal Reserve, US United States Steel Corporation, 157–8 Universities Superannuation Scheme, UK, 196 Useless Ethereum Token, 178 usury: attacked from left and right, 17; attitudes to in ancient world, 17–18, 19, 20–21, 219; in Britain, 24, 26–7, 34, 40, 42, 65‡, 65; Church law forbids, 18–19, 23–4; definitions in Elizabethan era, 26–7; etymology of word, 5; Galiani on, 218–19, 220, 221; and Jews, 18; Marx on, 16, 200–201; medieval Church acknowledges risk, 25–6; Old Testament restrictions on, 17; Proudhon-Bastiat debate on, xvii–xix, xxi, xxii, xxv, 9; in Renaissance world, 22–3; scholastic attack on, 18–20, 23–4, 25 Valeant Pharmaceuticals, 161, 168–9 Vancouver, 175 Veblen, Thorstein, Theory of Business Enterprise (1904), 158, 159, 166 Velde, François, 58*, 59 Venice, 22, 23 Vinci, Leonardo da, Salvator Mundi, 208–9 VIX index, 228–9, 254 La Voix du Peuple, xvii–xix volatility, 153, 228–30, 233, 234, 254, 304, 305 Volcker, Paul, 108–9, 121, 145, 184, 240 Voltaire, 57 Wainwright, Oliver, 209 Waldman, Steve, 206 Waldorf Astoria, New York, 285–6 Wall Street Crash (October 1929): Fed’s response to, 98, 100, 101, 108; Fisher and Keynes fail to foresee, 94–5; Hayek’s interpretation of, 101, 105; low real rates in 1920s USA, 87–91, 89, 92–4, 96–8, 203; low/stable inflation at time of, 134; monetarist view of, 98–9, 101, 105, 108; predictions/warnings of, 93–5, 96, 101, 105, 308; reversal of international capital flows (late-1920s), 93, 93*, 261 WallStreetBets, 307, 309 Walpole, Horace, 62–3 Warburg, Paul, 94 Warsh, Kevin, 228 wealth: ‘Buddenbrooks effect’, 216; conspicuous consumption by mega-rich, 54–5, 208–10, 212; definitions of, 179–82, 216; elite displays as signs of inequality, 209–10, 212; virtual wealth bubbles, 179, 180, 181–2, 185, 193–5, 206, 215, 216–17, 217†, 229–30, 237; wealth illusion, 193–5, 198 Welch, Jack, 170, 171 Wells, H. G., 110 Wen Jiabao, 264, 269, 270, 283, 288 Wenzhou, Chinese city, 281–3 Wergild (blood money), 3 Westinghouse Electric, 156 WeWork, 149–50 White, William, xxi–xxii, 113–14, 122, 132, 155*, 246, 303* Wicksell, Knut, 42, 58*, 86–7, 88, 89, 95, 96, 99, 183 Wilcoxe, Thomas, 24 Williams, John Burr, The Theory of Investment Value (1938), 173 Williamson, Jeffrey, Unequal Gains (with Peter Lindert), 203, 216 Wilson, Charlie, 166, 170 Wilson, Edward ‘Beau’, 45 Wilson, James, 71–2 Wilson, Thomas, Discourse Upon Usury (1572), 26–7, 28, 30 Wilson, Woodrow, 84 Winkler, Max, 91 Winklevoss twins, 178 Wolf, Martin, 188 The Wolf of Wall Street (Martin Scorsese film), 258 Wonga (financial firm), 17, 201 Wool, Christopher, Apocalypse Now (painting), 208 working people/workers: Bastiat on interest, xviii–xix, xxii, 215; impact of 2008 crisis, 210–13, 237; impact of deflation on, 99–100; Proudhon on interest, xvii, xviii, xix World Trade Organization, 267 Wu Xiaohui, 286 Xi Jinping, 274, 277, 281, 288, 289, 310 Xiao Jianhua, 286 Xu Jiayin, 288 Yellen, Janet, 61, 120, 184, 224, 240 Zarnowitz, Victor, 124 Zhou Xiaochuan, 284–5 Zhu Rongji, 287† Zijlstra, Wilte, 220 zombie companies, 136, 139, 145–7, 152–3, 155, 237, 240, 277, 285, 289 Copyright © 2022 by Edward Chancellor Jacket design by David Plunkert Jacket artwork: The Money Changer and his Wife, 1514, Quentin Metsys.

Does Capitalism Have a Future?
by Immanuel Wallerstein , Randall Collins , Michael Mann , Georgi Derluguian , Craig Calhoun , Stephen Hoye and Audible Studios
Published 15 Nov 2013

Pyramided levels of monies illustrate Viviana Zelizer’s [1994] theory that money is not homogeneous but plural, diverse sets of specific currencies circulating within their own social networks. Those who play in the circuit of hedge funds, for instance, are a very restricted group of persons and organizations; small players are not even legally allowed into these markets. Perhaps this is beside the point; in the idyllic financial utopia of the future, core investors will become mega-rich, but smaller investors will get their share. Will this be enough to sustain consumer spending throughout the entire economy and thus keep the machinery of capitalism going? Not if financial markets tend toward ever-greater concentration, exploiting the smaller participants at the bottom. For the second possibility: technological displacement can be expected to make inroads into employment in the financial sector.

This Is Not Propaganda: Adventures in the War Against Reality
by Peter Pomerantsev
Published 29 Jul 2019

‘The withdrawal of Soviet power, or the Tsimtsum of Communism, created the infinite space of signs emptied of sense: the world became devoid of meaning.’43 In 2001, after university, I followed Lina’s trail, moving to Russia to eventually work in television. ‘Moscow’, I would write later, ‘seemed a city living in fast-forward, changing so fast it breaks all sense of reality. Russia had seen so many worlds flick through in such rapid progression – from Communism to perestroika to shock therapy to penury to oligarchy to mafia state to mega-rich – that its new heroes were left with the sense that life is just one glittering masquerade, where every role and any position or belief is mutable.’ Notes 1 PolitiFact, ‘Donald Trump’s File’, www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump (accessed 20 July 2016); PolitiFact, ‘Hillary Clinton’s File’, www.politifact.com/personalities/hillary-clinton (accessed 20 July 2016). 2 BBC Breadth of Opinion Review; http://downloads.bbc.co.uk/bbctrust/assets/files/pdf/our_work/breadth_opinion/content_analysis.pdf. 3 BBC News, ‘Kremlin’s Chief Propagandist Accuses Western Media of Bias’, 23 June 2016; http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-36551391. 4 Yaffa, Joshua, ‘Dmitry Kiselev Is Redefining the Art of Russian Propaganda’, New Republic, 1 July 2014; https://newrepublic.com/article/118438/dmitry-kiselev-putins-favorite-tv-host-russias-top-propogandist. 5 Balmforth, Tom, ‘Gene Warfare?

The New Economics: A Bigger Picture
by David Boyle and Andrew Simms
Published 14 Jun 2009

(John Kenneth) 41, 51 gambling 14–15, 152 Gandhi, Mohandas (Mahatma) 18, 19, 21, 110, 112 Gates, Bill 141 Gates, Jeff 141–2 GDP (gross domestic product) 10, 32, 36–40, 42, 43, 54, 79 alternatives to 40–2, 43 bad measure of success 10, 37, 55, 78 INDEX global 141 UK 4 see also growth genetically modified crops see GM crops Germany 33, 50, 58 Gladwell, Malcolm 68 Global Barter Clubs 57, 58 global commons 113, 148 global currencies 56, 61, 120, 147–8 global greenback 61 global warming 3, 3–4, 115, 155 see also climate change globalization 8, 28, 143, 153 see also interdependence GM (genetically modified) crops 91, 117, 119, 140–1 Goetz, Stephan 124 gold standard 8, 143 Good Life, The (BBC sitcom) 69 goods, local 19, 109, 110 Goodwin, Fred 142 government borrowing 37–8, 49–50, 58, 62, 141 governments 2, 28, 116, 129, 158 creating money 58–9, 62, 90 propping up banking system 6, 7 Graham, Benjamin 120 Grameen Bank 26, 143–4, 153 Great Barrington (Massachusetts) 57, 151–2, 153 Great Depression 3, 36, 57 green bonds 157 green collar jobs 106, 157 Green Consumer Guide, The (Elkington and Hailes, 1988) 26, 69, 72 green economics 23, 100, 117 green energy 26, 97, 102–3, 114, 156, 157 Green New Deal 156–8 green taxation 153 greenhouse gas emissions 3–4, 115, 148 gross domestic product see GDP Gross National Happiness 43 growth 2, 11, 12–13, 23, 36–7, 38–40, 42, 43 185 bad measure of success 10, 158 maximizing 25 and poverty 4, 39–40, 81–2 and progress 39, 78 wealth defined in terms of 32 and well-being 4–5 see also GDP guilds 80, 80–1 happiness 12, 18, 29, 41, 43, 45–6 Happy Planet Index 32–3, 34, 43 Hard Times (Dickens, 1854) 36 HBOS 7 health 46, 72, 78, 96, 115, 129 health costs 117 healthcare 13, 33, 44 hedge funds 5, 7, 97, 120 Helsinki (Finland) 102 HIV/AIDS 70, 111, 135, 148 Honduras 139, 141 house prices 36, 46, 79, 83, 91, 126–7, 151 London 53, 54, 91 see also mortgages Howard, Ebenezer 105, 158 HSBC 5 human interaction 67–8, 74 human needs 20, 24, 67, 86 human rights 110–11, 116, 147 ill-health 35, 38, 46 ‘illth’ 29, 35 IMF (International Monetary Fund) 27, 82, 91, 135–6, 139, 143, 147, 147–8 incomes 24, 37, 43, 44, 78, 79, 81 and happiness 45–6 inequalities 37, 81, 82, 142 of poorest 4, 81, 82, 112, 142 Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare see ISEW India 82, 91, 110, 119, 136, 139–40, 153 indigenous knowledge 82, 117 inequality 4, 81–2, 96, 112–13, 116 inflation 8, 22, 58, 90 information technology 58, 59, 115 186 THE NEW ECONOMICS intellectual property 82, 91, 110, 113, 116, 117 interdependence 111–20, 135–8 Keynes on 19, 109, 110, 115, 143 see also globalization interest 8, 11, 11–12, 58, 77, 157 interest rates 144, 144–5 interest-free money 43, 73, 84, 90 intergenerational equity 25, 117 international bankruptcy 147 International Monetary Fund see IMF investment 14, 45, 53, 60, 104, 118, 137–8 ethical 26, 69–70, 74, 154 involvement 71, 75, 128–30 Iraq 49, 60, 136 ISEW (Index of Sustainable Economic Welfare) 40–1, 43, 78 Islamic banking 58, 90, 146 islands, small 31–2, 33–4 Italy 33, 119–20, 138 Ithaca hours currency 57, 58 It’s a Wonderful Life (film, Capra, 1946) 38 Jacobs, Jane 56, 110, 126 Jaffe, Bernie 126 Japan 26, 50, 91, 113, 119, 128 Jefferson, Thomas 18, 20 Jersey 52, 53 Jones, Allan 103 Jubilee Debt campaign 137 junk bonds 1, 142–3 just-in-time 123–4, 155 Keynes, John Maynard 2, 13–14, 15, 17, 21, 37, 55 on interdependence 19, 109, 110, 115, 143 international currency 61, 120 on local production 19, 109, 110 on ‘practical men’ as ‘slaves of some defunct economist’ 10, 35, 67, 87, 159 Keynesian economics 8, 18, 22, 27, 28 Kinney, Jill 130 Knowsley (Merseyside) 104 Kropotkin, Peter 18 Krugman, Paul 52 land 19, 82, 96 land tax 43 landfill 97, 98, 100, 107 Layard, Richard 41 Lehigh Hospital (Pennsylvania) 129 Letchworth Garden City (Hertfordshire) 105 lets (local exchange and trading systems) 57 liberalism 18, 19, 27 Lietaer, Bernard 56, 61, 120 life 19, 29, 55, 69, 86, 91 need for meaning 42, 75 life expectancy 31, 32–3, 82 life poverty 82–3 life satisfaction 31, 33, 41, 42 Lima (Peru) 130–1 Linton, Michael 57, 58 Living Economy, The (Ekins, 1986) 24–5 LM3 (Local Money 3) 60, 104–5 loans see debt Local Alchemy programme 152–3 local circulation of money 103–5, 107, 124, 151–2 local currencies 26, 56, 57, 58, 59, 60, 151–2, 153 local economies 26, 81, 85, 86, 105–7, 118, 124, 133 local exchange and trading systems (lets) 57 local food 2, 118, 119–20, 151 local governments 6, 44, 60 local life 4, 81, 158 Local Money 3 see LM3 local production 109, 116, 118 local savings schemes 61 local shops 75, 82–3, 104, 124, 124–5, 126, 151 supermarkets and 80, 105, 125 local wealth 14, 53–4 localization 155–6, 159 London 52, 53, 61, 97, 102, 103 house prices 53, 54, 91 traffic speed 65–6 INDEX London Underground 147 Lutzenberger, Jose 26 Macmillan Cancer Care 88–9 McRobie, George 22, 24 mainstream 4–5, 26, 154, 159–60 see also economics Malawi 135–6, 137 Malaysia 51 Manchester United 155 manipulated debt 139–41 markets 10, 12, 51, 70, 158 financial 1–2, 52, 53, 55, 138, 154–5 free 22, 85, 112–13 new economics and 67, 72–5, 85 Marsh Farm estate (Luton) 104–5, 152–3 Maslow, Abraham 67 materialism 12, 46–7 Max-Neef, Manfred 24 Maxwell, Robert 143 MDGs (Millennium Development Goals) 39, 136 Mead, Margaret 129 meaning, need for 42, 75 measurement problem 36–40 measuring 12, 42, 55, 85 success 2, 8, 10, 43, 44, 55, 154, 156, 158 value 10, 15, 29, 53, 59, 115 wealth 32, 37–40, 53–4 well-being 4, 18, 32–3, 34, 43 mechanics, Cuban 95–6, 97 medieval economics 78–80, 80–1 mega-rich 120, 141, 142 mental health 4, 35, 36, 46, 68, 83 Merck 99 micro-credit 26, 143–4, 145, 146, 151, 153 Milkin, Michael 142 Millennium Development Goals see MDGs minimum wage 92 misery, of UK young people 35–6 Mishan, E.J. 40 Mogridge, Martin 65–6, 74 Mondragon (Spain), cooperatives 153 money 8, 11, 13, 18, 27, 29, 36, 95 187 as a bad measure 10, 15, 18, 53, 59, 90, 143, 154 creating 7, 56–7, 58–9, 84, 90, 120, 138, 147 designed for money markets 53 economics and 25, 127 externalities 35 and life 55, 86, 154, 159 local circulation 103–5, 107, 124, 151–2 means to an end 15 new economics view 15, 59–60, 89 new ways of organizing 56–60 re-using 103–5 replacing with well-being 42 slowing down 51–2, 60 too little 57 types of 14–15, 57, 59, 120 and value 10, 15, 53, 59 and wealth 15, 19, 32, 38, 78 and well-being 18, 21, 81 see also GDP; growth; price; trickle down money flows 26, 50–2, 60, 103–5, 107, 124, 136–8 money markets 1–2, 52, 53, 55, 138, 154–5 money poverty 81–2 money system 7–8, 50–6, 60 monopolies 8, 20, 83, 84–6, 89–90, 125–6, 133, 146 Monsanto 85, 140 moral philosophy 12, 19, 72–3 morality 8, 18, 28, 74, 115 economics and 12, 19, 22 Morris, William 18, 78, 151 mortgages 1, 4, 5–6, 6, 7, 46, 91 working to pay 46, 68, 73, 77–8, 79, 81, 83, 84, 89, 126–7, 140 see also house prices motivations 4–5, 11, 67–9, 70, 71, 72, 73, 75 multinationals 14, 61, 84–5, 90, 137–8, 139, 143 multiple currencies 58, 59–60, 60, 90 multiplier effect 103–5 Murdoch, Rupert 52 188 THE NEW ECONOMICS Myers, Norman 117 Nanumaea (Tuvalu) 34 national accounting 37–8, 38–9 national debt 49–50, 83, 84, 139, 141 national grid 102, 106 National Health Service see NHS natural capital 3, 99 natural resources 22, 40, 43, 84, 97–8 needs 20, 24, 25, 67, 75, 86 basic 25, 89, 91–2, 115 nef (the new economics foundation) 24, 26, 45, 71, 104, 131–2, 145 Local Alchemy programme 152–3 see also Happy Planet Index; LM3 ‘neo-liberal’ policies 8, 27–8 Nether Wallop (Hampshire) 80, 81 The Netherlands 58, 106, 138 New Century 5 New Deal for Communities 152 New Deal (US) 157 new economics 2–3, 9–10, 18–19, 28–9, 59, 153–4, 159–60 Cuba as object lesson 96–7 history of 9–10, 18–19, 21–7 and the mainstream 26 as new definition of wealth 15 principles 35, 157–8 new economics foundation see nef New York City 52, 128 News Corporation 52 NHS (National Health Service) 87, 114, 131 Northern Rock 6 Nottingham 35 Nu-Spaarpas experiment 106 Obama, Barack 154, 157 obsolescence, built-in 98, 100, 101 odious debt 146 offshore assets 136–7 offshore financial centres 52–3, 61 oil 3, 96, 115, 117, 155 Oil Legacy Fund 157 orchards 111, 112, 115, 124 organic food 26 Ostrom, Elinor 127 out-of-town retailing 75, 80, 123, 132 overconsumption 32, 40, 44, 113 Owen, Robert 57 ownership 11, 46, 60, 91, 118, 156 paid work 87–9, 92 palm oil 112 Partners in Health 130–1 peak oil 3, 96, 117, 155 Pearce, David 25–6, 98, 115 Peasants’ Revolt (1381) 18 pensions 7, 44, 61, 73, 155 people, as assets 15, 57–8, 128–9, 130, 131 permit trading 45, 117–18, 148 personal carbon allowances 45, 117–18 personal debt 7, 36, 83–4, 91, 140, 141 Petrini, Carlo 119–20 Pettifor, Ann 135, 137 philanthropy 130, 133 policy makers 28, 35, 73, 87, 90 assumptions of 67, 68, 73, 128 Keynes on 10, 35, 67, 87, 159 political agenda 42–7 politicians 11, 54, 159 politics, new 159 pollution 10, 35, 37, 40, 98, 112, 114 by GM genes 91, 117, 119 poor 29, 145–6 Porritt, Jonathon 23 post-autistic economics 9–10, 71–2 poverty 4, 23, 35, 79–80, 81–2, 127 economic system and 13–14, 18, 29, 81–2, 154 interdependence leading to 111–15 reduction 39–40, 51–2, 61, 116, 124–5 poverty gap 4, 52–3, 78, 82 power 10, 12, 25, 28, 53, 141–2 corporate 20, 28, 85 monopoly power 83, 89–90, 125–6, 146 power relationships 29, 114 price 10, 67, 72, 73, 115, 153 Price, Andrew 132 INDEX prices 80, 156, 158 Pritchard, Alison 23 product life cycle 97–8, 101 professionals 130, 132, 133, 159 profits 12, 13, 99 progress 36, 37–8, 39, 43, 44, 77–8, 81–2, 84 Proudhon, Pierre-Joseph 120 psychology, economics and 67–8, 71, 72–3 public goods 148 public sector commissioning 131–2, 133 public services 45, 74, 127–32, 158 public transport 66, 74 ‘purchasing power parity’ 81 Putnam, Robert 126–7, 127–8 189 retirement 46, 73 see also pensions rewarded work 88 rewards 7, 8, 11, 25, 92, 141, 142 roads 66, 115 Robertson, James 17, 22, 23, 55, 145 Rockefeller, John D. 28 Roman Catholic church 19, 21, 117 Roosevelt, Eleanor 96 Roosevelt, Franklin Delano 157 Rotterdam (The Netherlands) 106 rubbish 97–105 Rupasingha, Anil 124 Rushey Green surgery (London) 131 Ruskin, John 17–18, 18, 29, 35, 78, 81 Russia 110 qoin system 58 rainforests 4, 10, 111, 112 ‘rational man’ assumption 10, 71 RBS 142 re-use 97, 99, 100–5 Reagan, Ronald 22, 27 real money, generating 120 ‘real’ wealth 2, 32, 36–40 reciprocity 44, 128, 128–30, 133 see also co-production recycling 97, 98, 100–1, 105–6, 106–7 redistribution 19, 27, 52, 96 regeneration 27, 104, 105, 107, 116, 124, 128 regional currencies 58, 59, 60 regulation 129, 156 competition 85, 113, 125, 126, 133 financial sector 53, 85, 157 relationships 4, 69, 83, 128–30 remittances 137 Rendell, Matt 33 renewable energy 26, 97, 102, 102–3, 114, 156, 157 repair 97, 98, 101, 105, 107 resources 32, 43, 97–8, 99, 100–1, 114, 158 local 25, 115 natural 22, 40, 43, 84, 97–8 St Louis (Missouri) 131 Samoa 34 Sane (South African New Economics) 58 saving seeds 91, 117, 119, 141 savings 7, 46, 73, 90, 157 schools 131 Schor, Juliet 83 Schumacher, E.F.

The Great Tax Robbery: How Britain Became a Tax Haven for Fat Cats and Big Business
by Richard Brooks
Published 2 Jan 2014

Other studies have looked at trends in effective corporation tax rates for Britain’s largest companies and found them to be around 5% below their officially declared rates, much of which is attributable to structures adopted for tax purposes.‌37 ‌ ‌Figure 1 • UK corporate profits and corporation tax (1991-2011)‌‌‌36 This pervasive, expanding tax avoidance does more than just short-change government finances. Available almost exclusively to wealthy companies and individuals, it widens inequality. It also distorts the democratic process. A mega-rich ‘non-dom’ lured to the UK with the promise of keeping his offshore fortunes tax free as a favour from the government is disproportionately likely to become a major donor to a political party with privileged access to some powerful people and influence in matters beyond taxation. Most famously of all, the benefits of non-dom status have helped Lord (Michael) Ashcroft to make huge donations to the Conservative Party and become close to its leading figures, notably William Hague.

Don't Trust, Don't Fear, Don't Beg: The Extraordinary Story of the Arctic 30
by Ben Stewart
Published 4 May 2015

I give blood; volunteer at my local scout group; pick up dog poo off the playing field and I don’t have a dog; went to court as a witness to two violent crimes; helped fight a supermarket development; have taught kids to make award-winning films; have worked on projects for the Stop Aids foundation and the RSPB [Royal Society for the Protection of Birds]; invested £1,000 of my own money to help set up a community wind farm co-operative; and once saved and hand-reared a pigeon called Gerald. But the biggest thing I’ve done in support and protection of society? Coming 180 nautical miles north of the Arctic Circle to protest against Arctic oil drilling, against the greedy mega-rich oil companies Gazprom, Shell and others that do not listen to the warnings about oil spills, runaway climate change, hurricanes, droughts, floods and famines, and continue to make a fortune at the expense of and ‘in contempt of’ the societies of our children and grandchildren. Hooliganism doesn’t even come close to what they are guilty of.

Power, for All: How It Really Works and Why It's Everyone's Business
by Julie Battilana and Tiziana Casciaro
Published 30 Aug 2021

The very act of leaving home for work carried a substantial risk that you would not make it back at the end of the workday.67 At the same time, industrialists like Andrew Carnegie and Henry Frick amassed fortunes through their control of the means of production. Their enormous power ensconced them in the upper echelons of American society, with lavish residences in New York City and vacation homes in places like Newport, Rhode Island, that have today become magnets for tourists curious to discover the opulence of America’s first mega-rich. The new industrialists and their bankers accumulated so much wealth that they quickly became the most powerful people in America. Inhumane working conditions and stark inequalities between workers and the owners of capital were not unique to steel mills or to the United States. News of worker revolts in Europe began to cross the ocean, as did new ideas, including the writings of the German philosopher Karl Marx.

Nomad Century: How Climate Migration Will Reshape Our World
by Gaia Vince
Published 22 Aug 2022

So far, there are just three buildings, but it plans to expand to 10,000 residents by 2025, who will need only to sign a social contract and pay a considerable membership fee, to be a part of the libertarian dream.20 The concept shares elements with the Seasteading movement, a libertarian group of mega-rich preppers intent on building independent floating cities on the high seas. The Seasteading Institute was founded in San Francisco in 2008 by anarcho-capitalist (and Google software engineer) Patri Friedman, with funding from PayPal billionaire Peter Thiel, to ‘establish permanent, autonomous ocean communities to enable experimentation and innovation with diverse social, political, and legal systems’.

Bad Samaritans: The Myth of Free Trade and the Secret History of Capitalism
by Ha-Joon Chang
Published 26 Dec 2007

The company had a royal monopoly on all overseas trading.With Law launching high-profile settlement schemes in Louisiana (French North America) and generating rumours vastly exaggerating their prospects, a speculative frenzy on the company’s stocks started in the summer of 1719. The share price rose by more than 30 times between early 1719 and early 1720. So many large fortunes were made so quickly – and subsequently lost in many cases – that the term millionaire was coined to describe the new mega-rich. In January 1720, Law was even made the finance minister (the Controller General of Finances). But the bubble soon burst, leaving the French financial system in ruins. The Duc d’Orléans dismissed Law in December 1720. Law left France and eventually died penniless in Venice in 1729. * Access to academic books is crucial in enhancing the productive capabilities of developing countries, as my own experience with pirate-copied books, described in the Prologue, suggests.

The Education of Millionaires: It's Not What You Think and It's Not Too Late
by Michael Ellsberg
Published 15 Jan 2011

Never give up on your dream that putting your entire life savings on the number six could pay off big. And if you lose, double down—borrow if you have to—and keep going! Don’t give up! You’ll hit it big one of these days!” The chance of becoming a true star in any given field, on the level of a David Gilmour, or some of the other self-educated mega-famous or mega-rich people I feature in this book (such as billionaires John Paul DeJoria, Phillip Ruffin, and Dustin Moskovitz), is orders of magnitude tinier than the chance of picking the winning number on a roulette spin. It’s more like picking the winning number several spins in a row. I don’t advocate gambling.

Bad Samaritans: The Guilty Secrets of Rich Nations and the Threat to Global Prosperity
by Ha-Joon Chang
Published 4 Jul 2007

With Law launching high-profile settlement schemes in Louisiana (French North America) and generating rumours vastly exaggerating their prospects, a speculative frenzy on the company’s stocks started in the summer of 1719. The share price rose by more than 30 times between early 1719 and early 1720. So many large fortunes were made so quickly – and subsequently lost in many cases – that the term millionaire was coined to describe the new mega-rich. In January 1720, Law was even made the finance minister (the Controller General of Finances). But the bubble soon burst, leaving the French financial system in ruins. The Duc d’Orléans dismissed Law in December 1720. Law left France and eventually died penniless in Venice in 1729. iii Access to academic books is crucial in enhancing the productive capabilities of developing countries, as my own experience with pirate-copied books, described in the Prologue, suggests.

Why I Left Goldman Sachs: A Wall Street Story
by Greg Smith
Published 21 Oct 2012

Hedge fund: An investment fund that can undertake a wide range of strategies, including using leverage and derivatives, both going long (buying) and getting short (selling, without actually owning the asset). Because hedge funds are not highly regulated, they are only open to very large investors, such as pension funds, university endowments, and high-net-worth individuals. High-net-worth individuals: A polite term for people who are mega-rich or loaded. Hit a bid: To sell something at the price the market maker is willing to pay for it (i.e., the bid price). Hit the tape: Complete the trade; or the announcement of some news. It originates from the ticker tape that was used to transmit stock price information from 1870. Wall Streeters use this term all the time: “My new kid hit the tape” (i.e., we had a new baby).

The End of Growth: Adapting to Our New Economic Reality
by Richard Heinberg
Published 1 Jun 2011

— Paul Kedrosky (entrepreneur, editor of the econoblog Infectious Greed) In the course of researching and writing this book, I discussed its central thesis — that world economic growth has come to an end — with several economists, various businesspeople, a former hedge fund manager, a topflight business consultant, and the former managing director of one of Wall Street’s largest investment banks, as well as several ecologists and environmental activists. The most common reaction (heard as often from the environmentalists as the bankers) was along the lines of: “But capitalism has a few more tricks up its sleeve. It’s infinitely creative. Even if we’ve hit environmental limits to energy or water, the mega-rich will find ways to amass yet more capital on the way down the depletion slope. It’ll still look like growth to them.” Most economists would probably agree with the view that environmental constraints and a crisis in the financial world don’t add up to the end of growth — just a speed bump in the highway of progress.

Pandora's Brain
by Calum Chace
Published 4 Feb 2014

‘People like Bill Joy and Francis Fukuyama have called for a worldwide ban on certain kinds of technological research, but it’s like nuclear weapons: the genie is out of the bottle. The idea of so-called ‘relinquishment’ is simply not an option. If by some miracle, the governments of North America and Europe all agreed to stop the research, would all the countries in the world follow suit? And all the mega-rich? Could we really set up some kind of worldwide Turing police force to prevent the creation of a super-intelligence anywhere in the world, despite the astonishing competitive advantage that would confer for a business, or an army? I don’t think so.’ Ross’s mask of concerned curiosity failed to conceal his delight at the sensationalist nature of Montaubon’s vision.

The Panama Papers: Breaking the Story of How the Rich and Powerful Hide Their Money
by Frederik Obermaier
Published 17 Jun 2016

Joachim zu Baldernach had decided to buy himself an even bigger yacht, a mega-yacht tailor-made to his own specifications. By all appearances, this yacht is also held by a shell company in another tax haven. All perfectly organized by a professional family office. But is it normal to set up one offshore company here, one there, and another over there? In the world of the mega-rich, the answer is evidently: yes. [ ] At some point towards the end of the last century, a parallel universe emerged in which the ‘uber-wealthy’, a term used in America to describe the richest of the rich, park their assets somewhere offshore, simply as a matter of course. The number of very rich and very famous families in our data who have parked part of their assets in shell companies is in three figures.

The AI Economy: Work, Wealth and Welfare in the Robot Age
by Roger Bootle
Published 4 Sep 2019

But, as we have just discussed, even in the West there are serious threats to individual freedom and rights to privacy, even from within the private sector. Moreover, the creators of the great digital-era companies that dominate the modern world – Amazon, Google, Apple, and so on – are decidedly of a kind: the Western ones are all American, white, and male. Typically, although the founders have become mega-rich by selling stakes in what they have created, they retain control. The 2012 presidential campaign by Barack Obama used machine learning and big data. As a result, the campaign was “highly successful in not only mobilizing, but also convincing voters to give Obama their support.”37 Then, during the 2016 US presidential election, the firm Cambridge Analytica used big data and machine learning to send voters different messages based on predictions about their susceptibility to different arguments.38 Another issue that has emerged recently is the use of fake news to influence election campaigns, arguably preventing a “fair” election.

The End of Power: From Boardrooms to Battlefields and Churches to States, Why Being in Charge Isn’t What It Used to Be
by Moises Naim
Published 5 Mar 2013

Interestingly, the billionaire who gained the most wealth between 2007 and 2008, Indian industrialist Anil Ambani, was also the one who lost the most the next year (though he still ranked 118 in 2012).20 According to a 2012 study by wealth intelligence firm Wealth-X, between mid-2011 and mid-2012 Chinese billionaires lost almost a third of their combined wealth.21 No one is shedding any tears for the plight of the mega-rich. But the turbulence in the world’s wealth rankings rounds out a picture of insecurity at the top of the business world—whether of bosses, corporations, or brands—that is heightened relative to any time in recent memory, in a business arena that is more global and diverse than at any time in the past.

Adriatic: A Concert of Civilizations at the End of the Modern Age
by Robert D. Kaplan
Published 11 Apr 2022

Russia’s interest in Montenegro is also wrought by Russia’s considerable history of cultural and linguistic ties to Serbian-speaking territories, to its economic investments here, and to the fact that this beautiful Adriatic resort has become a playground for Russian organized crime.[6] By some accounts, Russians own 40 percent of Montenegro’s real estate, while a quarter of all tourism here is from Russia, and the casinos and marina project are designed for the Russian “mega-rich” with their “super-yachts,” whose money “is of murky provenance to say the least,” says Croatian-born, Washington-based analyst Damir Marusic. NATO officials are aware of all this and still welcome Montenegro into the Western alliance. With Croatia and Albania already NATO members, admitting Montenegro closes off the Adriatic to the Russian military.

Luxury Fever: Why Money Fails to Satisfy in an Era of Excess
by Robert H. Frank
Published 15 Jan 1999

“Tourists Win Cultural Shootout in Jackson Hole, Wyoming,” New York Times, August 14, 1996: A10. Brooks, Nancy Rivera. “Burning Ambition: Cigar Club Owners See Bright Future in Smoke-Filled Rooms,” Los Angeles Times, October 25, 1996: D1. Brown, Patricia Leigh. “Techno Dwellings for the Cyber-Egos of the Mega-Rich,” New York Times, August 4, 1996: A1, A39. Bryce-Smith, D. “Environmental Chemical Influences on Behaviour and Mentation,” Chem. Soc. Review 15, 1986: 93-123. Bryce-Smith, D. “Lead Induced Disorder of Mentation in Children,” Nutrition andHealth 1, 1983: 179-94. Bulman, R. J., and C. B. Wortman.

Tenants: The People on the Frontline of Britain's Housing Emergency
by Vicky Spratt
Published 18 May 2022

This tale of intergenerational unfairness, of age as ‘the new political divide’, has, perhaps inadvertently, become a distraction: playing generations off against one another, encouraging families and friends to fight among themselves, takes the heat away from politicians, the systemic failures of housing policy and, above all, our economic system in which the international finance market feeds on these injustices and is bailed out by us all – as taxpayers. This narrative about intergenerational unfairness also misses a crucial point. The reason that older people – particularly those we might call middle-income who are neither mega rich nor struggling – want to hoard wealth in the form of property is so that they can pass it on to their children and grandchildren, because they are worried about them. Even as they have benefited from house price rises, strong unions, decent pensions and full employment, they can see that this is not the case any longer, and that most work does not pay properly, and they know that the social safety net has been unravelled.

Madoff: The Final Word
by Richard Behar
Published 9 Jul 2024

Q: On your direct examination, you were asked about homes that you owned and that you were moving in 2007 and 2008. Do you recall that? A: Yes. Q: I think you also testified when you were being asked about the amount in your IA account that the homes that you had were not decorated like palaces? A: Right. And so it went for poor, mega-rich Annette. Jurors had been told previously that Bongiorno had more than $50 million (in largely fictional money, of course) in various investment accounts with Bernie on the day the firm collapsed. She had also withdrawn more than $10 million over the years. Considering her thin résumé and only a high school diploma, jurors wondered how she could not have ever asked herself whether a fortune in the middle eight figures was possible for someone like her without it all being a huge fraud.

Traders, Guns & Money: Knowns and Unknowns in the Dazzling World of Derivatives
by Satyajit Das
Published 15 Nov 2006

There was an additional complication: in doing the IPO, the original owner generally had to give an undertaking not to sell their shares for a specific time (usually one to two years). The phenomenon of paper-rich, cash-poor entrepreneurs was a problem made for equity derivatives. The promoters were generally private bankers to the newly mega-rich entrepreneurs. The monetization solutions generally circumvented the share sale restriction. Ironically, sometimes two arms of the same institution were involved: one negotiated the sales restriction, the other arranged a way out of the restriction. This is one of the few cases where internal Chinese walls in firms were useful.

All the Money in the World
by Peter W. Bernstein
Published 17 Dec 2008

Vanderbilt II, Fortune’s Children: The Fall of the House of Vanderbilt (New York: William Morrow, 1989), for more details on the period. 13. In 2007 timber baron Tim Blixseth: Forbes.com. 14. Media mogul John Kluge: Information on the mansions in this section comes mostly from Forbes.com. 15. On the West Coast: Patricia Leigh Brown, “Techno-Dwellings for the Cyber-Egos of the Mega-Rich,” New York Times, Aug. 4, 1996. 16. Multimillion-dollar homes: “Real Estate of Bay Area Billionaires,” http://blog.360.yahoo.com/blog-2Ojrgz8zaa.tuoHABvthpbldl6KImA—?cq=1&p=158. 17. Few areas of America: Munk, “Greenwich’s Outrageous Fortunes.” 18. For a few heady months in 2000: [Unsigned,] “Gates Loses Title as World’s Richest Man,” news.com, Apr. 2000. 19.

Endless Money: The Moral Hazards of Socialism
by William Baker and Addison Wiggin
Published 2 Nov 2009

Realistically, with an accommodative and successful Democraticcontrolled Congress, we might move from an all-in state, federal, and FICA 60-plus percent rate to something far higher. Proposals such as a bill before the Senate (“Global Poverty Act” S2433) authored by Obama when he was in the Senate that seeks to dedicate 0.7 percent of U.S. GDP annually to foreign aid might become law. Still, mega-rich liberals such as Buffett and Soros might continue to see nearly all of their income be subject to something less than half this, since neither tycoon derives much if anything from W-2s or ordinary income like regular Americans do.5, 6 Even if the credit crisis fades, two terms of socialism might pass, only to be in hailing distance of IOUs from Social Security and Medicare being taken out of the vault and presented to the U.S.

As Gods: A Moral History of the Genetic Age
by Matthew Cobb
Published 15 Nov 2022

Despite all the substantial technical and ethical issues relating to de-extinction, in 2014 the International Union for the Conservation of Nature set up a De-extinction Task Force which produced a set of guiding principles outlining the kind of detailed ecological and financial risk assessments that would be necessary before genetic engineering was applied to endangered or extinct species.14 In 2019, a subgroup of the Task Force published a positive exploration of the potential impact of genetic technology on conservation.15 At around the same time, ecologists from the University of California Santa Barbara and Imperial College took a far more cautious view, arguing that any de-extinction programme should focus on recently extinct species (their ecology would be more likely to be intact) that could be restored in sufficient numbers to enable the recreation of their lost ecological function.16 That would rule out the mammoth, or a mammothified elephant. What looks like a spiffy technofix might provoke excitement and attract funding from the public or mega-rich celebrities but is unlikely to be a solution to extinction for any but a tiny handful of cases. If molecular biology really must be employed, then scientists should try cloning dead members of an endangered species to increase genetic diversity, as has been done in the case of the US black-footed ferret, with funding from the R&R foundation.17 In 2022, an attempt to recover the genome of the extinct Christmas Island rat, using different extant rat genomes as models, showed that it was impossible to recover around 5 per cent of the genome, with over twenty genes being completely absent.

Who Stole the American Dream?
by Hedrick Smith
Published 10 Sep 2012

So many exotic tax shelters have been invented by ingenious tax lawyers and accountants to reduce the taxes of the super-rich that former IRS commissioner Charles Rossotti, a Republican businessman, estimated the tax loss to illegitimate tax evasions at $250 billion to $350 billion a year. As a result, Rossotti told me, honest taxpayers have to pay 15 percent more in their taxes. “Stop Coddling the Super-Rich,” declares Warren Buffett, the famous billionaire investor from Omaha. “I know well many of the mega-rich and, by and large, they are very decent people. They love America and appreciate the opportunity this country has given them…. Most wouldn’t mind being told to pay more in taxes as well, particularly when so many of their fellow citizens are truly suffering.” As Buffett has frequently pointed out, the super-rich make most of their money from the stock market and other investments, which are taxed at the 15 percent capital gains rate, much lower than the tax rate on most middle-class salaries.

Fodor's Rome: With the Best City Walks and Scenic Day Trips
by Fodor's Travel Publications Inc.
Published 24 Sep 2012

A reconstruction of the temple and Capitol Hill from the Bronze Age to present day makes for a fascinating glance through the ages. Some of the pottery and bones on display were dug up from as early as the 12th century BC, recasting Romulus and Remus as Johnny-come-latelies. Off left are rooms dedicated to statuary from the so-called Horti, or the gardens of ancient Rome’s great and mega-rich. From the Horti Lamiani is the Venere Esquilina doing her hair. (Look for the fingers at the back, at the end of the missing arms.) Believe it or not, you might be gazing at the young Cleopatra invited to Rome by Julius Caesar. Or so say some experts—a further clue is the asp. In the same room is an extraordinary bust of the Emperor Commodus, seen here as Hercules and unearthed in the late 1800s during building work for the new capital.

The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again
by Robert D. Putnam
Published 12 Oct 2020

By contrast, giving to United Way, the largest single charity in America and one focused almost entirely on small gifts, fell uninterruptedly in the nearly six decades between 1961 and 2017, with no evidence whatsoever of an increase in the 1996–2005 boom years. In short, philanthropy among most Americans has fallen steadily since the mid-1960s, only partially and temporarily offset by megagifts from the newly mega-rich.91 This is exactly what happened in the previous Gilded Age, as Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and some of their peers, immensely rich as a by-product of the massive increase in inequality, doled out megagifts. It may seem hard to be critical of the generosity of Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and Mark Zuckerberg, but their personal charity shouldn’t conceal the metastasizing self-centeredness among middle-class Americans since the peak of our generosity in the 1960s.92 WORKER SOLIDARITY In Chapter 2 on economic inequality we discussed in detail the rise of labor unions as economic institutions in the first half of the twentieth century and their collapse after 1960.

Extreme Money: Masters of the Universe and the Cult of Risk
by Satyajit Das
Published 14 Oct 2011

For the wealthy, financialization of life was trading and speculation; using money was a means to an end and an end in itself. This even changed the source of wealth, with almost a quarter of the 2006 rich owing their fortunes to the finance sector compared with less than one-tenth in 1982. Trickling Down, Trading Up Most of the population generally got richer, not über or even mega rich, but comfortable. Middle-class incomes increased broadly throughout the world. In 1914, Henry Ford doubled workers’ pay from $2.34 to $5 per day and introduced a new, reduced working week. Ford argued that paying people more would enable workers to afford the cars that they were producing. The U.S. auto industry pioneered the basic wage in 1948.

The Great Leveler: Violence and the History of Inequality From the Stone Age to the Twenty-First Century
by Walter Scheidel
Published 17 Jan 2017

In 2013, President Barack Obama elevated rising inequality to a “defining challenge”: And that is a dangerous and growing inequality and lack of upward mobility that has jeopardized middle-class America’s basic bargain—that if you work hard, you have a chance to get ahead. I believe this is the defining challenge of our time: Making sure our economy works for every working American. Two years earlier, multibillionaire investor Warren Buffett had complained that he and his “mega-rich friends” did not pay enough taxes. These sentiments are widely shared. Within eighteen months of its publication in 2013, a 700-page academic tome on capitalist inequality had sold 1.5 million copies and risen to the top of the New York Times nonfiction hardcover bestseller list. In the Democratic Party primaries for the 2016 presidential election, Senator Bernie Sanders’s relentless denunciation of the “billionaire class” roused large crowds and elicited millions of small donations from grassroots supporters.

The Code: Silicon Valley and the Remaking of America
by Margaret O'Mara
Published 8 Jul 2019

To help the economy recover from the housing bust and deep recession of 2008, the Federal Reserve had kept interest rates low, pumping liquidity into the market and leaving the monied classes looking for high-yield places to put their cash. The abundance and variety of investment capital—private equity, hedge funds, angels—lessened the need for IPOs in a company’s early stages and increased SEC scrutiny of public companies further dampened start-ups’ enthusiasm for a Wall Street offering. Overseas investment by the world’s new mega-rich became another growing source of capital, particularly useful in the shaky days after the 2008 market crash. A cash-hungry Facebook entered into a lucrative deal in May 2009 with Russian financier Yuri Milner, a billionaire with close Kremlin ties; Milner ultimately ended up holding close to 9 percent of the company.

USA's Best Trips
by Sara Benson
Published 23 May 2010

It’s housed in the 1897 former headquarters of the Phelps Dodge Copper Mining Co and does an excellent job documenting the town’s past and the changing face of mining. You even get to “drive” an industrial mining shovel with a dipper larger than most living rooms. * * * GEORGE WARREN He may be credited with discovering Bisbee’s mega-rich Queen Mine, but George Warren’s tale is a hard-luck one. He was sent to investigate a promising deposit spotted by two other prospectors, and ended up filing the mining claim in his own name. So far, so good. Warren then downed a few drinks at the local pub, boasted that he could outrun a horse, bet his new mine claim on the stunt…and lost.

Money and Power: How Goldman Sachs Came to Rule the World
by William D. Cohan
Published 11 Apr 2011

Some partners were beginning to think that everything they had built up for so long at Goldman might be at serious risk of being lost, since their capital remained at the firm and their annual cash compensation was limited to an 8 percent dividend on their capital account. “Partners are seen outside as mega-rich, but that is not the case at all,” Mike O’Brien told The Independent, a U.K. newspaper, in September 1992. “Their capital stays with the firm. My C-registration Ford Granada is testament to that.” (On the other hand, one of O’Brien’s London partners, David Morrison, drove a Ferrari around town.) For the banking partner who started 1994 with a $7 million capital account and ended with a $4 million capital account, after absorbing the trading losses, his cash compensation for the year decreased to $320,000, from $560,000.

Empire of Things: How We Became a World of Consumers, From the Fifteenth Century to the Twenty-First
by Frank Trentmann
Published 1 Dec 2015

In the United States, the number of millionaires doubled between 1995 and 2005. By the early twenty-first century, the richest 10 per cent in Anglo-Saxon countries controlled 30–43 per cent of income, a concentration not seen since the 1930s.94 Inequality is most pronounced at the very top. The super-rich turned into the mega-rich. Between 1995 and 2007, the four richest people in America more than doubled their wealth to over $1 trillion. The precise causes behind this new era of inequality are a matter of debate – technological change, the rise in single-person households, poorly paid and insecure part-time jobs and less effective tax redistribution are the prime candidates.

Great Britain
by David Else and Fionn Davenport
Published 2 Jan 2007

Camden’s great for grungy boozers and rock kids, although it’s facing stiff competition on the Bohemian-cool front from the venues around Hoxton and Shoreditch. Now that Princes William and Harry have hit their stride, the Sloane Ranger scene has been reborn in exclusive venues in South Ken(sington), although the ‘Turbo Sloanes’ now count mega-rich commoners among their numbers. The rest of us mere mortals will find plenty of pub-crawl potential in places like Islington, Clerkenwell, Southwark, Notting Hill, Earl’s Court…hell, it’s just not that difficult. The reviews below are simply to make sure you don’t miss out on some of the most historic, unusual, best-positioned or excellent examples of the genre.