Having just last week walked around the marina of Barcelona and marvelled at the insane yachts there — one larger and more ostentatious than the next — the algos think I want to read this:
...and they're right, as always.
There are now more than 800 billionaires in the US, up from 66 in 1990, Osnos writes. Between President Donald Trump’s first and second inaugurations alone, the scale of their wealth more than doubled. In The Haves and Have-Yachts: Dispatches on the Ultrarich (Scribner, June 3), Osnos, a staff writer at the New Yorker, peers into these extraordinary fortunes.
Inflation is powerful, so that 66->800 number is a little ridiculously inflated(!)... a billion dollars isn't what it used to be.
Evan Osnos’s Haves and Have Yachts explores growing wealth disparity and the subtle self-delusion embraced by the ultrarich.
Fantastic subheading for a review article.
"the ultimate embodiment of this desire to live separately is the yacht — peak luxury, with an ocean as your moat from the plebes"
A gigayacht, Osnos writes, is “the most expensive item that our species has figured out how to own.”
Anyway, the review makes me want to read the book -- which is always the highest praise one might give to a book reviewer. While there seems to be a very explicit take of leftist-unfair-capitalism-is-broken shit, I do want to read a chronicle of the degenerate, fiat-induced hyper-wealth splurging on wholly unnecessary shit.
This is kind of true -- but not primarily for the reasons the author(s) think
"...illuminates how America birthed a wealth disparity that has destabilized the foundations of the country and now threatens to swallow it whole."
A more equal distribution of wealth and more funding of public benefits such as education, health care and housing could do a great deal to ease the tensions roiling society, the book posits
Yes, idiot; these things are not benefits, and could not "do a great deal to ease the tensions..." #throwup. The problem lies elsewheeeere.
and this sweeping, unfounded statement is pretty disgusting
The thing about being megarich is that it feels good. Having so much while so many have naught can make you feel special
So, Stackers, I come back to the same question I asked a few months ago: Does Extreme Wealth Change People? (#929023).
This feature is moving my needle somewhat toward that interpretation.
non-paywalled here: https://archive.md/EJiEx
u(c), we're never going to move forward.