The darkness made it seem later than it really was and there was nothing left on iPlayer so I started Industry. As I binge watched I realised it was Wolf of Wall Street with more noughties emotional sass. The decadence Martin Amis has portrayed far more graphically in his 1984 novel.
A tax bill dropped on my mat. I began browsing Covid contracts, corporate websites with passport photos of white men, rich lists. I wondered about their hobbies, I found the vocabulary of hedge funds: pooled funds, returns, alpha, derivatives, swaps, gearing, short-selling, futures, options, warrants.
I think I might write letters to these people. But what would I ask them? Why me and my friends don't sit around tables discussing pooled funds? How far away we are from powering the planet? Is my alienation age-related? Is it class? Is it education?
"So the superrich do indeed seem to be moving further and further away from the rest of society."This sentence ends a 2020 report by global insurance and asset management company, Allianz. A few years back Oxfam used Credit Suisse's annual global wealth report to show what the world's rich are worth. This year's contains a similar pyramid: 1% of the adult population – accounts for 43.4% of global net worth at the end of 2019. A couple of years ago Dominic Frisby predicted by 2030, 1% will own two thirds of global wealth. The Credit Suisse report this year identifies industries with most billionaires: 1. finance and investment 2. tech 3. fashion and retail 4. real estate and 5. food and drink.
But we're still not talking about money - what we earn, how we earn it and what being at the level of hedge funds and three figure (or more) income actually means. The vocabulary of power is ring fenced by those who do understand it. If I really understood how big money was made, what it takes to trade x for y, make that phone and sell it at that price, make, transport and sell a beaded dress....why property developers are making money on government grants, why the UK funded a buy one get one free meal deal during a pandemic. If I was properly financially and economically literate, would that shift to 1% owning 66% still be the next decade's safest bet?
The ad campaign above became meaningless when a rich boy went for a drive up the M1 and bumbled around Cumbria in his Land Rover. We still joke about it. He got off. Who can teach me what I need to understand Gates, Ortega, Buffett, Helu, Bezos, Zuckerberg, Ellison and Bloomberg and their trajectories? Their place in the world compared to mine.
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