Sunday, February 01, 2015

The Super-Rich Are Different

Investigative Journalist Jacques Peretti spent 6 months with making a show for the BBC, called The Super-Rich and Us. He travelled to various castles and penthouses all over the world.

What did he learn from spending so much time with the super-wealthy? “They're fast becoming a breed apart. And this isn't a lazy use of the term "breed apart" - it's both biologically and psychologically accurate. It's their self-willed destiny. The super-rich believe that they're Masters Of The Universe, and the facts seem to bear them out. They hold power in that quiet understated way Sun Tzu defined as “the one who doesn't speak in a room. He's the one who holds all the cards”.”

“Whether they're in their private jets, helicopters, or penthouse suites, they occupy a space that mere mortals like us can only squint at from street level. Their separation makes it easier for them to accept the inequality of which they're a part - and puts them literally out of reach.
In this biosphere, they eat better food, go to better schools, wear better clothes, take better medicine, and thus breed a cleaner, richer tribe. They even breathe cleaner air. Several billionaires have their own mobile air supplies, which are pumped into whatever home they've decided to stay at. If you have a property in Shanghai, for example, being super-wealthy allows you to avoid having the same smog-filled lungs as the rest of the city’s 14m inhabitants…. No matter how hard they try, the super-rich live in a hermetically enclosed bubble.”

“Pity democracy, pity people, but don't pity those with too much money.” Peretti concludes in his article

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