Again and again, Knowles\u2019s stories attest to a money machine devoted to nothing but its own perpetuation. She cites \u201cno less a figure than UK Financial Services Authority Chairman Adair Turner\u201d, who has described banks as engaged in \u201c\u2018economically and socially useless activity\u2019.\u201d Big finance is a closed system designed by bankers to redistribute money among themselves. And to what end? The way Knowles tells it, having loads of money is not much fun at all. Jean-Paul Sartre described being rich as an \u201cinherently nervous condition\u201d; the plutocrats Knowles meets, along with their stay-at-home wives and spoilt children, are paranoid, bored or prima donna-ish to the point of mental breakdown. A Colombian woman who organizes VIP services in top-end London hotels tells Knowles that she once had to turn down a request to refloor a suite with turf: \u201cthe guest was bringing their dog and the dog would only use the toilet on real grass\u201d.<\/p>\n
Money begets purposelessness, particularly in the case of inherited wealth. An assistant to a billionaire\u2019s son notes the \u201csuffocating vacuity\u201d and \u201cemptiness\u201d of lives spent making social occasions \u2013 invariably with other, identically aimless members of the super-rich \u2013 \u201clast and shape the day\u201d. Parties become an entirely recursive \u2013 and exhausting \u2013 means of establishing and maintaining one\u2019s status. The spectre of transactionality \u2013 are they just after my money? \u2013 engenders a profound isolation, entrenched by security arrangements that are as extensive as they are largely absurd. London is not Iraq or Afghanistan. Former SAS soldiers are hired to drive the super-rich to their hair appointments or to carry out \u201cpre-location sweeps\u201d at fancy restaurants. \u201cSpontaneous travel\u201d is discouraged because it causes \u201csevere security concerns\u201d. Like so much in the world of the UHNWIs, security is self-perpetuating, seemingly provided for no other reason that, apart from propelling the CEOs of the security companies to UHNWI status themselves, it stands as a marker for the vast wealth it purports to protect.<\/p>\n
Private tutoring operates in much the same way….<\/p>\n
Read it all<\/a>.<\/p>\n Our new Gilded Age \u2014 Exploring the strange world of the modern rich. @TheTLS<\/a> (by Nat Segnit) https:\/\/t.co\/bJZaX6qIdf<\/a><\/p>\n — Mark Storm (@marksstorm) July 1, 2022<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n \n