We've been told that Plutistan (those worth more than a million) increased its population by one million last year, bringing it to 12 million, with a combined worth of over 50 trillion. To put that in perspective, Plutistan could easily pay for the US military out of its income and NASA out of the change it found behind the cushions.
I was talking to a friend tonight, who is generally off the grid, very law abiding (yes, I know that may seem like a non sequitur, especially since since she is Greek) who asked the very simple question.
What do they want?
They already have everything. Are they building spaceships made of gold? Self-contained cities? Life everlasting? What?
And then she brought up a ducktales cartoon that she'd read eons ago. Scrooge was forced to spend tons of money for tax reasons so he took the nephews across the country on a spending spree. They went to the fanciest resorts, the best restaurants, no whim was too idle. When the kids tired of expensive food and got burgers, Scrooge got the doggie bag wrapped in gold foil.
When Scrooge got back his enthusiastic underlings told him that some rich fool had blown a ton of money at his establishments and made him even richer.
This cartoon was decades ago yet remains as true as ever.
Do the very rich know what they want or are they as incompetent as the rest of us, if not more so? Do they realize that there are no other planets to go to? That longevity treatments have to be tested? That their wealth depends on the commonwealth?
Do the very rich know what they are doing?