An excellent article by Arnand Giriharasas, Rich Brain, looks at the Epstein files and considers what they tell us about the ultra-rich. His observation is interesting – that being rich basically becomes a life devoted to maintaining that lifestyle – that you end up ensnared in it rather than being freed from the concerns of regular people.
At one point, Giriharasas refers to a New Yorker article about Julian Robertson, worth billions of dollars, who organised his life around avoiding taxation for spending more than 183 nights a year in New York. The tax rate being avoided – on income only – was 3.6%.
Robertson’s driver had to be on alert: as long as they crossed the Queens border en route to Locust Valley by midnight, Robertson didn’t have to “waste” a Saturday as a New York day. Even one minute of a day spent in the city counts as a day of residence.
This sounds like a lot of work to protect a fraction of your fortune. The article also quotes a tweet from NYT editor Michael Roston:
Was it @choire who wrote that while you’re worrying about the future of journalism, the people who control the money are trying to make sure the right car goes to the right house?
We are told that billionaires are wealth-generators whose ideals and innovation help us all to prosper. But, in fact, much of their discussions are about defending and managing their fortunes: “The price of being rich, it sometimes seems from these emails, is that you have to think all day about being and staying rich.” As Giriharadas writes:
We all have a kind of equity stake in what they spend their waking moments thinking about, because, at the margin, you are working longer hours, eating less food, and buying fewer clothes for your kids to spare billionaires from having to pay more in taxes. So — are you getting your money’s worth?