Billionaires: Reflections on the Upper Crust - Hardcover

Darrell M. West

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0815725825 ISBN 13: 9780815725824

Publisher: Brookings Institution Press, 2014

Synopsis

There are 1,218 known billionaires in the world. Collectively, they represent one-millionth of one percent and control number 4.5 trillion in assets. This concentration of financial resources has increased dramatically in the early twenty-first century. The super rich have spawned new industries and business models; they have affected how people shop, communicate, earn a living, and spend their leisure time. Darrell West's book Billionaires crafts a nuanced picture of the super-wealthy's role in philanthropy, the political system, and the economy. Billionaires takes us inside the world of the super-wealthy from New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg to Heinz Family Philanthropies Chair Teresa Heinz Kerry. How does wealth affect political candidates' campaigns -including Bloomberg's - or charities' capacity to provide social benefits? Do the uberwealthy spur or stifle innovation and pluralistic economic advancement? To answer these questions, West combines personal observation of super-rich people with data regarding wealth creation, income distribution, public opinion, and case studies. He considers the dilemma of heightened income inequality and how wealth concentrations challenge both democracies and developing countries. Billionaires is a fascinating journey inside public perceptions and private realities of prosperity; ultimately, it forwards original ideas to harness the power of money for social, economic, and political good.

About this title

Product Description:

Title: Billionaires( Reflections on the Upper Crust) <>Binding: Hardcover <>Author: DarrellM.West <>Publisher: BrookingsInstitutionPress

Review:

"F. Scott Fitzgerald taught us that the very rich are different from the rest of us. Now Darrell West has taken us on a thoughtful romp through the world of our new billionaire class. At a moment when we have read both glorifications and denunciations of those with unimaginably large fortunes, West has set out to understand and explain who they are and what they do. He couples a moral concern for the cost of rising inequality with a scholar's commitment to telling the story straight. This is both an important book and a good read." --E.J. Dionne, Georgetown University

About this edition

• Publisher: Brookings Institution Press
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0815725825
• ISBN 13: 9780815725824
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 269