Jackpot: How the Super-Rich Really Live―and How Their Wealth Harms Us All

by Michael Mechanic

A senior editor at Mother Jones dives into the lives of the extremely rich, showing the fascinating, otherworldly realm they inhabit—and the insidious ways this realm harms us all.

Have you ever fantasized about being ridiculously wealthy? Probably. Striking it rich is among the most resilient of American fantasies, surviving war and peace, expansions and recessions, economic meltdowns and global pandemics. We dream of the jackpot, the big exit, the life-altering payday, in whatever form that takes. (Americans spent $81 billion on lottery tickets in 2019, more than the GDPs of most nations.) We would escape “essential” day jobs and cramped living spaces, bury our debts, buy that sweet spread, and bail out struggling friends and relations. But rarely do we follow the fantasy to its conclusion—to ponder the social, psychological, and societal downsides of great affluence and the fact that so few possess it.

What is it actually like to be blessed with riches in an era of plagues, political rancor, and near-Dickensian economic differences? How mind-boggling are the opportunities and access, how problematic the downsides? Does the experience differ depending on whether the money is earned or unearned, where it comes from, and whether you are male or female, white or black? Finally, how does our collective lust for affluence, and our stubborn belief in social mobility, explain how we got to the point where forty percent of Americans have literally no wealth at all?

These are all questions that Jackpot sets out to explore. The result of deep reporting and dozens of interviews with fortunate citizens—company founders and executives, superstar coders, investors, inheritors, lottery winners, lobbyists, lawmakers, academics, sports agents, wealth and philanthropy professionals, concierges, luxury realtors, Bentley dealers, and even a woman who trains billionaires’ nannies in physical combat, Jackpot is a compassionate, character-rich, perversely humorous, and ultimately troubling journey into the American wealth fantasy and where it has taken us.

Genres: Nonfiction, Economics, Politics, Sociology, Audiobook, Business, Cultural

416 pages, Hardcover

First published April 13, 2021

About the author

Michael Mechanic is a senior editor at Mother Jones magazine. He lives in Oakland, California, with his wife, two teenagers, and various animals. Jackpot is his first book.

Reviews

[Mal Warwick · Rating 5 out of 5]

Back in 1996, a book entitled The Millionaire Next Door by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko hit the bestseller lists. The two authors demonstrated that owning a small business such as a dry cleaners or a neighborhood grocery, for example, might over time make its frugal owners into “millionaires.” The term “top 1%” wasn’t yet in common use, but the implication was those people qualified. Stanley and Danko seemed to mean that anyone who had accumulated assets totaling more than $1 million was therefore a millionaire and rich. But how naive we were to think such a thing!

The top 1% isn’t who you think

Today, holding assets of $1 million doesn’t even qualify an American for the top 10% financially, let alone the top 1%. That requires a minimum of $11 million in assets. In 2018, there was a total of 539,000 US households with an income of more than one $1 million per year. They numbered about 0.3% of the American population. But the real wealth in our society is in the hands of the top 0.001%—and those people, we learn in Michael Mechanic’s fascinating new book, Jackpot, are rich beyond comprehension. As of 2020, it took at least $2.1 billion to make the cut for the Forbes 400. And collectively those 400 households possessed a total of $3.2 trillion.

Who’s really, really rich today

For a reality check, tune into the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires List. Here are just the top five people—remember, these are people, not companies—on the list as of May 4, 2021.

Rank Name Net Worth Source Country
1 Jeff Bezos $193.2 billion Amazon USA
2 Bernard Arnault & family $180.1 billion LVMH France
3 Elon Musk $166.2 billion Tesla, SpaceX USA
4 Bill Gates $130.4 billion Microsoft USA
5 Mark Zuckerberg $115.4 billion Facebook USA

Note that, as I write, there are three other men, all Americans—Warren Buffet (Berkshire-Hathaway), Larry Ellison (Oracle), and Larry Page (Google)—with net worth north of $100 billion. These people aren’t just rich. Even filthy rich doesn’t begin to convey the power they possess through such unfathomable wealth. “Top 1%?” Hah!

Go to that Forbes site, and you’ll probably find the numbers, and perhaps even the rankings, are a little different. Much of what’s portrayed here is paper wealth, simply the reflection of current stock market values for companies such as Amazon, Tesla, Microsoft, and Facebook. The market’s volatility may inflate or deflate these fortunes, but they’re real nonetheless. Even 1% of Jeff Bezos’ $193.2 billion today would still be nearly two billion dollars. But, stock market volatility notwithstanding, it’s not just the rich who are getting richer, Mechanic points out. “The insanely rich are getting insanely richer.”

Yet when Michael Mechanic set out to convey what it’s like to be really, really rich in America today, he didn’t turn to these people. They’re virtually unreachable. He spoke instead with some of those who help them make more money or sell them goods and services. And he turned to those whom the centibillionaires might consider pikers. “When we hear the term ‘rich people,’ Mechanic writes, “we tend to think more about the top 0.1 percent, families with assets of $29.4 million and up,” or five times as much as the minimum to qualify for the top 1%. “This is the realm of elite private schools, private travel, stunning houses, extraordinary vacations (and vacation properties), luxury cars, and concierge doctors.” The United States, he reports, “boasts more than 32 percent”—over 90,000—of these ultra-high-net-worth people on the planet, even though we house only about 4% of the population.

Pursuing “America’s jackpot winners”

In researching this book, Mechanic spent little time speaking with people in what Senator Bernie Sanders has called the “billionaire class.” (Mechanic sometimes refers to them as “America’s jackpot winners” or “the three-comma club.”) He gained insight on their lives through those who sell them $100 million houses or provide services such as security at $1.5 million per year, ultra-sophisticated financial management, philanthropic advice, and investigative dating services. He also consulted economists at UC Berkeley and Harvard researching extreme wealth. Little wonder. “With few exceptions,” he writes, “every time I reached out to someone worth more than a couple hundred million dollars, even when I had a trustworthy introduction, that person’s entourage intervened with pre-interviews and rejections.” But Mechanic did speak, sometimes in great depth, with a number of those he calls “ultra-wealthy.”

Living the life of the ultra-rich

In Jackpot, Mechanic strives to convey a sense of what it’s like to live the life of the ultra-rich, the top 0.1%. Multiple homes in exclusive neighborhoods scattered about the planet. Private jets, massive yachts, and fleets of hideously expensive automobiles. Ability to pick up the phone and call almost anyone on Earth. But he emphasizes, as do so many of his subjects, the downside as well. Ever-present need for security. Endless requests for money. Constant preoccupation with the management of investments even if the scutwork is delegated to armies of advisors. And the loss of connection with anyone outside their tiny, privileged class.

Four individuals stand out among those the author interviewed for this book.

Jerry Fiddler

Entrepreneur Jerry Fiddler talks “about the rungs of the economic ladder being stretched so far apart that people can barely contemplate the next rung. ‘I think the public impression of the [top 1%] is really the 0.001 percent. . . I mean, they’re seeing Kochs and Buffetts and Gates. They’re seeing them as the 1 percent and they’re really not. The gap between me and them is probably larger in a lot of ways than between . . . most people and me.” And Fiddler has amassed a fortune that appears to be in the hundreds of millions. As he explains to the author, possessing a fortune enables him to command far larger returns from the market than are available to the average investor. “‘To take your entire asset base and grow it by 7 percent a year, very few people could do that. Whereas I probably could.” Centibillionaires most assuredly do so. But even most of those in the top 1% can’t do so. Because the hedge funds and other investment vehicles that earn such out-of-control returns often require $50 million, $100 million, or more as a minimum.

Tracy Gary

Philanthropic advisor Tracy Gary‘s “mother and stepfather amassed vast resources—hundreds of millions in today’s dollars. They had a private jet, a helicopter, a yellow Rolls-Royce, and estates in Florida, Minnesota, New York, Wisconsin, and Paris, each with its own staff.” But Tracy wants none of it. She is one of the most prolific philanthropic advisers in the business, having founded several organizations dedicated to redirecting resources toward addressing the problems of the poor. She “encourages her clients to give away as much of their money as they can stomach, but not to Stanford or Yale or other institutions with massive endowments: ‘Please diversify,’ she says, and give to social justice organizations.'”

Darren Walker

Ford Foundation President Darren Walker “grew up penniless in rural Texas and went on to become an icon in the world of philanthropy. As an African-American, he speaks with special insight into white privilege and regularly encounters “extraordinarily wealthy white men who are unwilling to acknowledge their advantages.” The stereotypical claim by America’s wealthiest is that they “worked hard for their money,” implying that people who are poor do not. And that, of course, is an ugly insult for the millions who work two or three jobs just to keep food on the table or pay the rent. And Walker notes how few rich Black people there are. “‘If we’re going to have a capitalist system, we should have one where the opportunity to reap the rewards are open to all. And we know our system has never been open. It was designed on the backs of slaves.'”

Nick Hanauer

Venture capitalist Nick Hanauer‘s Twitter profile declares that he is “NOT a billionaire.” Ultra-wealthy, to be sure, but with a fortune south of a billion. Top 1%? No. Most likely, the top 0.01%. And he’s critical of those who do command billions but abdicate their responsibility to society at large. As a consequence, he insists, the revolution isn’t coming in the future. It’s already here. “‘Trumpism is pitchforks. . . The dissolution of democratic norms. Increase in racism, xenophobia. The fundamental destabilization of society. The erosion of social cohesion. You’re experiencing it!'”

At the root of the inequality: greed

“Greed has always been one of the primary drivers of the American story,” Mechanic writes. “It fueled the genocide and seizure of land from Native Americans, made slavery a hereditary institution, and gave rise to our system of mass incarceration. It turned Florida from a malarial swamp into a vacation getaway during the 1920s, built the Las Vegas Strip, and compelled Wall Street wonks to invent the collateralized debt obligations and other opaque financial instruments that tanked the U.S. economy in 2008. . . It gave us Michael Milken and junk bonds, the dot-com boom, the Bitcoin roller coaster, Bernie Madoff, and the college admissions scandal.” And one way or another the system greed has forged will eventually come to an end.

A different perspective on wealth

I came across an intriguing article in the San Francisco Chronicle (May 15, 2021) entitled “What’s needed to feel wealthy in Bay Area?” by Kellie Hwang and Nami Sumida. (The article appeared online a day earlier under a slightly different title.) Here’s the gist of it: “Respondents to the 2021 Modern Wealth Survey from Charles Schwab said it takes an average net worth of $3.8 million to be wealthy in the Bay Area, down from $4.5 million in 2020. If you’re just aiming for “financial happiness,” that carries a price tag of $1.8 million in 2021, compared with $2.1 million in 2020. A mere $1.3 million is enough to make you “financially comfortable” in 2021, versus $1.5 million in 2020, according to the survey responses.” In other words, you don’t have to qualify for the top 1% to feel rich. Interesting, no? So, that 1996 book I wrote about above might not have been so far off the mark, after all. Even if Jeff Bezos’ net worth is 148,615 times as large as that $1.3 million.

Note that those numbers hold for the San Francisco Bay Area, which is by far the most expensive metro area in the country. In New York, for example, $997,000 would be enough to make a family “financially comfortable,” according to the Schwab survey.

About the author

It would appear that Michael Mechanic is not a member of the top 1%. From the author’s bio on the Mother Jones website: “Prior to MoJo, he was longtime managing editor for the weekly East Bay Express and a reporter and editor for other alt-weeklies and magazines, including the late Industry Standard. His writing has also appeared in the Atlantic, the Los Angeles Times, and Wired. He lives in Oakland with his wife and kids, a cat, a hedgehog, and too many musical instruments to master.” Jackpot is his first book.

However, according to the World Federation of Science Journalists, there’s more to Michael Mechanic. He “holds a master’s degree in cellular and developmental biology from Harvard and a master’s in journalism from UC Berkeley. He’s spent the past decade as a senior editor for Mother Jones, where he handles stories for both print and web, and writes occasionally on science and other topics. His latest piece involves an emerging dual-use technology known as gene drive. As a biochemistry major at Cal, he worked on synthesizing natural poisons from those tropical frogs people warn you not to lick because if you do you’ll go into histrionic convulsions and die.” (Yes, it’s the same person.)

[Susan Tunis · Rating 5 out of 5]

"Let me tell you about the very rich. They are different from you and me. They possess and enjoy early, and it does something to them, makes them soft where we are hard, and cynical where we are trustful, in a way that, unless you were born rich, it is very difficult to understand."

I love that Fitzgerald quote. And, man, did he get it right! Michael Mechanic's book is a close look at an almost taboo subject, and I was completely fascinated from the first page to the last. The author and many of the subjects were from the Bay Area, a region marinating in money, where I spent most of the past two decades. So, the world being described was very, very familiar to me.

Within Jackpot's pages, Mr. Mechanic discusses levels of richness, who holds it, and what wealth inequality is doing to our culture. He talks about how the acquisition of wealth impacts those who receive it with some surprising observations. (Depends on what kind of wealth, and how and when it's acquired.). He gives us glimpses into the lifestyles of the rich and famous, and what they choose to spend all that money on.

And, to return to the quote above, he shares the psychological research that, in fact, proves the rich are different from you and me. (And not necessarily in a good way.) It's not all bad; there's also a discussion of philanthropy, and those with privilege who want to share. Absolutely fascinating stuff!

[Socraticgadfly · Rating 4 out of 5]

An anecdote early in the book explains what we’re up against.

Nick Hanauer, self-appointed plutocratic scold of present plutocrats, says, in essence, that he can’t be a truly effective scold until he’s a billionaire. The approximately $500 million he’s worth now isn’t enough.

Reality? Billionaires like Bill Gates have long been saying that things like the estate tax and top marginal rates need to be fixed, Nick.

From there, Mike Mechanic gives us chapter and verse on many important issues.

First, it’s not those lazy sluggard poor people who buy the most lotto tickets, though that fits the narratives of both poor and middle class. Rather, it’s the middle class. Although Mechanic doesn’t spell it out, it’s probably because the middle class still believes in the myth of mobility and is trying to get a quick realization of it. (Truth? Old Europe, as he notes later, has more mobility.)

Then, it’s off to the bulk of the book: How the megarich winning the jackpot plays out in so many ways, most of which hurt the rest of us.

A lot of it, Mechanic notes, is tax and investment related. That includes 529 accounts for kids or grandkids to go to college, with enough of it tax-free to fund a Stanford or Harvard education. Sure, the middle class can use the same accounts, but they simply don’t make enough to contribute that much.

Or, the alphabet soup of different trusts that can be used to escape gift taxes.

Outside of taxes, the rich can buy health through living in better places, and when health does become a problem, in our capitalist Merika without national health care, buy “concierge” health services.

In fact, the idea of “concierge” type services for the ultrarich pops up in a number of places, Mechanic shows. Bespoke tailoring. Personal assistants.

And, what that really means is buying time, ultimately. Money is time.

Even their charitable giving, to expand beyond Justin Ferrell’s “Billionaire Wilderness,” is self-centered. If not land trusts that actually cut their taxes, it’s classical music and museums that benefit their lifestyle, or universities that benefit their kids. (Like Jared Kushner’s dad, cited in the book.)

Sidebar to the land trusts and Ferrell’s book, yet other research (again showing how Farrell either was sloppy in not looking to connect dots or else pulled some punches) shows that climate change ranks much lower with the plutocrats than with average Americans.

And, it’s not just for those reasons that the rich, and even more the ultrarich, don’t contribute to what you and I would call charity — food banks, battered women’s shelters, homeless shelters, etc. Rather, Mechanic shows that their riches have made them benumbed to caring about the less fortunate, even a bit sociopathic about it.

But, they’re not happy, or content, in many cases. Insecurity fears fueled by their wealth is one reason. Dick-swinging (and yes, Mechanic uses the phrase) is another.

But, even in their darkened corners of plutocratic unhappiness, they still believe themselves to have been “chosen.” Mechanic misses a bit of a point here by not looking more at the “Success Gospel,” or “The Secret,” for Oprah-like New Agers. But, he does talk directly about how the plutocrats cite Social Darwinism ideas to justify their wealth.

Again, we pay the costs for this, with increased social stratification and more.

Speaking of? Mechanic gives us chapters on Blacks and wealth and women and wealth.

Not every plutocrat is like this. Mechanic cites a number who have taken the “Giving Pledge,” based on ideas of Andrew Carnegie. But, many of them aren’t giving it away THAT radically. A few are, and Mechanic discusses them at the end.

Problem, though: They’re, in essence, the exception that proves the rule.

And, that leads to the one weakness of the book: It’s great on analysis, but lacking in prescriptiveness, even as Mechanic notes that, at the national political level, Democrats in general vote AGAINST constituent desires on fiscal issues, with some exceptions, such as a friend of his now in Congress. I mean, it seems clear that 97 percent of the 1 percent, 98 percent of the 0.1 percent, and 99 percent of the 0.01 percent, even if their money doesn’t make them happy, aren’t going voluntarily lessen it either by the giving pledge or by following Hanauer and Gates and pushing for more progressive taxes.

Maybe that’s because he doesn’t know. Or maybe, like Justin Ferrell with “Billionaire Wilderness,” he’s “connected enough” in a small way that he doesn’t want to propose solutions. Mechanic, per one reviewer, has “a master’s degree in cellular and developmental biology from Harvard.”

HARvard!

Also, with all the social psychology research he presents, Mechanic doesn’t address a chicken-or-egg question: Did becoming wealthy make many of the wealthy sociopathic, or did being sociopathic first make many of the wealthy wealthy?

So, that dropped it to four stars.

I “get” the wingers 1- and 2-starring this, even though it’s not in their self-interest to do so. They’re still addicted to American exceptionalism, including the American dream portion of it.

I don’t get the occasional leftist screed 1-star, and I have for years called myself “a leftist of some sort, at least for America.” I could see a 3-star rather than 4-star review. But 1? (Well, being a conspiracy theorist and possibly an anarchist "helps," in the one case I followed up.)

[John Devlin · Rating 1 out of 5]

So, the writer is a Mother Jones contributor, and I try to be open to Even the ultra-left, which means reading the occasional book from that sector…

At first, the book is relatively anodyne: here are anecdotal accounts of how being really wealthy can be a problem. Obvious, but okay, then there’s the folks with big trusts who allow money to become some great internal fracas in their mental equilibrium. Again okay, but that seems like a You problem.

And then comes all the class warfare nonsense, so let me delineate some facts. 90% of Americans under the poverty line have one or more of these three characteristics…no job, no hs diploma, and kids out of wedlock…

IQ is real, and unfortunately IQ by race is real and has great explanatory powers.

Not a fact, but a question; how is the guy working the fry basket being cheated? What is he entitled to that someone owes him?

Fact…the top .1% pay over 20% of all federal taxes, the top 1% pay 40%. The bottom 50% pay about 2%.
The wealthy are the reason we have any govt at all.

90% of Generational wealth will be lost with three generations.

“Decades of growth in the public equities markets and tax policies that favor investors over workers have turned millionaires into zillionaires”
—-anyone can buy stocks
“college educated, middle-aged, and white or Asian, your odds of being a millionaire were greater than 1 in 5—though only about 1 in 15 if you were Black or Hispanic.”

—-Wow, how great a country where even 1 in 15 can be middle aged millionaires. As for the disparity, see my comment about IQ and note that approx half of black men never graduate HS.


“ time of staggering economic inequality, political divisions, racial reckoning, and a global plague that has rendered undeniable the truth that America’s economic game is rigged”
—-Platitudes

“we will discover in the pages to come, it is rigged so powerfully, and in so many ways, that if it were an actual game nobody would bother to play—

In which white men receive favorable treatment, while other groups are forced to play by alternative rules that leave them at a disadvantage.”
—-umm if the game was rigged there’d be laws, there are laws against discrimination, so where are they?

“the intensive police presence in poor urban neighborhoods ensures that low-income teens, typically people of color, are arrested and charged at far higher rates than rich kids”
—-of course the racism grift. We can argue about the petty crime rate but we can’t argue about carjacking and murders bc those always get reported.
Black men 15-45 make up 3% of the population but commit about half the murders…almost all on other black people…

“Because the neoliberal view is that no matter how rich I am, that hasn’t harmed you. And if you resent it, you’re being selfish and envious and immoral. But that is just objectively false. The farther apart you stretch a society economically, the farther apart the rungs of the ladders of opportunity are stretched, and the farther one must travel inside that social construct to feel successful.”
A big theme, and utterly false, that some folks getting super rich somehow impacts me. Put aside that these folks earned their money by selling widgets…take the lottery winner. Does someone winning $250 million detract from me? Of course not, the fact the govt will get 65% helps the poor.

“Eleanor’s school has four college counselors serving grades ten through twelve”
Another major assertion is how the rich get better educations. Sure, on of the reasons to become rich is to give your kids the best upbringing.

And btw the number of counselors has nothing to do with college acceptance. You might as well argue the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders make the team more likely to win a Super Bowl…

“Wealthy individuals and families give more money to charity on average than poor families do, but they give away a smaller proportion of their incomes.”
—I question the provenance of this stat but it’s still lying with statistics. One of the Koch brothers gave $900 million to ny Presbyterian hospital, so a poor person gives $1,000 and that’s somehow better?

Let’s count contributions in lives saved.

“It really was about the economic power of a giant like Monsanto to completely alter our traditional Wisconsin economy.”
Big company was revolutionizing milk production but the Left feels entitled to guaranteeing jobs forever…even though milk would be cheaper

“To take our metaphor to the extreme, a match pitting the middle class against Jeff Bezos, based on the Amazon founder’s estimated net worth in September 2020, would require 17,973 Monopoly sets, containing enough play money to cover almost four football fields.”

A truly silly, but revealing episode…the writer talks about a study where monopoly is rigged from the start so one player has an easy win. First, capitalism grows the pie. It’s not freakin monopoly where one person gets all the money by bankrupting the other. Second, Bezos didn’t start the game insanely rich…duh


“The after-the-fact largesse of billionaires cannot change the fact that our economy works for only a fraction of the population.”
—-over a quarter of a billion people have been lifted out of poverty in the last 25 years bc of capitalism…capitalism spawned the modern world…but you’re free to return to feudalistic or primitive society where life was nasty, brutish, and short.


“Had Congress raised the wage to $ 15, McDonald’s and Starbucks would be fine, and Howard Schultz would still be rich “and everybody else would have much more”
—-the minimum wage effects less than 2% of folks so NO everyone else wouldn’t have much more…but everyone would be paying more for that Mickey D’s or latte, which hurts the working class.


“Had the minimum wage kept pace with productivity gains, Hanauer emphasizes, it would be $ 22 today.”
— a pet peeve…the productivity gains are from investments of capital. Take the car rental agent of fifty years ago. He had a myriad of tasks to manage. I’ll save you the list. Now, a worker scans your phone and hands you the keys as your info is downloaded onto his iPad.

“For thousands of years, being rich involved being armed, engaging in violence and coercion, extracting resources from broad territories, while also holding positions of direct rule.”
—-finally truth, and now folks get wealthy selling you tires and ketchup, and sink faucets.

“Greed has always been one of the primary drivers of the American story. It fueled the genocide and seizure of land from Native Americans, made slavery a hereditary institution, and gave rise to our system of mass incarceration”

All of these same characteristics were in man for hundreds of thousands of years.

“cohorts of adult children born in either 1940 or 1984, and found that 92 percent of the 1940 group was earning more than their parents had, but only half of the 1984 group was.”
—-tries to claim Americans aren’t upwardly mobile and then destroys his own argument

“Ragged Dick was a massive bestseller, and it is hard to overstate its lasting influence on the American psyche.
—-tries to claim some old book no one has heard of creating the myth of Americans getting ahead..

“Raphael tells me this story on the terrace of the swanky Balboa Bay Resort on Newport Harbor, steps away from a row of multimillion-dollar yachts. Handsome and fit, with
restaurants and social clubs, colleges and corporations, landlords and cops, have taken one look at people with darker skin, stood up from their stools, and said, “You’re at the wrong bar, n—.”

One of two stories where incredibly successful black men, who claim no supernatural abilities, faced an incident where they were called a name…wow, so they endured the unfortunate incident and still somehow made a hundred million dollars. What a terrible system(sarcasm)

“why COVID-19 kills Black Americans at nearly twice the rate it kills white people”
—or it’s bc black Americans have far more obesity, hypertension, and diabetes…hmm…you think?

“is convinced he’s far more likely to be murdered by a local police officer than by a civilian”
—he’s convinced but the feeling is utterly false. Black men kill each other by the thousands. Police kill unarmed black men about one dozen a year.

“Our population is 13.4 percent Black, so all things equal, we should have at least 105 Black billionaires. We have seven.”
And men shouldn’t make up over 90% of workplace fatalities, and the NBA shouldn’t be 80% black, and see my point about IQ.

“there’s a greater than one-in-four chance your forebears benefited directly from the biggest public-to-private wealth transfer in American history—if you’re white, that is.”
—-see my stat on how generational wealth is lost,”

“was promoted to assistant general manager at a fabrication plant in Princeton, Indiana, near Evansville. The following month, his new boss invited the entire management team to his home for a Christmas party—all except Raphael, the only Black team member. He was “really hurt,”

But the snub played a decisive role in Raphael’s decision to jump ship to Chrysler.
—the guys making tens of million but he’s sad he didn’t get invited to the party…pathetic
“After accepting the Toyota promotion, he learned that Evansville was once headquarters for Indiana’s powerful Ku Klux Klan, whose 250,000 members may have included the governor and a sizable contingent of state legislators: “I thought, ‘What have I done? Great opportunity to make money, but I’m certainly going to be lynched….The people of Evansville, it turned out, were wonderful.
—so he’s definitely paranoid..
One crypto fund’s 2019 survey of the one hundred most recent blockchain start-ups found that more than 85 percent of their employees—and 93 percent of the executives—were men.”
—-yeah men are nerds who like CS
“In 2019, overall, women who worked full-time, year-round jobs earned eighty-two cents on the male dollar.”
—-False…women take jobs of lower pay like school teacher and administrative assistant…when one looks at say blue chip graduates of Harvard law there’s nearly zero difference in salaries…

“Because women have a philosophy of good for all and men have a philosophy of ‘better than,’ ” Davis says. “Women tend to make decisions based on whether a deal is good for all concerned. And men tend to make financial decisions based on what will make me more money.
—first off, terrible writing…he’s redundant here, and I didn’t know women had a philosophy of good. I guess all the ladies on the Housewives of Beverly Hills didn’t get the memo.


‘Well, it’s going to be rid of in three generations anyway.”
—-oops he Mets on a quote from an estate planner that confirms my fact, but simply slides over the ramifications.

“So how should we view the generosity of our robber bar—er, captains of industry?”
Elon Musk made an electric car folks wanted to buy…that’s all

“Facebook worth $ 82.2 billion. This meant the couple would retain $ 822 million worth. Chan is thirty-six, Zuckerberg thirty-seven—they may well live another fifty years”
—he’s upset that even 10% of Zucks fortune won’t go to the govt…

“He didn’t want just anyone to have his kidney. He wanted the recipient to be Black.”
—a crazy rich leftist who wants to give the black folks his kidney…and he does…spare me the condescension.

“Zuckerberg may well have given us President Trump. “Russian actors created 80,000 posts that reached around 126 million people in the U.S. over a two-year period”
— I left wing book wouldn’t be complete without the obligatory Russia collusion trump nonsense.
“America’s upper crust has taken much flak from the likes of Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, who question the morality of a society that allows billionaires to exist. I think these politicians are more or less on point…
they generally acknowledged that there has to be some number at which making another penny is unethical”
Why? Is someone buying one more Tesla somehow stealing money from you?


“and even disputed that the 1998 murder of Matthew Shepard, a young gay man, in Laramie, Wyoming, was a hate crime.”
—like Floyd who died of fentanyl, shepherds death was two low level drug dealers, one hopped up on meth and the other, shepherd, owed money.

“survival skill for a gay Black man in the South—“
he found his way into the Friar Society, an elite campus group with wealthy and powerful alumni: judges, governors, members of Congress. He even became the head guy: the abbot…
extend my hand as I often do, ‘Hello, I’m Darren Walker, I’m the abbot.’ And before I could say, ‘abbot,’ she said, ‘I’d like a gin and tonic, please.’ ”
“at UT Austin, worked at a corporate law firm and as an investment banker at Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS),…
Prior to Ford, he served nine years as a vice president at the Rockefeller Foundation….
And he’s okay with that, so long as they are willing to remove their blinders and acknowledge their complicity in the profound unfairness that afflicts our society.”
—-the second black guy who’s immensely wealthy who had to endure being mistaken for a waiter. Oh my how did he endure the ignominy?
Pathetic, the guy was the head of an ultra-elite org and is still claiming racism…

The book’s truly awful…but that’s the Left today…

[Lissa00 · Rating 4 out of 5]

3.5 stars. I feel as if this book has two parts. The first details the lives of the ultra wealthy. How they earn (or inherit) their money, how they avoid paying fair taxes, how they spend it, how they keep it and how they give it away. To be honest, I personally find rich people pretty boring so I struggled to get through this part. The second part, however, talks more about wealth inequity and why it exists and how it is getting worse. The author does a good job of laying out the issues and I found the information absorbing yet infuriating. While I wish the book was more focused on the information in the second part, I still found it informative. I received a digital ARC of this book through NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

[Susie Stangland · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was was riveting! A fascinating look at the psychology which takes place for those who become suddenly wealthy or already are. I didn’t quite know what to expect when I began but from page one it instantly revealed it was a high caliber read. I also appreciated the way he humanized those with vast wealth as apposed to characterizing them the way the majority of people will. Highly recommend this book!

[Alex Gruenenfelder · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the first book by author Michael Mechanic, but his years as a journalist give it power. This is a book filled with the dark side of the lifestyles of the rich and famous, of private security wishes and tax-dodging dreams. I have read a number of books now about super-wealth, and this is one of the best.

The way one earns their wealth clearly has an impact. Personally, I wouldn't want to live off of money that I didn't earn, and I would only want to be wealthy if brought about by real work. This isn't a unique view. The guilt that hits some people — some by work, some by inheritance — isn't often what's discussed in the world, compared to the people who just spend their wealth and don't have any care for the working class. Coming from nothing versus coming from something makes it complicated. This is a book full of studies. It analyzes the psychology of the ultra-wealthy as much as it analyzes their actions.

The intersection of race and gender with these issues is well-discussed. The racial topic especially has been neglected in some books on super-wealth that I have read, though this is improving in the post-George Floyd era. One of the wealthy Black interviewees points to the lack of a major sickle cell anemia foundation, while other diseases have big philanthropic backers. Just because one is wealthy doesn't mean their social marginalization totally goes away, and intersectionality is necessary in the discussion of super-wealth.

Topics like philanthropy are on the chopping block as well. While Mechanic's criticisms of Big Philanthropy are valid, it's one of a number of times where solutions aren't clearly offered. Eliminating the charitable giving tax deduction may stop tax-dodging philanthropists, but what would the long-term effects be on charities? This book highlights the problems far more than it does real solutions, but perhaps those are for the readers to decide. Mechanic points to a world in which capitalism might truly work for all, where philanthropy is not as necessary as it is today; it's a lesson that folks of all political stripes should listen to.

This is in many ways a revolutionary book. The end of our new Gilded Age is arriving. What this book shows is that most people want to be rich, but its consequences often hurt all involved. Mechanic is an empathetic writer, who truly seeks to connect to his subjects, and many of them even understand the flaws of the system. Our system is broken: Mechanic calls on all of us, especially those at the top, to help fix it.

[Mike · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is an interesting screed on the way the super-rich keep their money and make it grow at everyone else's expense basically. You will probably come away believing that the only way to level the playing field is with a full on revolution ala 18th century France.

[Judith · Rating 4 out of 5]

An engaging, informative read about wealth in America. I felt like a voyeur peeking through windows as the author described the trappings and sentiments of the wealthy individuals he interviews. I learned about accredited investors and custom Bentleys but also about the conflicts and complications wealth brings with it.

Thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for the advance copy.

[Lynn · Rating 2 out of 5]

Light, frenetic, not so serious book about the superrich, how they live, how much money they have and why it’s bad for you. But the book itself is afraid to take the topic seriously.

[Phoebe · Rating 4 out of 5]

One may pick up this book out of curiosity and some desire to see how the other half lives, but will put it down feeling unsettled. Mechanic explores the lifestyles of the super-wealthy and the top one-percenters, providing an honest glimpse into a world we can't really even imagine. He isn't introducing us to anything really new; anyone who has had the chance to attend a Bridges Out of Poverty training, or has read any other books about the extremities of income circumstance, will find familiar concepts here; it's just that he writes so well and did so much fieldwork, and puts his research into context. He isn't presenting us with the astonishing details of what life is like if you're rich, really rich and your wealth has no end in sight, from an envious standpoint; he goes much deeper to discuss the consequences of income inequity on the country. He talks about gender and ethnic inequalities. He presents a full and complex picture--and most interestingly discusses the fact that extreme wealth creates the same mental distress as intergenerational poverty. An eye-opening read. Adult.

[Marco Hokke · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a very informative book, coming from different angles on how people handle exceptional wealth, in America. Eye-opening is that getting such riches requires you to spend time managing it, instead of treating it as money you find on the street.
The book has stories on people who got very rich almost overnight, and who have had a hard time dealing with their wealth. Families are torn, people are bored, and some lose touch with reality and 'normal' people.
It doesn't have any tips on getting rich, unless it is 'be born as a white male into a rich family' is a valid tip. In a couple of chapters, Michael Mechanic shows how the American legal and justice system is *very* rigged in favour of those who are already rich and, yes, white and male.
There are chapters on philantropy, which may seem like a good idea but this all depends on the intentions of the giver.
So in some places this book made me angry when detailing how laws and regulations are thwarted to serve rich people, how women and people of color are systematically left out of those considerations, and how, in God's name, we don't question the existence of billionaires in our societies.

[Marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book talks of the obscene wealth of individuals have multiple homes, cars and basically anything they want without ever having to inquire about prices.

The rich need to hire entourages to handle their finances, open their mail, clean their houses, coordinate their daily schedules, raise their children, provide security, maintain their residences, their cars, boats, planes and search for more possessions to acquire.

Psychologists speak of paranoia, narcissism, passive aggressive behavior, over dependency, odd behavior and difficulty forming close relationships that individuals with enomous wealth have battle. The rich are jealous over individuals who are leading “regular normal” lives.

Then we read about how happiness declines after a certain income and the book details how people who win millions are hounded by friends and strangers and organizations.

If the search is for happiness, it is suggested to redistribute your wealth and your power and invest in your community and make a living like the rest of the world.

[Ann Pollard · Rating 2 out of 5]

I don't think so...

Boring and often off-topic. I don't believe it accomplished what it set out to do. I wanted to get inside their heads. Mostly, this failed. I wish I hadn't bought it.

[zina · Rating 2 out of 5]

'In some ways, being very rich and very poor are strangely similar'

'Parents who wear Rolexes tend to have big Rolodexes'

Mostly asinine, as above, but some amusing bits

[Jane · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is further support for the ideas Anand Giridharadas developed in "Winner Take All." Mechanic's descriptions of the lives of the super rich are a real turn off and I hope the book gains a wide audience as it makes you realize how horrible it is for everyone to have the kind of crazy unequal income distribution that we have. And the rich aren't happy either. The children of the poor and the very rich are equally vulnerable. It was illuminating to understand what the income categories at the top really consist of and how they have changed over the past decade or so -- getting more and more unequal. The happiest rich people that Mechanic interviews seem to be those that have given it all away--because the only way to be really equal to others is, in fact, to be equal. Living a life of obscene wealth but doling out a little charity here and there doesn't really do the trick or solve societal problems, some of which have been caused by the rich in the first place. Here's some advice to the wealthy from one of Mechanic's interviewees: "She would like to coax and inspire them into leading a more meaningful and ethical life, to help them free themselves from the unquenchable thirst for status, power, and stuff. To rejoin the world of the living and engage with the broader community. To feel the pleasure and kinship that come with giving up some of one's privilege so that others might enjoy a little more."

[Peter Colclasure · Rating 4 out of 5]

To be content with little is difficult; to be content with much, impossible. - Marie Von Ebner-Eschenbach

No one in this world, so far as I know . . . has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people. - H.L. Mencken

What would you do if you won the lottery? Your answer indicates the kind of person you are. Answers include: start a soup kitchen, buy a Tesla, all of the above. But an interesting truth is that you probably don't know what you'd do if you won the lottery. Money is power. It provides access and choices that most don't have, and unencumbered by pragmatic concerns like having to work or clean your mansion, you might discover things about yourself that you don't like.

Or things you do.

Money amplifies the self. If you're a grounded, empathetic person, money will unleash your potential to do good. On the other hand, if you're a sociopath, you're sociopathy is suddenly going to have enormous consequences.

This book is about people who suddenly become rich. And people who were born wealthy. And the nice shiny things you can buy with money. And the disorientation that can result from a sudden windfall. And the difficulty of managing vast sums of money. And the perils of philanthropy, and the effect of wealth on children, and the way it changes your relationships with other people, and the way our tax system in the US is set up to perpetuate the wealth gap, so that even well-meaning, progressive millionaires find themselves beset on all sides by teams of lawyers and accountants pushing every legally dubious tax dodge in the book because the incentives make these tactics inevitable even while millions go to bed hungry.

So, the nice shiny things: the book brings you along for a tour of luxury car dealerships, explores the market for yachts and private islands and mansions, private schools for your kids, bespoke clothing and furniture, safe rooms, and access to politicians, celebrities, and other rich and famous people you can now hang out with. There's a good dose of vicarious hedonism in these chapters.

Then there's the pop psychology chapters which were the most fascinating part of the book for me. Acquiring wealth changes your mindset, from one of trying to generate wealth, to one of trying to guard your wealth. It affects your friendships. People will hound you for handouts. Having genuine friendships can be difficult, because you never know if somebody only likes you for your money. It can be socially isolating. People who win the lottery often complain that their neighbors stop talking to them. You have to worry about your children growing up spoiled and entitled and purposeless. You have to worry about turning into a jerk. And you'll probably end up in an exclusive social bubble, associating only with other rich people.

There are odd parallels between the psychology of extreme wealth and the extremely poverty. Both create anxiety about money, a fear of losing it, a fear of how you're perceived by others, and both promote unhealthy life choices. Drug use, antisocial behavior, and suicide tend to spike at the extremes of wealth.

Ultimately, having a pile of cash is also a logistical concern. It results in the need to hire people to manage your cash. The more money, the larger your army of estate planners, accountants, investment brokers, financial advisers, attorneys, and property managers. Wealthy families often have a family office, with up to a few dozen employees that hire gardeners and yacht crews and handle paperwork and docking fees and customs and charities and social calendars. Just the maintenance of millions of dollars can turn into a rather boring full time job.

So you get a tour of the fancy things money can buy, the effects of money on an individual's psychology, or their children's psychology, and lastly you get a tour through the influence of money on politics and the economy and the ways in which the enormous wealth gaps harms us all, rich and poor alike.

My only gripe is that the book isn't always smoothly organized. For instance, there's a chapter about access, which means that if you have a lot of money you suddenly have a lot more social opportunities. The chapter veers from the exclusive doctors and medical clinics that limit themselves to a few dozen wealthy clients, to exclusive credit cards that only the rich posses, to concierge services to celebrity poker tournaments. It's a bit of a hodge podge, but still interesting.

Here are some quotes:

We are raised on a set of myths that bring about unrealistic dreams and aspirations. U2's Bono summed it up nicely during a 2002 interview with Larry King. "In the United States," said Bono, who is Irish, "you look at the guy that lives in the mansion on the hill and you think, 'You know, one day, if I work really hard, I could live in that mansion.' In Ireland, people look up at the guy in the mansion on the hill and go, 'One day, I'm going to get that bastard.'"

We yearn to strike it rich because we believe money will solve our problems. It will solve some of them, and create new ones. The jackpot will be thrilling and fun, for a time. It will make life easier, and more complicated. It will challenge our ethical values and create psychological and social complexities we never imagined when we set out to launch that company, make that investment, purchase that lottery ticket . . . Money is a blessing and a curse. We yearn for freedom, but money alone can't set us free, and our collective desire to hoard it—to leave others behind and escape to society's safe pinnacle—will only make us less free.

[Nathan Gabriel · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eye opening call to arms for the 99%. The wealth gap is so much wider than I thought and is affecting me, my friends and probably you on the daily. Very readable, fun, titillating, thought provoking and ultimately - highly upsetting.

[Mahrya Q · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jackpot was great! It opened my eyes to the actual horrors of being super-wealthy, and it suggests how the future of the world (if we want a prosperous future for all) is through racial equity, gender equality and social justice. Jaw dropping in the beginning, quite sad in the middle (and sometimes disgusting) and very inspiring in the end. A must read.

[Claire · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some very interesting information, but unless I’m reading a political book I’m not interested in the author’s view on politics. That got annoying. He might think he was being subtle, but he wasn’t.
Unless in the very beginning you state which party you are for, you should be apolitical.
If your students (readers) know your political affiliation, you have failed as a teacher (author). Teachers (authors) are there to help students (readers) think for themselves, not think like you.

[Jeremy Hornik · Rating 4 out of 5]

An exploration of having great wealth: what it’s like, what it does to you, and what it does to the world. Written in a breezy, magazine style. An easy read, juicy, that reinforces a feeling of overall doom.

[Reed Hansen · Rating 2 out of 5]

His anecdotes about people in the .001% of wealthiest people are really fascinating. His opinion that extreme wealth is a crime is less compelling.

Two key questions are outstanding: How does the existence of billionaires mean we are worse off? What does he propose is done to fix this IF we are worse off?

If his answer is some mechanism of the government seizing their wealth for redistribution, we can refer to the failure of every single nation that has tried that before.

2/5 for some interesting anecdotes. #reedviewed

[Wayne · Rating 3 out of 5]

Some interesting stuff, but it was definitely a library read. I'd give it 3.5 stars.

[OGEE Substack · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot of good information here about extreme wealth and the related finances, as well as some of the meta lifestyle and psychological issues that come with being super wealthy.

I wish there had been more crazy glam examples and anecdotes, Crazy Rich Asians style. The actual manuscript doesn’t hold the same level of sex appeal that the book’s marketing and branding implies.

[Suzi · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is discouraging. For all of us who have never bought a lottery ticket and won, or even bought a lottery ticket, we should be relieved that we don't suffer the stress of too much wealth. I once worked for one of the Hunt brothers in Dallas and he drove a green Plymouth so he could drive himself safely and have privacy. When I read the chapter which included all the cars favored by suddenly rich men (mostly) I thought how attention getting those cars are and how unfunny to drive on streets and highways. Shows the need for highway infrastructure repair! I am glad to have less but be comfortable and assured of eating.
The children of the rich do not seem to fare well nor do the spouses and the sports figures seem to live cautionary tales. The people who serve the rich seem to be well paid and able to absorb and resolve the issues of the rich they serve. Except the Britney Spears and Weisselburg sagas in today's news. Security nannies were my favorite career paths.
If you have much money and are single or looking, please read this first. Beware! Fun read for today's haves and wanna bee.

[Allyssa Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

A story of America’s elite, the upper 10% this book is a 5 Star story of how money makes a difference and what it is like to be wealthy. I got this as an Arc from NetGalley. My rating is not affected by getting this for free as an ARC.

[Kip Gire · Rating 3 out of 5]

it was eye opening but generally reinforced my feeling about overt wealth and its inability to make people very happy.... i thought good points were made but it was depressing how much inequity there is ....kinda bland, marginally filling

[Paul · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not rich bashing, actually very sympathetic (do they need sympathy?). Explains the problems of obscene wealth. Strangely at the end it goes a bit off the scripts and complains that there isn't enough obscenely rich women and non-white people.

[Lars Oskar Slatlem Vik · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a great book.

[Claudia · Rating 3 out of 5]

How many people dream of winning the lottery? Of hitting the jackpot either at a casino, at a race track? At the poker table? At your fantasy football league tournament? The odds of winning the lottery are not good but we keep buying those tickets. We desire to become part of the wealthy even as we rally for 'them' to pay an equivalent portion of their wealth as the majority has too.

Admittedly, the first part of the book was kind of fun, looking at what one could use their sudden wealth for if that lottery dream came true, an unexpected inheritance or that business stock took off. In fact, the opulence got a bit garish at times but still fun looking in as the author takes the reader along that pathway. The goodies that can be bought - the cars, the homes, the boats, maybe even an airplane. Bespoke suits and watches and jewelry and that means not just customized, but one-of-a-kind that the general public are not even aware of being a possibility. The perks from an American Express Black card as well as the luxury management services available by invitation only. Concierge medical service where for a fee, personal doctor home visits as well as in-house pharmacies and detailed testing are available. Private schools where the teacher to class ratio is in the single digits.

The second part was, in turn, quite insightful. He had the opportunity to talk with several of those that could be considered wealthy and discusses the reality and legacies that one might want to leave behind. How much to leave the kids. Protecting their wealth from a greedy ex-spouse. Entourages that shield their employer, protecting their privacy as well as the bodyguards that provide their security. Every wealthy person must be constantly aware of the possibility of being a target for kidnapping and ransom to just plain anger-laden envy and rage.

By the third and final section, the author is talking about how unequal the group of ultra-wealthy is - nearly all are male and just as many are white. Women and blacks are the rarity, especially in the boardrooms and executive suites. Even philanthropy can sound good but Mechanic takes a hard look at some of the numbers. Mark Zuckerberg's worth is along the lines of $100 billion (more or less). He has pledged to give away 90% of that wealthy. That still leaves him with $10 billion and huge amounts of land, homes and shares of Facebook in trust for his children.

Of course, there are some truly generous people out there. Living on maybe $40,000 while giving away every other penny that comes their way. Not wanting their names on buildings. Not wanting their benevolence to be broadcast and dissected by media and economists. But at this point in time, the gap is yawning larger and until not only the government but the wealthy themselves work to change the economic inequality can something positive happen.

But the last few pages reveals the author's personal views. That the so-called elite are aware that they are a heated focus point in today's society. But they need to realize that writing checks isn't the answer. Working on remaking the American economy along more equal lines is. Challenging their own ethical values and complacency is. And it's going to be a matter of what they are willing to give up in the end. Eventually something will need to lure them out of the gilded cage that provides some sense of safety. Hopefully, it'll happen before the anger in our society finds an outlet.

2021-126