[lbo-talk] Gracious living in Blairite UK

Carl Remick carlremick at hotmail.com
Tue Nov 22 22:15:13 PST 2005


[I understand there is a UK term, "pissing it up the wall," that means "to spend money foolishly, usually on drink, drugs or gambling." The examples below would seem to qualify.]

It may be beyond passé - but we'll have to do something about the rich

The gap between extraordinary wealth and desperate poverty is growing steadily wider in Tony Blair's Britain

By Jonathan Freedland Wednesday November 23, 2005

If you want to be deeply unfashionable, just read on. If you want to enter terrain so wildly out of date that mere mention of it has become taboo, then you've come to the right place. Brace yourself. Late last month two bankers strode into Umbaba, one of London's most modish watering holes, and asked the bartender to fix them a drink. Not any drink, you understand, but the most expensive cocktail he could concoct. He set to work, blending a Richard Hennessy cognac that sells at £3,000 a bottle, Dom Perignon champagne, fresh lemongrass and lychees - all topped off with an extract of yohimbe bark, a West African import said to possess aphrodisiac powers. He called it the Magie Noir - and he charged £333 a glass. The bankers ordered two rounds for their table of eight. Their final bill for the night: £15,000. ...

This is the world of the super-rich, financiers pulling in salaries and bonuses in the millions, and sometimes tens of millions, of dollars. They are partners in hedge funds and private-equity firms - buying, selling and gambling in jobs that most mortals barely comprehend. They spend money on vast estates or wild fancies. Sometimes the splashing out is literal: a favourite pastime is spraying champagne in the manner of a formula one winner. (In August one London banker fizzed away £41,000.) ...

It is the sharpest edge of a striking trend, one that shows the truth behind that lefty slogan about the rich getting richer. When Margaret Thatcher came to power in 1979, just under 6% of national income went to the top 1%. That figure stood at 9% a decade later, but under Tony Blair it has risen to at least 13%: a tiny group taking nearly an eighth of our collective wealth. ... When the prime minister was asked in 2001 whether it was possible for anyone to earn too much money, he caught the spirit of the age when he replied, "Not really, no. Why does that matter?" ...

<http://www.guardian.co.uk/Columnists/Column/0,5673,1648493,00.html>

Carl



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