Whether Bill Gates, Elon Musk or Jeff Bezos – millions follow the private lives of the super-rich. Like her However, how much money they make increases is largely in the dark. The magazine “Forbes” counts 2,640 billionaires worldwide. How do you become so incredibly rich? And does society benefit from this miraculous increase in money?
In her book “Who Wants to Be a Billionaire? The Big Global Cash-in” said financial journalist Heike Buchter Looking for answers. Whether financial tycoons, Silicon Valley investors or oligarchs, “the super-rich have their own agenda,” says the New Yorker by choice in an interview with ntv.de: you rake in money for the sake of money and not only are increasing inequality in our societies. They also endanger democracy and thus potentially pose a risk for the entire planet.
ntv.de: In your book “Who Wants to Be a Billionaire?” Not only does practically every well-known billionaire get his fat off. They also uncover secrets surrounding unimaginably rich people who prefer to remain hidden. Was there a specific reason for this settlement?
Heike Buchter: Years ago I had the feeling that there was a super-rich person behind almost every product. That made me curious. At some point I asked myself why everyone always focuses on these people, how they live and who they live with. I’m interested in what makes these success stories possible.
And that would be?
It is the mechanisms of the financial industry that stand behind these people and their assets. They make the difference these days. You decide who will really be rich and who will never be. Unfortunately, this is ignored far too often.
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos caused a sensation during the pandemic with his new giga yacht: 125 meters long, costing 470 million euros. Because a historic bridge in Rotterdam blocked the way to the open ocean, the shipyard demanded that the bridge be dismantled. People spontaneously thought it was an April Fool’s joke. Is this loss of traction symptomatic of today’s super-rich?
It’s not all of them, but there is actually a group of prominent super-rich people where more and more such examples are becoming known. The perception of how this is received by “normal people” has been completely lost. We must finally understand that many of these super-rich have assets as large as entire economies. There are hardly any limits to what you can do with it. That poses dangers.
Who exactly do you have in mind?
Microsoft founder Bill Gates, for example, is convinced that we need nuclear power. That’s why he decided to build new types of nuclear reactors. A project has already started in Wyoming for which he has provided $2 billion in financing; He got the US Department of Energy to add another two billion – despite criticism from experts. What concerns me are these people who have the means, the self-confidence, the conviction and the influence, things that she consider it right to implement. The problem is that they believe that their immense wealth and what it makes possible is a confirmation of how good they are and how right they live. This can be seen particularly clearly in the case of Tesla boss Elon Musk. Billionaires are too often seen as saviors. This is fatal because it stops us from looking for solutions that we urgently need.
One could counter and say that anyone who has a lot of money has also done something right. Rich people would say: criticism of their wealth is pure envy.
Envy is a killing argument that says nothing. The problem is different. The billionaires in my book represent what is wrong with our financial system and our economy. Today, the financial industry no longer serves to finance our economy and our prosperity, but rather to make more and more money with assets. Our companies, pension plans, infrastructure, patents and even our health care have, in a sense, become gambling chips with which to play in the big casino called finance. The fact that some have the better cards is problematic: it endangers our democracy because people have realized that this economy no longer works for the broad masses.
Are the super-rich in the USA different from those in Germany?
The multi-billionaires in Germany are almost more fascinating than those in the USA. The dominance of family businesses in this country is viewed by the public as a good thing. In fact, they are nothing more than global corporations with thousands of employees. There are wealth statistics from 1911 – long before the Forbes list. There you can find surnames that still appear today in the ranking of the 500 richest Germans by “Manager Magazine”. These families have always held their assets together through a monarchy and several dictatorships up to the Federal Republic. This is unique and does not exist in the USA. One could see it as a merit, but it also means – as an IMF study has pointed out – that a large part of the gains from globalization in this country have flowed into the pockets of a few.
Does that mean that our family businesses are not the backbone of the German economy, as they always say?
Contrary to what is assumed, they do not contribute significantly to German prosperity. Statistically, it is even the case that Germans are, on average, among the poorer in the EU. The structure of family businesses does not ensure that Germany has a broad middle class. Public space in Germany is not significantly different from that in countries where inequality in society is supposedly much greater than here. We protect the rich from taxes, so no money goes there. And why? Because we still think that family businesses will help us in the crisis.
But they don’t?
The super rich have their own agenda. Although Germany is high on the list of billionaires worldwide, there are massive problems here. The catch is that their money is not in Germany, but is in accounts abroad, or in works of art or real estate. In any case, it is not available to the national economy. Given the massive transformation tasks we face, we could really use the money now.
You raise a sensitive topic: government regulation and taxation. A wealth tax always carries the risk that the rich will leave the country.
It’s really difficult. Also because there are many people who do nothing other than look after the money of the super-rich and increase it. There are 1000 tax avoidance tricks. At least there is an attempt by industrialized nations to introduce a lower tax limit in order not to compete with each other. Without taxes there will be no solution, I think. However, taxes also come into effect a little too late because the money is already there.
What are your hopes for the future?
Heike Buchter is the New York correspondent for “Zeit”. She has been reporting from Wall Street since 2001. In 2015, she put the largest asset manager in the spotlight with her book “Blackrock”.
(Photo: Heike Buchter, photographer Stefan Falke)
That we recognize the errors in the system. In Germany it was long said that you didn’t need your own property. However, this has now meant that the immense increase in real estate value has flowed almost exclusively to the top 10,000, which has worsened inequality in Germany. In the 1990s we sold our non-profit housing associations to locusts. Now they are profitable investments for the rich. We have to get to these things. With the way the planet is burning, we can no longer say we’ll experiment and then see if it gets better.
Let’s look outside the box of your book: Young people now have a different relationship to work and money. You don’t think much of “old white men,” as you describe them in your book, who chase cheap money and status symbols. What role could this play in the future?
Something is already happening in America. Young people – at least on the East and West Coasts and college graduates – no longer believe in the American dream, the rags-to-riches myth. Symptoms of this are the increasingly strong unions or radical, highly political tenant associations that are taking away their properties from owners. It feels like more and more people are declaring war on the existing system. You even read about young people hiding how wealthy their families are. I actually think we’re going to see a break.
Diana Dittmer spoke to Heike Buchter