Introduction
Imagine a Britain where everyone's height was a measure of their household income...
The Rolex Archipelago
The rich are globalised. They have founded a country made up of millions of small islands scattered all over the world.
Blurb
Why the book exists and what it's about.
Subjects and Themes
What you'll find between the covers.
Facts and figures
Some of the surpising and shocking facts that emerged while the book was being researched.
Blurb
The richest one percent of people own 40% of the wealth of our planet. The combined wealth of the world's 1000 dollar billionaires amounts to three times that of the poorest half of the world's population - 3 billion people.
If any similarly sized group of a particular nationality, or religious cult tried to hog anything like this amount of financial power they would be swept away instantly by a tsunami of public outrage but for some reason the rich are tolerated and, what's more interesting, widely admired.
Today the various categories of the rich - landed gentry, thieves, despotic dictators, corporate fat-cats, hedge fund managers and showbiz celebrities, are happy to rub shoulders with each other at racecourses, nightclubs or any other island in their exclusive archipelago. There is a growing convergence of their culture and spending habits which range from the wildly profligate to the absurd and to the very extremes of vulgarity.
Far more threatening is their manipulation of our political landscape through their ownership of the media, their monopoly control over the direction and timing of investment, and the influence they exercise over acquiescent politicians. Any political party that doesn't enthusiastically offer to enforce measures that favour the interests of the rich is finding it increasingly difficult to obtain the necessary resources and media coverage needed to get elected. In our increasingly globalised world 200 years of progress towards democracy is being seriously eroded.