Chrystia Freeland - Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else

Plutocrats: The Rise of the New Global Super Rich and the Fall of Everyone Else
by Chrystia Freeland
Read by Allyson Ryan

In the last few decades what it means to be rich has changed dramatically. Forget the 1%; it's the wealthiest .01% who are fast outpacing the rest of us. Today's colossal fortunes are amassed by the diligent toiling of smart, perceptive businessmen who see themselves as deserving victors in a cutthroat international competition.

Cracking open this tight-knit world is Chrystia Freeland, an acclaimed business journalist. At ease in Davos or Dubai, Freeland has reported on the lives and minds of these new super-elites for nearly a decade. Grounding her interviews in the economics and history of modern capitalism, she provides examples of the new wealth and its consequences. She showcases the $3 million birthday party of a New York financier months before the financial meltdown; details the closed-door 2005 SEC meeting where the US government allowed investment banks to write their own regulatory laws; and tells how the Bank of Canada's Mark Carney became a key figure in the central battle between the plutocracy and the rest of us.

Brightly written and powerfully researched, Freeland's Plutocrats will be a lightning rod event in the midst of the US election season.