my heart bleeds
I felt no great desire to want to see The Wolf of Wall Street as, even before seeing it, I had this nagging feeling that it was all going to be a little too close to the truth, and that in reality, it would highlight that nothing has really changed from those heady, hedonistic 80’s days that completely passed me by. And do you know what? For once I was right.
The continuing banking scandals seek only to confirm everything that the film portrayed, even down to aged individuals smuggling out millions of pounds, concealed in underclothes and waltzing through Swiss airports, was painfully accurate. The question the current tax debacle raises is when do the rich actually think they are rich enough? Statistics the world over do indicate that the poor have become better-off over the last twenty years, but so have the uber rich. And now they’re going underground.
Once upon a time, on the premise of ‘if you’ve got it, flaunt it’, the rich were delighted to parade their wealth and they loved nothing better than to be seen doing so. Now, I’m not so sure. Cammy’s big-donor do t’other week saw the glitterati donning hefty disguise and scurrying in through the tradesman’s entrance, heads bowed. My heart almost bled for the poor souls. So much money and so little respect. Perhaps if they paid their way with n’er a care for this year’s new tax-fiddle, we’d all be happy to see them flaunt in true Hollywood style. Until then, I’m delighted to see the miserable-rich run the gauntlet of hostile public opinion.
