The rich are not like you and me, but they’re not like the super-rich, either.
CNBC reporter David Faber offers an eye-opening primer on how the other half — actually the top .001 percenters — live, and how their habits affect the rest of us.
“Untold Wealth: The Rise of the Super Rich,” a one-hour documentary, airs Sunday at 8 p.m. on CNBC.
In this new gilded age, not only is there an incredible amount of money in the hands of the few, Faber notes, but also there are an unprecedented number of millionaires, whose ranks have increased at an exponential rate.
How many times can you hear that being a millionaire doesn’t mean anything before it begins to wear on the nerves?
Faber’s report puts in perspective the “middle-class millionaires,” who feel pressure from the multimillionaires and billionaires above them.
Laurel Touby is a case study. Touby sold her website, , for $23 million in 2007. She was left with $10 million after taxes. Now she can’t quit her apartment in Queens for a better space in Manhattan because $10 million simply isn’t enough to upgrade her lifestyle. She’s not complaining about grocery prices, but $10 million just doesn’t go as far as it used to.
In 1985 there were 13 American billionaires. Today, there are more than a thousand.
File under, “If you have to ask, you can’t afford it”: To illustrate the lifestyle of the new super-rich, the camera lingers over the $2,500 shoes and $18,000 purses, $800,000 wristwatches, $100,000-a-year private club memberships, $10,000-a-day vacation homes. . . . This tour of pricey merchandise could count as luxury porn.
The film probes the effects of all this wealth on the rest of us. And ultimately it leaves the viewer wondering about the connections between money and happiness.
Some of Faber’s super-rich subjects are introspective, chastising others for being in a mindless race for more and more. Others aren’t so enlightened. It’s just possible some of the phenomenally wealthy people interviewed here don’t know much more than we do about leading a rich life.
GLAAD for acceptance
The realistic depiction of gay lawyer Kevin (Matthew Rhys) on ABC’s “Brothers & Sisters” has been greeted with a yawn.
The show-tune loving, sports-averse nephew on the network’s “Ugly Betty,” along with the flamboyantly gay assistant played by Michael Urie, and the transsexual editor played by Rebecca Romijn, have been met with a similar collective shrug.
If not open-hearted acceptance, viewers at least have moved to nonchalance when it comes to gay characters.
The Gay & Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD)is all about rewarding nonjudgmental nonchalance. GLAAD’s awards gala will air tonight, starting locally at 5:30 on Bravo.
There are still media moments that GLAAD targets as offensive — FX’s “30 Days” recently contained an unchallenged defamatory statement about the fitness of gays to be parents, GLAAD argues.
But prime-time portrayals of characters with alternative sexual orientations have come a long way since Ellen’s 1997 coming-out episode.
Inclusion is now the norm.
To win a GLAAD award you don’t have to be pro-gay, you just have to be fair. Both “Ugly Betty” and “Brothers & Sisters” are repeat winners from 2007. The awards ceremonies previously were relegated to Logo and VH-1. This year, for the first time, they get significant national exposure on Bravo.
The show combines ceremonies in Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco and South Florida taped earlier. D-lister Kathy Griffin, Mariska Hargitay (“Law & Order: SVU”), Ellen DeGeneres, T.R. Knight (“Grey’s Anatomy”), Joss Stone and Rufus Wainwright appear.
Joanne Ostrow’s column appears Tuesday, Friday and Sunday: 303-954-1830 or jostrow@denverpost.com
