The rich ARE different
What a contrast. In the US, Democrats fearful that Leftist presidential candidate Elizabeth Warren may lack voter appeal are turning to 77-yearold billionaire Michael Bloomberg as the best person to take on 73year-old billionaire Donald trump.
here in Britain, Jeremy Corbyn and Labour have gone out of their way to vilify billionaires Jim Ratcliffe, Mike ashley, the Duke of Westminster and others, condemning them as social parasites and polluters who divide society.
Defending billionaires, often perceived as tax avoiders and socially destructive, is never going to be popular. But people such as Bloomberg have built world-leading brands, proved socially liberal in office and have been a social good in Britain.
the Bloomberg hQ in the City, built at a cost of £1bn, is one of the greenest buildings in Britain. It incorporates London’s archaeological legacy and has already established itself as a public space to debate issues of the day.
Incidentally, Bloomberg journalists and other employees are some of the best-paid in the profession. Looking after the financial affairs of global billionaires, most of whom are job and wealth creators, is an enormously profitable activity.
In the post-financial crisis world, Swiss investment bankers UBS focused on wealth management, having come unstuck in subprime and other scandals a decade ago.
they joined with auditors PwC to provide an annual billionaires report. this is not a box-ticking survey.
they managed to bring 60 or so securityconscious wealthy individuals together in a room in Zurich to harvest their views and contribution to global output.
there is a fair amount of philanthropywash which goes on at such gatherings.
But there is no escaping the fact that two of the world’s richest people – Bill Gates and the Oracle of Omaha, Warren Buffett – are committed to give away almost all their wealth to good causes, particularly to fight disease in africa. they seek to bring hardheaded business experience to this.
Corbyn and his associates are never going to approve of billionaires. Indeed, all of us who believe in fairer distribution of resources – not to mention fans of the Sky tV serial Billions and the hBO production Succession – will have qualms about this self-absorbed cohort.
What is wrong, as a leading US banker visiting the City this week said, is the personal venom directed at wealth creators.
Both Corbyn and Elizabeth Warren have engaged in this and, in so doing, undermine entrepreneurship. Microsoft has changed the lives of most of us for the good. apple has brought aesthetic pleasure to billions and Facebook has enabled connectivity across the globe.
Left-wing critics might want to reflect on how social media has helped causes they support, such as Extinction Rebellion.
the encouraging finding of the UBS-PwC round table for Britain is that irrespective of whether Britain remains in the EU, leaves with a deal or makes a clean break, the billionaires plan to keep on investing. a property acquaintance recently sold one City tower to a Latin american family and has hopes of disposing of another. hong Kong’s richest person, Li Ka-shing, decided long ago that the rule of law in Britain was to be trusted and has invested in water utilities and Britain’s leading container port at Felixstowe.
Do the billionaires see Corbyn as a risk? Not as much as one might think. the view is that a Labour majority on December 12 is unlikely and coalition, confidence and supply agreements, or the checks and balances offered by Whitehall and courts, will keep the worst excesses of Corbynism at bay.
tycoons don’t necessarily have the best political judgment. Let’s hope that on this they are right. Guilty secret
MUCh fuss this week when andrew Balls of Pimco (little brother of Ed) cautioned that a combination of Brexit and fiscal irresponsibility might lead overseas investors to flee the market for UK government stocks. But there is an another view. In making the banking and insurance systems safer, policy-makers across the world have, in effect, underpinned fixedinterest markets.
the requirement that institutions such as pension funds hold sovereign debt means that the UK is no longer as dependent as it once was on the kindness of strangers.
JP Morgan and Barclays aren’t going to be shedding their gilts any time soon.