Sultans Of Dollars And Sense

Benzi, the east African name given to top persons riding in new Mercedes.

The money-mountains upon which the Billi sit seem to grow of their own accord. Interest on some of their holdings is accumulating faster than you can read this article. The ghost of Croesus must be wondering why the last king of Lydia had the rotten luck to be born 2,500 years too soon.

We can only gawp. There is no currently respectable theory on which to base any other response. Some economists argue that the opportunity to accumulate wealth is a necessary function of capitalism. If entrepreneurs do not perceive a chance of raking in a jackpot, they will not risk going bankrupt. Others say that nothing trickles down, that the emergence of the Billi is a mere by product of unrestrained private enterprise let loose in free global markets, praise be to Mammon.

 

Either way, there is no elucidation to be had from economics. We must ask the Sultan of Brunei, or the Sultan of Microsoft, to fund a chair of Billi studies, situated in the sociology department of an Ivy League college. There could be an associate chair to concentrate on millionaires, the Milli. Although the more numerous clan, it is only one thousandth as fascinating as the more exclusive one.

Our well funded professors could start with a data base. They should be wary of the Human Development Report published by the United Nations in July.

In case you were on holiday, the UN told us that the total wealth of the 358 billionaires it knew of, equalled the combined income of the poorest 45 per cent of the planet's population. Comparing wealth with income is doubtful methodologyeven

for sociologists.

Next stop would be Forbes magazine, which told us a few issues ago that the planet is host to 447 billionaires. This is a leap forward from the 274 noted in 1991.