Culture

Pity the rich, tossing and turning on their Porthault sheets. How they suffer.

Forbes Magazine is so worried about a backlash that they’ve published an allegedly tongue in cheek guide on how to avoid the pitchforks and flaming torches by not flaunting, but hiding your wealth. While still keeping up your lifestyle, obviously.

It’s tough out there when everyone hates you–or at least suspects you had a hand in the collapse of the global financial system, the shredding of trillions of dollars of assets and the issuance of 5 million pink slips since January 2008. Have you hired a security firm yet? At least get a lawyer: The feds may be coming after you, combing through the wreckage of your business, looking for evidence to send you up the river. If Barack Obama doesn’t raise your taxes, your populist state legislators will.

What’s a strapped hectomillionaire (to say nothing of a billionaire) to do? First off, relax. Don’t do anything crazy, like build a bomb shelter or open a Channel Islands trust with a dummy trustee to hide from taxes (it’s illegal). Like the recession, the angry mob clamoring for your head will pass on. It’s still good to be rich.

Yes, I expect it is.How can the poor suffering oligarchs hide their money?

– “Trusts for children are nearly impossible to crack…”

So nice to see tradition still counts for something.

And how can one avoid taxes when the oiks in the revenue come knocking?

“Store all the diamonds or gold bullion (but not gold certificates) you want in a Swiss bank without reporting it to the irs, since the investments don’t pay interest. (Another option: raw land, which doesn’t require reporting until it generates income.)

Ahh, the old ways, always the best. The authors go on to advise their readers to keep their chins up, stay upbeat and think of uncertain times as an opportunity, not a threat:

….the recession provides a good smoke screen for disposing of a servant you don’t like anyway.

That’s what’s most telling about this cover piece; the tone. It tries hard for charming insouciance but the real worry still shows through, because it’s it’s studded with nuggets of thoroughly specific advice, like

If your worry is creditors, not tax collectors, buy a flat in London and go there if things get too hot. “As long as it’s not criminal, you won’t get extradited,”

Haha. So very droll. Though a commenter didn’t find it all amusing:

Forgive me for sounding like a member of the “POPULIST MOB,” but this article strikes me as being in profoundly bad taste. People are losing their homes and lining up at food banks, and you’re offering instructions on how to evade taxes?? And offering condolences to people whose yacht builders went out of business? Is it really okay to even joke about this?

Bad taste it may be but it’s not a joke, it’s whistling in the dark. The rich are worried and are right to be worried – the climate change exodus has begun already, food and water riots loom and because of an unprecedented access to information which has exposed their leaders’ corruption, electorates worldwide have lost faith in democracy. The world is in a dangerous place and it’s mostly the rich’s fault.

But hey, stay upbeat, oligarchs. Why not make hay while the sun shines? The authors forgot the best advice to the rich who want to keep activities quiet while still making shedloads of untaxed cash: put your money in pitchfork production.