The New World’s Richest Man Is a Symbol of Our Broken Economy
A luxury economy is not a sustainable economy
The world got a new richest man recently.
Though most of the press focused on the dethroning of Elon Musk, whose sweaty gyrations as the new owner of Twitter have sent the stock of his other companies, and therefore his net worth, plummeting, I found the man who replaced him just as interesting. The newest contender in the “World’s Richest Man” race is Bernard Arnault.
Arnault is very rich because he’s the head of LVMH. If, like me, you have pedestrian tastes and even more pedestrian resources, you might not be terribly familiar with this company. It stands for Louis Vuitton, Moet, and Hennessy, and it’s the biggest luxury-goods company in the world. In addition to the brands that make up its initials, LVMH owns a bunch of companies that sell expensive things to rich people: Tiffany, Bulgari, Christian Dior, Givenchy, and even a yacht company. LVMH is the most valuable company based in the EU.
Arnault’s rise to the top is mostly meaningless — the World’s Richest Man rankings are mostly based on the price fluctuations of stocks that, if these guys sold them, would quickly become less valuable — but I think it’s symbolic. It shows that much of the big money in today’s economy comes from…
