Davos man : how the billionaires devoured the world / Peter S. Goodman (Author)

Includes index

Prologue: "They write the rules for the rest of the world"
Global pillage. "High up in the mountains" ; "The world that our fathers in World War II wanted us to live in" ; "Suddenly, the orders stopped" ; "Our chance to fuck them back" ; "It had to explode" ; "Every stone I looked under was a Blackstone" ; "They are now licking their lips"
Profiteering off a pandemic. "They are not interested in our concerns" ; "There's always a way of making money" ; "Grossly underfunded and facing collapse" ; "We are actually all one" ; "We're not safe" ; "This is killing people" ; "Is this a time to profit?" ; "We will get 100 percent of our capital back"
Resetting history. "Not somebody who is going to disrupt Washington" ; "The money is right there in the community now" ; "Put money in people's pockets" ; "At war against monopoly power" ; "Taxes, taxes, taxes. The rest is bullshit"
Conclusion: "Our cup runneth over"

"The history of the last half century in America, Europe, and other major economies is in large part the story of wealth flowing upward. The most affluent people emerged from capitalism's triumph in the Cold War to loot the peace, depriving governments of the resources needed to serve their people, and leaving them tragically unprepared for the worst pandemic in a century. Drawing on decades of experience covering the global economy, award-winning journalist Peter S. Goodman profiles five representative "Davos Men" -- members of the billionaire class -- chronicling how their shocking exploitation of the global pandemic has hastened a fifty-year trend of wealth centralization. Alongside this reporting, Goodman delivers textured portraits of those caught in Davos Man's wake, including a former steelworker in the American Midwest, a Bangladeshi migrant in Qatar, a Seattle doctor on the front lines of the fight against COVID, blue-collar workers in the tenements of Buenos Aires, an African immigrant in Sweden, a textile manufacturer in Italy, an Amazon warehouse employee in New York City, and more. Goodman's rollicking and revelatory exposé of the global billionaire class reveals their hidden impact on nearly every aspect of modern society: widening wealth inequality, the rise of anti-democratic nationalism, the shrinking opportunity to earn a livable wage, the vulnerabilities of our health-care systems, access to affordable housing, unequal taxation, and even the quality of the shirt on your back. Meticulously reported yet compulsively readable, Davos Man is an essential read for anyone concerned about economic justice, the capacity of societies to grapple with their greatest challenges, and the sanctity of representative government."-- Provided by publisher