Rich Brain

An excellent article by Arnand Giriharasas, Rich Brain, looks at the Epstein files and considers what they tell us about the ultra-rich. His observation is interesting – that being rich basically becomes a life devoted to maintaining that lifestyle – that you end up ensnared in it rather than being freed from the concerns of regular people. At one point, Giriharasas refers to a New Yorker article about Julian Robertson, worth billions of dollars, who organised his life around avoiding taxation for spending more than 183 nights a year in New York. The tax rate being avoided – on income only – was 3.6%. Robertson’s driver had to be on alert: as long as they crossed the Queens border en route to Locust Valley by midnight, Robertson didn’t have to “waste” a Saturday as a New York day. Even one minute of a day spent in the city counts as a day of residence. This sounds like a lot of work to protect a fraction of your fortune. The article also quotes a tweet from NYT editor Michael Roston:…