Chartbook 254 Crazy Rich Germans .. . and the hypocrisy of the "social market economy".

“Crazy Rich Germans”? … it doesn’t ring quite right, does it. Surely, Germany is a well-groomed social market economy? No badly behaved, high-spending crazy-rich people there. You can make entire movies driven by clichés about the Asian nouveau riche. The wealth of Arab sheikhs is legendary. Europe has dined out for more than a century on gossip about the antics of America’s billionaires. Piketty’s famous inequality studies updated that trans-Atlantic trope for the 21st century. But what about Europe’s own ultra wealthy? Obviously, there are plenty of people on the old continent with loads of money. It is not for nothing that Europe is home to so many of the world’s high-end luxury brands. British aristos still own huge slices of the country. Russian oligarchs boast some of the biggest yachts in the world. Paris is a city of extreme wealth and exquisite luxury, as is plain for any visitor to see. Places like Luxembourg, or Zurich or Geneva glitter with affluence. But what about Germany

“Crazy Rich Germans”? … it doesn’t ring quite right, does it. Surely, Germany is a well-groomed social market economy? No badly behaved, high-spending crazy-rich people there. You can make entire movies driven by clichés about the Asian nouveau riche. The wealth of Arab sheikhs is legendary. Europe has dined out for more than a century on gossip about the antics of America’s billionaires. Piketty’s famous inequality studies updated that trans-Atlantic trope for the 21st century. But what about Europe’s own ultra wealthy? Obviously, there are plenty of people on the old continent with loads of