The Rich Are Bad for Your Health

Had The Trouble with Billionaires been published just a few years ago, authors Linda McQuaig and Neil Brooks would have had a tough time getting readers to take their premise seriously. During the long boom that began in Bill Clinton’s first term and ended in George W. Bush’s second, billionaires did not give us any trouble at all. Lots of investors were getting rich in America’s stock and real estate markets. And they were too busy buying new cars and jet skis to waste time on class warfare.

Then came the financial crisis of 2008, and its piggyback recession. Americans were not really rich after all, it turns out—they’d just felt flush thanks to overinflated home valuations. Amidst the nationwide carnage, only a tiny elite managed to keep getting richer: Wall Street tycoons were using exotic, ­custom-made financial derivatives to...