Episode 21

The luxury episode! Peter and Paul discuss a new offering by The Four Seasons hotel group – 24 days of globe-trotting luxury. Pete makes the case that people are the experience and that such fancy trips are price discriminatory and can, in effect, exclude certain friends. One feature of the luxury package is that “the tour accomplishes in 24 days a journey that if you tried to do commercially, might take 90.” Paul asks, “Is efficiency when you’re on holiday really the right approach?” One problem faced by these luxury guests is that they’re whisked from one viewing to the next, with little time to discuss or process. The result, the author claims, is a sight-seeing extravagance thin on genuine impact or meaning. This seems to be a theme of hyper-consumption: a lack of reflection on what we’re doing or what we’re buying. Then, after our first commercial plug, we move onto a more weighty article, Secret Fears of the Super-Rich, by Graeme Wood of The Atlantic. Nearly 200 respondents, each with a net worth in excess of $20 million, confessed their deepest fears and apprehensions. Not surprisingly, spoiling their kids was top of the list. Surprisingly, many wealthy folks admitted that life’s small pleasures were often drained of their enjoyment either through repetition (how many Gordon Ramsey meals can you eat? – Paul has an answer…) or because of expectations (holiday gift-giving is particularly trying…) A recurrent theme is how the two pillars of life – love and work – are easily compromised by lots of money.