Get rich, if you wish

But exactly how much money do you need? Three ultra rich men have assets that exceed the combined gross domestic product of 48 least developed countries. Then come 225 super rich people. Their combined wealth is equal to what half of the world's population makes annually. What do they do with their money?

Forbes magazine gives some clue. The most expensive yacht costs up to $300 million to buy plus 10 percent annually to run it. Give three of those yachts to a rich man. Assuming that each one sinks after five years, this will cost him $270 million a year. The most expensive car is something called a Bugatti Veyron, costing $1 million. Give three of this car with full-time drivers and frequent maintenance. The cost is around $4 million in a year.

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Then give the rich man a roof over his head. Prince Ahlwaleed bin Talal Alsaud has a palace that cost $130 million. It would be struggle to hit $100 million a year if one owns five of these houses, including payments for maintenance, air conditioning and condo fees. Say, one of the houses is on a private island. The most expensive island for sale was listed at $39.7 million. Give him a new island every year. Then he flies a private jet to the Bahamas every weekend. Calculated at $40,000 per week, the yearly total roughly adds up to $2 million. If he does not have a house in Bahamas, put him up in the best hotel. He cannot spend more than $1 million in 52 weeks.

Throw in a bunch of personal assistants and the protection of the British-trained security agents. The annual bill comes to slightly over $400 million. An average billionaire is worth $3.3 billion, which could be gone in less than a decade. But about 90 percent of that is boats and houses. If he is happy with one of each, the cost will come down to an impressive $100 million a year. At this rate, $3.3 billion can last beyond him.

Between the apogee and the perigee of wealth, truth is always stranger than fiction. Some people starve, others splurge; some live in splendour, others in squalor. Some do not have enough to find, others do not find enough to have. But it is fun to be rich, because it brings an exponential growth in the power of man. A rich man is worth many times more in monetary terms, his existence multiplied in the purchasing power to acquire and consume more than ordinary folks.

So, too many rich people pose a burden on the world. In 1994, Paul Ehrlic said at the International Conference on Population and Development in Cairo that rich people consumed too much and caused a strain on the resources of the world. The richest fifth consumed 45 percent of all meat and fish, 58 percent of all energy used and 84 percent of all paper, had 74 percent of all telephone lines and owned 87 percent of all vehicles. Here is something of a correlation. The number of billionaires in the world grew more than five times in last 20 years, while the average household consumption in Africa declined by 20 percent in 25 years.

More. An average American consumes 260 pounds of meat in a year and an average Bangladeshi consumes 6.5 pounds. An American uses 11 kW of energy, 100 times as much as a Bangladeshi. Americans spend $8 billion a year on cosmetics--$2 billion more than the cost of basic education for everyone in the world. Europeans spend $11 billion a year on ice cream--$2 billion more than the estimated annual cost of clean water and safe sewers for the world. Americans and Europeans spend $17 billion on pet food--$4 billion more than the additional amount needed to provide basic health and nutrition for the global population.

But wealth of people is no different from the wealth of nations, because the riches are not accumulated unless the riches are appropriated. The industrial revolution led to new riches in Europe and the U.S. at the cost of India's rich textile industry, spice trade, the Native American lives and the African slaves. The $50 billion of "aid" North to South is a tenth of $500 billion flow South to North as interest payments. The rich are rich because they know how to take many times more even when they give.

Thus, the rich are rich and the poor are poor like white is white and black is black. Much of what happens happens in the grey. French philosopher Proudhon gave it a name and called it theft. This is where the moral lessons start getting lost. Perhaps all vices become virtues after they gain the critical mass. There is a momentum for everything.

If you wish to get rich, be my guest. But remember you will only get impoverished. Rich is poor, very poor indeed. He is wretched as the Wizard of Oz, nothing without his wonder machine. A rich man is the exploit of all his exploits as if held on the ransom for as long as he spends. Check the website of the New Internationalist. A Bangladeshi wears diamonds worth $3 million on his shoes. The per capita income of the country is $360, which means more than eight thousand lives adorn his feet.

Get rich, if you get the kicks, and your feet can be heavy with vanity. Even better, be light-footed and get on with humanity.

Mohammad Badrul Ahsan is a banker.