We frequently encounter juicy stories about the extravagance of wealthy individuals in the media. Often, we perceive these tales as weird and unbelievable. In 2007, India’s richest man Mukesh Ambani presented his wife Nita Ambani, with an Airbus A319 valued at US$ 60 million as a birthday gift. Mukesh Ambani currently ranks 9th among the world’s richest people, according to Forbes. Last year at the opening ceremony of Nita Mukesh Ambani Cultural Center built at an estimated cost of Rs 121 crore, his son Anant Ambani wore a wristwatch costing Rs. 18 crore (Approximately, US$ 2.18 million at the current exchange rate). It seems absurd to the non-rich masses that a wristwatch, fundamentally intended to display time, should cost Rs. 18 crore. Well, we shouldn’t expect a billionaire to see time on an ordinary watch. After all, his time is way more valuable than ours!
If you possess an insane amount of wealth, you will look for various ways to spend it and fortunately, there are innovative business people who are always there to serve the needs of the billionaires. For example, the typical price for frozen hot chocolate is around US$ 5. However, in 2007, New York’s iconic restaurant Serendipity3 introduced a unique version of it made with a blend of 28 types of cocoa and adorned with 5 grams of 23-karat gold—of course, edible. This extravagant treat came with a price tag of US$ 25,000 – befitting for the ultra-rich.
Going back to Anant Ambani’s wristwatch, it can always be argued that it’s his money, he earned it, so, he has the right to spend it as he wishes. But still, something doesn’t feel right. In the last financial year 2022-23, over 160 million people of India – almost equal to the entire population of Bangladesh – lived in extreme poverty as per the World Bank Poverty & Equity Brief.
Italian statistician and sociologist, Corrado Gini, invented a method to measure income inequality on a scale from 0 to 1, known as the Gini coefficient or Gini index. The World Bank provides the Gini index in its Poverty and Inequality Platform. India’s Gini index was 34.2 in 2021, indicating moderate inequality in income distribution. However, wealth, rather than income, provides a more holistic view of economic standing. According to Statista, India’s Wealth Gini was 0.82 at the end of 2021, rising from 0.75 in 2000, indicating a growing trend of high-level inequality in wealth accumulation in society.
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This article was published in the Daily Sun on March 15, 2024. Please read the full article here or here.