Richistan: A Journey Through the American Wealth Boom and the Lives of the New Rich | 
| Author: Robert Frank
Publisher: Crown
Category: Book
List Price: $24.95
Buy Used: $5.13
You Save: $19.82 (79%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  66 reviews
Sales Rank: 16494
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 277
Shipping Weight (lbs): 1.6
Dimensions (in): 9.3 x 5.8 x 1.2
ISBN: 0307339262
Dewey Decimal Number: 305.52340973
EAN: 9780307339263
ASIN: 0307339262
Publication Date: June 5, 2007
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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Product Description
The rich have always been different from you and me, but this revealing and funny journey through “Richistan” entertainingly shows that they are more different than ever. Richistanis have 400-foot-yachts, 30,000-square-foot homes, house staffs of more than 100, and their own “arborists.” They’re also different from Old Money, and have torn down blue-blood institutions to build their own shining empire.
Richistan is like the best travel writing, full of colorful and interesting stories providing insights into exotic locales. Robert Frank has been loitering on the docks of yacht marinas, pestering his way into charity balls, and schmoozing with real estate agents selling mega-houses to capture the story of the twenty-first century’s nouveau riche:
House-training the rich. People with new wealth have to be taught how to act like, well, proper rich people. Just in the nick of time, there’s been a boom in the number of newly trained butlers—“household managers”—who will serve just the right cabernet when a Richistani’s new buddies from Palm Beach stop by.
“My boat is bigger than your boat.” Only in Richistan would a 100-foot-boat be considered a dinghy. Personal pleasure craft have started to rival navy destroyers in size and speed. Richistan is also a place where friends make fun of those misers who buy the new girlfriend a mere Mercedes SLK.
“You want my money? Prove that you’re helping the needy!” Richistanis are not only consuming like crazy, they’re also shaking up the establishment’s bureaucratic, slow-moving charity network, making lean, results-oriented philanthropy an important new driving force.
Move over, Christian Coalition. Richistanis are more Democratic than Republican, “fed up and not going to take it anymore,” and willing to spend millions to get progressive-oriented politicians elected.
“My name is Mike and I’m rich.” Think that money is the answer? Think again as Robert Frank explores the emotional complexities of wealth.
And, as Robert Frank reveals, there is not one Richistan but three: Lower, Middle, and Upper, each of which has its own levels and distinctions of wealth —the haves and the have-mores. The influence of Richistan and the Richistanis extends well beyond the almost ten million households that make up its population, as the nonstop quest for status and an insatiable demand for luxury goods reshapes the entire American economy.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 61 more reviews...
The rich ARE different after all! (They have more $$$$$) October 2, 2008
Robert Frank's "Richistan" is a voyeuristic peek inside the posh tent and McMansions of the American wealthy. He argues that there are developing polarizing forces that make the "new rich" a nation unto themselves. He also dissects this affluent band, indicating that there are three subsets depending on the degree of wealth.
This is a fascinating sociological study of the New Rich, tracing how they differ from Old Money. This has political and social - as well as financial - ramifications.
"Richistan" offers few solutions. It does not pretend to be a prescriptive work of non-fiction. It is, instead, a very interesting perspective on the growth of the new class and the bubble in which it lives.
 Interesting topic October 1, 2008
The topic area is interesting, but does not seem as thorough and balanced as I would expect - I am not sure if I should consider this an accurate account of life in the wealth stratosphere, or just an entertaining perspective by one author. I read this book right after "Nickel and Dimed" by Barbara Ehrenreich, which created an interesting contrast. I listened to the audio version, and did not care for the reader. The accents he uses to portray discussions with the author (and there are many of them) are strange and get to be quite irritating by the end of the book.
 Amusing Anthropological Analysis of Astronomically Affluent September 26, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
Mr. Frank does an excellent job of presenting an overview of this rarefied subculture. Base insecurities of the human condition are displayed by this obscenely wealthy crowd's habitual one-upmanship social gatherings, Freudian obsessions with having the biggest yacht, mansion or whatever and rarely being satisfied with what they have accrued. A great deal of credit must be given to Mr. Frank for not devolving his book into a hatchet job on the moneyed folk. The author presents some of the pros and cons of finally acquiring and living with so much moolah. A brief, informative and entertaining book.
Interesting little book September 26, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
This book made me think of possibly being a household manager because he made it sound like an interesting career. It does make you think about the super rich and the lives they live. Held my attention.
Superficial! September 23, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
Wall Street Journal reporter Robert Frank has written a useful book on the new rich. He points to the huge gap between the rich and the rest of us. The richest 1% in the USA have 33% of the country's wealth, more than the poorest 90% and the incomes of the richest 10% are growing by more than 10% a year. Yet median incomes for US households have fallen for five years running and median families make $3000 a year less than they did in 2000.
How do the rich do this? The global pension, insurance and mutual funds have $46 trillion, wealth produced by the 95% who work. The CEOs, bankers and hedge-fund owners - the money managers - steal from this global river of cash.
Governments help the rich to rob us. Bush's tax cuts gave 80% of the tax savings to the richest 10%, 20% to the richest 0.1%.
The result? Our savings, housing and pension funds vanish, so David Blunkett tells us that we have to work till we drop. Education, health and industry vanish too.
But the rich get richer. In 2005, Hurricane Wilma wrecked Fort Lauderdale a month after Hurricane Katrina wrecked New Orleans - yet the town still held the 46th International Boat Show and shifted its funds from the newly homeless have-nots to the have-yachts.
When Google founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page bought themselves a Boeing 767 wide-body airliner, Page said that it would let them "take large numbers of people to places such as Africa. I think that can only be good for the world."
Frank shares this folly. He ends by writing, "If we accept that the rich aren't the cause of the current inequities, but merely the lucky beneficiaries, we can also hope that they will use their wealth to help target society's deepest problems."
He then refers to Andrew Carnegie's 100-year-old dream of `reconciliation between rich and poor, a reign of harmony'. Why hasn't this happened? Maybe it's because we think that `the rich aren't the cause of the current inequities', because we still hope that `they will use their wealth to help target society's deepest problems'.
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