Jackpot
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Narrated by:
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Dennis Boutsikaris
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By:
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Michael Mechanic
About this listen
A senior editor at Mother Jones dives into the lives of the extremely rich, showing the fascinating, otherworldly realm they inhabit - and the insidious ways this realm harms us all.
Have you ever fantasized about being ridiculously wealthy? Probably. Striking it rich is among the most resilient of American fantasies, surviving war and peace, expansions and recessions, economic meltdowns and global pandemics. We dream of the jackpot, the big exit, the life-altering payday, in whatever form that takes. (Americans spent $81 billion on lottery tickets in 2019, more than the GDPs of most nations.) We would escape “essential” day jobs and cramped living spaces, bury our debts, buy that sweet spread, and bailout struggling friends and relations. But rarely do we follow the fantasy to its conclusion - to ponder the social, psychological, and societal downsides of great affluence and the fact that so few possess it.
What is it actually like to be blessed with riches in an era of plagues, political rancor, and near-Dickensian economic differences? How mind-boggling are the opportunities and access, how problematic the downsides? Does the experience differ depending on whether the money is earned or unearned, where it comes from, and whether you are male or female, white or Black? Finally, how does our collective lust for affluence, and our stubborn belief in social mobility, explain how we got to the point where 40 percent of Americans have literally no wealth at all?
These are all questions that Jackpot sets out to explore. The result of deep reporting and dozens of interviews with fortunate citizens - company founders and executives, superstar coders, investors, inheritors, lottery winners, lobbyists, lawmakers, academics, sports agents, wealth and philanthropy professionals, concierges, luxury realtors, Bentley dealers, and even a woman who trains billionaires’ nannies in physical combat, Jackpot is a compassionate, character-rich, perversely humorous, and ultimately troubling journey into the American wealth fantasy and where it has taken us.
©2021 Michael Mechanic. All rights reserved. (P)2021 Simon & Schuster, Inc. All rights reserved.Listeners also enjoyed...
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Story
How happy would you be if you had all the money in the world? We spend endless hours obsessing over our budgets and investments, trying to figure out ways to stretch every dollar. We try to follow the advice of money gurus and financial planners, then kick ourselves whenever we spend too much or save too little. For all of the stress and effort we put into every choice, why are most of us unhappy about our finances? According to Laura Vanderkam, the key is to change your perspective.
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Very Practical Book with Good Ideas
- By Herstory buff on 07-03-14
By: Laura Vanderkam
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The 9.9 Percent
- The New Aristocracy That Is Entrenching Inequality and Warping Our Culture
- By: Matthew Stewart
- Narrated by: Sean Patrick Hopkins
- Length: 12 hrs and 6 mins
- Unabridged
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In 21st century America, the top 0.1 percent of the wealth distribution have walked away with the big prizes even while the bottom 90 percent have lost ground. What’s left of the American Dream has taken refuge in the 9.9 percent that lies just below the tip of extreme wealth. Collectively, the members of this group control more than half of the wealth in the country - and they are doing whatever it takes to hang on to their piece of the action in an increasingly unjust system.
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Fantastic
- By Davena on 01-05-23
By: Matthew Stewart
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Where You Are Is Not Who You Are
- A Memoir
- By: Ursula Burns
- Narrated by: Ursula Burns
- Length: 7 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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The first Black female CEO of a Fortune 500 company looks back at her life and her career at Xerox, sharing unique insights on American business and corporate life, the workers she has always valued, racial and economic justice, how greed is threatening democracy, and the obstacles she’s conquered being Black and a woman.
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Relatable story, flaws and all
- By Anonymous User on 01-06-22
By: Ursula Burns
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The Feminine Mistake
- By: Leslie Bennetts
- Narrated by: Leslie Bennetts
- Length: 6 hrs and 29 mins
- Abridged
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Women are constantly being told that it's simply too difficult to balance work and family, so if they don't really "have to" work, it's better for their families if they stay home. Not only is this untrue, Leslie Bennetts says, but the arguments in favor of stay-at-home motherhood fail to consider the surprising benefits of work and the unexpected toll of giving it up. It's time, she says, to get the message across: combining work and family really is the best choice for most women.
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couldn't get into it.
- By diana prince on 09-21-15
By: Leslie Bennetts
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Pound Foolish
- Exposing the Dark Side of the Personal Finance Industry
- By: Helaine Olen
- Narrated by: Lyn Landon
- Length: 9 hrs and 1 min
- Unabridged
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For the past few decades, Americans have spent billions of dollars on personal finance products. As salaries have stagnated and companies have cut back on benefits, we've taken matters into our own hands, embracing the can-do attitude that if we're smart enough, we can overcome even daunting financial obstacles. But that's not true. In this meticulously reported and shocking audiobook, journalist and former financial columnist Helaine Olen goes behind the curtain of the personal finance industry to expose the myths, contradictions, and outright lies it has perpetuated.
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The dark side of my industry
- By jfoxcpacfp on 06-15-13
By: Helaine Olen
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American Dreams
- Restoring Economic Opportunity for Everyone
- By: Marco Rubio
- Narrated by: Ricardo Suri
- Length: 6 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Marco Rubio's parents came to the United States in 1956. The country they found was truly a land of opportunity, where hardworking people with grade school educations could afford a home, a car, and college for their kids. A country where maids and bartenders could raise doctors, lawyers, small-business owners, and maybe even a US senator. That was the American Dream - our country's central promise to its people.
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Comprehensive and compelling path for renewal.
- By gary on 06-03-15
By: Marco Rubio
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Third World America
- How Our Politicians Are Abandoning the Middle Class and Betraying the American Dream
- By: Arianna Huffington
- Narrated by: Coleen Marlo
- Length: 6 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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America's middle class, the driver of so much of our economic success and political stability, is rapidly disappearing, forcing us to confront the fear that we are slipping as a nation - that our children and grandchildren will enjoy fewer opportunities and face a lower standard of living than we did. It's the dark flipside of the American Dream - an American Nightmare of our own making.
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Sad... but with a ray of hope
- By Maciej on 10-20-10
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The Nordic Theory of Everything
- In Search of a Better Life
- By: Anu Partanen
- Narrated by: Abby Craden
- Length: 10 hrs and 28 mins
- Unabridged
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Moving to America in 2008, Finnish journalist Anu Partanen quickly went from confident, successful professional to wary, self-doubting mess. She found that navigating the basics of everyday life - from buying a cell phone and filing taxes to education and childcare - was much more complicated and stressful than anything she encountered in her homeland. At first she attributed her crippling anxiety to the difficulty of adapting to a freewheeling new culture. But as she got to know Americans better, she discovered they shared her deep apprehension.
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A non-radical perspective on two societies
- By kwdayboise (Kim Day) on 06-20-17
By: Anu Partanen
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Fulfillment
- Winning and Losing in One-Click America
- By: Alec MacGillis
- Narrated by: Danny Gavigan
- Length: 12 hrs and 22 mins
- Unabridged
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Alec MacGillis’ Fulfillment is not another inside account or exposé of our most conspicuously dominant company. Rather, it is a literary investigation of the America that falls within that company’s growing shadow. As MacGillis shows, Amazon’s sprawling network of delivery hubs, data centers, and corporate campuses epitomizes a land where winner and loser cities and regions are drifting steadily apart, the civic fabric is unraveling, and work has become increasingly rudimentary and isolated.
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Missing some important angles
- By D. Zimmerle on 08-19-21
By: Alec MacGillis
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It Was All a Dream
- A New Generation Confronts the Broken Promise to Black America
- By: Reniqua Allen
- Narrated by: Shayna Small
- Length: 12 hrs and 17 mins
- Unabridged
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Reniqua Allen tells the stories of Black millennials searching for a better future in spite of racist policies that have closed off traditional versions of success. Many watched their parents and grandparents play by the rules, only to sink deeper and deeper into debt. They witnessed their elders fight to escape cycles of oppression for more promising prospects, largely to no avail. Today, in this post-Obama era, they face a critical turning point. Interweaving her own experience, Allen shares surprising stories of hope and ingenuity.
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Great statistics and facts
- By Eve on 05-18-19
By: Reniqua Allen
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The Unwinding
- An Inner History of the New America
- By: George Packer
- Narrated by: Robert Fass
- Length: 18 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Unwinding, George Packer, author of The Assassins’ Gate: America in Iraq, tells the story of the United States over the past three decades in an utterly original way, with his characteristically sharp eye for detail and gift for weaving together complex narratives. The Unwinding portrays a superpower in danger of coming apart at the seams, its elites no longer elite, its institutions no longer working, its ordinary people left to improvise their own schemes for success and salvation.
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Can't understand the low ratings!
- By Janet Pittman Henley on 05-27-13
By: George Packer
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Know Your Price
- Valuing Black Lives and Property in America’s Black Cities
- By: Andre M. Perry
- Narrated by: Leon Nixon
- Length: 7 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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The deliberate devaluation of Blacks and their communities has had very real, far-reaching, and negative economic and social effects. An enduring white supremacist myth claims brutal conditions in Black communities are mainly the result of Black people's collective choices and moral failings. But there is nothing wrong with Black people that ending racism can't solve. Noted educator, journalist, and scholar Andre Perry takes listeners on a tour of six Black-majority cities whose assets and strengths are undervalued.
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More about Black lives than property
- By J. Craig on 04-13-22
By: Andre M. Perry
What listeners say about Jackpot
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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- Evan Livingstone
- 08-30-21
In depth analysis of how super rich avoid taxes.
I learned a lot about the influence super rich people have with legislators who write tax codes that favor them. Also about how Black people and women have less access to capital. The book also explains how charitable trusts work to white wash the reputations of rich people who engage in cut throat business practices that harm working people. I enjoyed the jaunty, personal tone and style of the book.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Kwafman
- 06-02-21
Defining My Own Discontent
This book was therapy for my soul. It left me we a perspective that I felt but could not define. The separation of of wealth continues on but does not materialize the dream that consumption equates happiness. The false platitudes that drive us need reassessing.
Where do we go from here?
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3 people found this helpful
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- Samantha Shaffer
- 09-02-21
Good!!!
Takes a good look at all things wealth. Some aspects are truly mind boggling. I especially liked the chapters about Black people & Women!!
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1 person found this helpful
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- All-access Customer
- 09-28-21
powerful
powerful, powerful, powerful mix of real life historical events, personal stories, and realities that still face Us in the current. this should be taught in schools starting in high school and reinforced in college in every setting public and private. we need a mind shift.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 09-08-21
Eat The Rich
Eye opening call to arms for the 99%. The wealth gap is so much wider than I thought and is affecting me, my friends and probably you on the daily. Very readable, fun, titillating, thought provoking and ultimately - highly upsetting.
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2 people found this helpful
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- Anonymous User
- 10-14-21
very intriguing
Really loved this listen, gave really great insight into the topic of striking it rich! And, how one might want to prepare in advance for repercussions that are part of that reality.
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1 person found this helpful
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- Mari
- 04-28-21
Why we have & tolerate huge Wealth Disparity
Wide-ranging engaging discussion of American wealth. Included was the moral and social aspects that are left out by angry Media. The unique American relationship with wealth deserved a larger discussion. I recommend “White Trash” by Nancy Isenburg as a companion to this book.
Most of us will never know the separate, advantaged world lived by the wealthy. The monopoly game example was quite excellent. The many specific examples and personal interviews bring the issues into relatable focus.
Very good sum up of what drives US culture and attitudes.
Unfortunately even if Fox “News” audience read it, they’d brand it libtard and the ignorance will continue.
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- lillianw
- 06-08-21
Outstanding
I just listened to this book on a road trip to and from North Carolina and the book was outstanding. The multitude of tax breaks available to the ultra wealthy becomes ridiculous and I feel naïve for not having considered the ramifications of all of those tax breaks on the ultra wealthy which the middle class then absorbs.
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- Anastasialuc
- 01-13-22
Just the right mix of fun and fact
A fascinating look at the obscenely wealthy and the harm they do to "commoners." The author found just the right mix between sobering statistics and crazy interviews and observations of the .01 percenters.
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