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The Velvet Rope Economy
- How Inequality Became Big Business
- Narrated by: Jason Culp
- Length: 12 hrs and 33 mins
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Publisher's Summary
From New York Times business reporter Nelson D. Schwartz comes a gripping investigation of how a virtual velvet rope divides Americans in every arena of life, creating a friction-free existence for those with money on one side and a Darwinian struggle for the middle class on the other side.
In nearly every realm of daily life - from health care to education, highways to home security - there is an invisible velvet rope that divides how Americans live. On one side of the rope, for a price, red tape is cut, lines are jumped, appointments are secured, and doors are opened. On the other side, middle- and working-class Americans fight to find an empty seat on the plane, a place in line with their kids at the amusement park, a college acceptance, or a hospital bed.
We are all aware of the gap between the rich and everyone else, but when we weren't looking, business innovators stepped in to exploit it, shifting services away from the masses and finding new ways to profit by serving the privileged. And as decision-makers and corporate leaders increasingly live on the friction-free side of the velvet rope, they are less inclined to change - or even notice - the obstacles everyone else must contend with. Schwartz's must-listen audiobook takes us on a behind-the-scenes tour of this new reality and shows the toll the velvet rope divide takes on society.
Critic Reviews
"If you’ve wondered how today’s rich live - why they speed past us at ball games and amusement parks, how a select few never have to wait to see top doctors - you need to read The Velvet Rope Economy. You’ll never look at boarding a plane - or privilege and polarization - the same way." (Charles Duhigg, best-selling author of The Power of Habit)
"A masterpiece of beautifully written, carefully reported social commentary. Schwartz is able to take everyday things we already know - like the fact that the rich get to live a life entirely distinct from the rest of us - and shows, through colorful tales and great storytelling, that this is no curiosity. It is an indictment, a warning, a prediction, and a nuanced vision of our society. This book will become essential reading to understand this moment. But don’t let the grandness of his work scare you: it’s a fun, surprising read filled with unexpected peeks into the perquisites of superwealth." (Adam Davidson, co-founder of Planet Money and author of The Passion Economy: The New Rules for Thriving in the Twenty-First Century)
"Sometimes it takes real insight to understand what is staring you in the face. How often have you gritted your teeth as someone strolled past you to the front of the line? Or watched the curtain close to block your view of the passengers in first class? Schwartz decided not just to document all the ways our business culture has learned to cater to the rich at the expense of the rest of us, but to explain why it matters. It's an eye-opening exploration of a trend with many consequences, none of them good." (Joe Nocera, columnist, Bloomberg Opinion, and author of A Piece of the Action: How the Middle Class Joined the Money Class)
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What listeners say about The Velvet Rope Economy
Average Customer RatingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Performance
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- Max PA
- 05-08-20
Very detailed look at how the rich live better
reads like a long report on how the rich live differently in every aspect in life. the access they enjoy, the friction free environment they live in is not a reality for the rest of us. Some really interesting tidbits on how we got here but just so long winded going into detail about how rich kids get into college, how rich families travel and access medical care and even how the rich experience sporting events. could be half this length with half the detail and you wouldn't miss much.
2 people found this helpful
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- Phyllis
- 05-13-20
Two Weak Examples
Closed Shopping Malls and Ruby Tuesday Restaurants were weak examples. Other than those two problems, the book was insightful and important. Better to learn now what economic choices we have made rather than risk a Lenin-like revolution in the United States. Excellent read.
1 person found this helpful
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- mch
- 05-07-20
Wow, this book was good.
I was watching a news program and saw the author of this book being interviewed about the early disparities in testing for covid-19. I am a family physician and wondered why entire asymptomatic NBA teams could get tests for the virus and I couldn’t get any tests for sick patients. This book explains why. It explains a lot about how businesses and schools have changed over the years to benefit the wealthiest amongst us. The book also does a good job of explaining how these changes erode at the middle class and make it harder for the poor to better their lot in life. It was fascinating! There apparently are many aspects of life that are better for the top 1% that the rest of us know nothing about. I HIGHLY recommend this book!
1 person found this helpful
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- Amazon Customer
- 05-16-22
Truth be told
awesome awakening. The author is highly commended for writing this book. it is eye opening.
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- Josh Goldfine
- 12-05-21
Great read!
This book does an outstanding job showing how far-reaching the effects of inequality really are. Highly recommend this book!
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- K. Grayson
- 04-02-21
Flabbergasted
As I listened to the book, I went through many emotions. This is a must read if you are looking to grow your business, or if you want to understand the disparity between groups of people.
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- Darcy
- 05-14-20
eye opening
I expected to hear about first class on airplanes, but I kept realizing how experiences I've had fit into this pattern of inequality.
I'm very grateful for the last chapter and I hope that more companies follow the examples set by the likes of Southwest and the GB Packers.
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- Julie Newkirk
- 05-05-20
Great book!
This is a wonderful reminded of the U.S. Society and Globalization classes I took so many years ago. Lots of facts, but not overwhelming. Everyone should read/listen to this book!
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- Ningu
- 04-22-20
Revealing
For about half of Americans the information in this book will seem welcome. The other half might start considering revolution. Let's hope they get out and vote instead.
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Good intro
- By hannah on 05-03-19
By: Chris Hughes
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Jackpot
- By: Michael Mechanic
- Narrated by: Dennis Boutsikaris
- Length: 10 hrs and 34 mins
- Unabridged
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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. What is it actually like to be blessed with riches in an era of plagues, political rancor, and near-Dickensian economic differences? 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? These are all questions that Jackpot sets out to explore.
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Defining My Own Discontent
- By Kwafman on 06-02-21
By: Michael Mechanic
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Monopolized
- Life in the Age of Corporate Power
- By: David Dayen
- Narrated by: Stephen R. Thorne
- Length: 13 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Over the last 40 years our choices have narrowed, our opportunities have shrunk, and our lives have become governed by a handful of very large and very powerful corporations. Today, practically everything we buy, everywhere we shop, and every service we secure comes from a heavily concentrated market. This is a world where four major banks control most of our money, four airlines shuttle most of us around the country, and four major cell phone providers connect most of our communications.
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Fantastic
- By Amazon Customer on 08-11-20
By: David Dayen
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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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The War on Normal People
- By: Andrew Yang
- Narrated by: Andrew Yang
- Length: 6 hrs and 55 mins
- Unabridged
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The shift toward automation is about to create a tsunami of unemployment. Not in the distant future - now. One recent estimate predicts 13 million American workers will lose their jobs within the next seven years - jobs that won't be replaced. In a future marked by restlessness and chronic unemployment, what will happen to American society? In The War on Normal People, Andrew Yang paints a dire portrait of the American economy. Rapidly advancing technologies like artificial intelligence, robotics, and automation software are making millions of Americans' livelihoods irrelevant.
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Gave me hope!
- By Libby on 02-19-19
By: Andrew Yang
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Richistan
- A Journey Through the American Wealth Boom and the Lives of the New Rich
- By: Robert Frank
- Narrated by: Dick Hill
- Length: 7 hrs and 32 mins
- Unabridged
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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.
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Enjoyable Read
- By Kenneth on 07-15-07
By: Robert Frank
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Fair Shot
- Rethinking Inequality and How We Earn
- By: Chris Hughes
- Narrated by: Chris Hughes
- Length: 4 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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The first half of Chris Hughes's life played like a movie reel right out of the "American Dream". He grew up in a small town in North Carolina. His parents were people of modest means, but he was accepted into an elite boarding school and then Harvard, both on scholarship. There, he met Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz and became one of the co-founders of Facebook. In telling his story, Hughes demonstrates the powerful role fortune and luck play in today's economy. Through the rocket ship rise of Facebook, Hughes came to understand how a select few can become ultra-wealthy nearly overnight.
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Good intro
- By hannah on 05-03-19
By: Chris Hughes
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Post Corona
- From Crisis to Opportunity
- By: Scott Galloway
- Narrated by: Scott Galloway
- Length: 5 hrs and 39 mins
- Unabridged
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The COVID-19 outbreak has turned bedrooms into offices, pitted young against old, and widened the gaps between rich and poor, red and blue, the mask wearers and the mask haters. Some businesses - like home exercise company Peloton, video conference software maker Zoom, and Amazon - woke up to find themselves crushed under an avalanche of consumer demand. Others - like the restaurant, travel, hospitality, and live entertainment industries - scrambled to escape obliteration.
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Rebranding Capitalism?
- By David Shaw on 11-26-20
By: Scott Galloway
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How Money Became Dangerous
- The Inside Story of Our Turbulent Relationship with Modern Finance
- By: Christopher Varelas, Dan Stone
- Narrated by: Roger Wayne
- Length: 14 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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From a veteran of the trade, a provocative and entertaining voyage into the turbulent heart of modern money that sheds new light on the rise of our threatening and complicated financial system, how money became our adversary, and why finding a new course is crucial to a healthy society.
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Must read
- By Craig M. Stratton on 02-08-20
By: Christopher Varelas, and others
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Where Does It Hurt?
- An Entrepreneur's Guide to Fixing Health Care
- By: Jonathan Bush, Stephen Baker
- Narrated by: Patrick Lawlor
- Length: 7 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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A bold new remedy for the sprawling and wasteful health care industry. In this provocative book, Jonathan Bush, cofounder and CEO of athenahealth, calls for a revolution in health care to give customers more choices, freedom, power, and information, and at far lower prices.
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No critical thinking
- By Steve from MD on 07-31-14
By: Jonathan Bush, and others
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Our Towns
- A 100,000-Mile Journey into the Heart of America
- By: James Fallows, Deborah Fallows
- Narrated by: James Fallows, Deborah Fallows
- Length: 15 hrs and 43 mins
- Unabridged
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For the last five years, James and Deborah Fallows have been traveling across America in a single-engine prop airplane. Visiting dozens of towns, they have met hundreds of civic leaders, workers, immigrants, educators, environmentalists, artists, public servants, librarians, businesspeople, city planners, students, and entrepreneurs to take the pulse and understand the prospects of places that usually draw notice only after a disaster or during a political campaign. The America they saw is acutely conscious of its problems, but it is also crafting solutions.
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Terrific book!
- By researchbiker on 05-11-18
By: James Fallows, and others
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The Hospital
- Life, Death, and Dollars in a Small American Town
- By: Brian Alexander
- Narrated by: Nick Landrum
- Length: 14 hrs and 51 mins
- Unabridged
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By following the struggle for survival of one small-town hospital, and the patients who walk, or are carried, through its doors, The Hospital takes listeners into the world of the American medical industry in a way no audiobook has done before. Americans are dying sooner, and living in poorer health. Alexander argues that no plan will solve America’s health crisis until the deeper causes of that crisis are addressed.
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This book says it all about what is wrong with healthcare
- By 042850 on 03-11-21
By: Brian Alexander