Pushing the limits

The limits of influence that can be gained from material wealth are being tested across the world. Money can buy a top-class education, multiple homes in the richest neighbourhoods in London, and perhaps even a premiership. Riches can get you onto the red carpet of nearly any event and can provide a lifetime of financial security for you and your family. To an extent, a person’s net worth is also tantamount to the power they wield within their community. Too many actors have taken their power beyond tolerable levels for too long and consequences are beginning to surface.

Hillary Clinton and her husband have a combined net worth of $110 million, yet she finds herself in a dog fight just to win the Democratic party nomination. She has greased all the political wheels and has the support of rich investors and the big banks. Her rival, Bernie Sanders, has won 19 of the state contests while campaigning for redistribution of wealth and breaking up those big banks. Sanders’s net worth is $160,000 and his supporters are fuelling his campaign with small donations that average only $27. Even if he doesn’t win, Clinton has been forced to parrot many of Sanders’s promises in order to maintain her appeal to voters. In grander fashion, Saudi Arabia looks to have over-leveraged its financial influence. It has flooded the world with oil for the better part of a year despite large reserves and plummeting prices. There has been endless speculation as to why it has chosen to do this, but the timing of Iran’s recent re-entry into the open market is likely more than a coincidence. While everyone enjoys a cheaper tank of fuel, many companies and nations are suffering from lost profits. The US, whose shale oil industry has collapsed, is debating whether or not to declassify documents from its 9/11 investigation which supposedly links Saudi officials to the hijackers. How has Saudi Arabia reacted to this? Its foreign minister has followed up with a double or nothing threat of more financial turmoil by selling off hundreds of billions of dollars’ worth of US assets.

Of course, Pakistan can’t be left out of this discussion after what has been revealed by the Panama leaks. Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif left the country soon after the release of the documents showing offshore holdings in his family’s name. Since his return, he is yet to face a frustrated parliament which is staging walkouts until the premier is in attendance. Barring an early resignation, there will be a thorough probe of the Sharif offshore accounts. Any real investigation will be interesting to follow. It will either be a touching rags-to-riches story of how a family turned a scrap metal business into a fortune worth $1.4 billion, or it will finally lend credence to all of the corruption tales that have followed Nawaz Sharif for decades.

Corruption and outsized influence of those with wealth have occurred throughout written history. Taken individually, these headlines are nothing new. However, with economies of countries across the world now so intertwined, an individual review would be incomplete. Nations and individuals alike are becoming increasingly defiant towards their debtors and it certainly makes for an interesting news cycle.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 16^th, 2016.

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