It is safe to say, in the Age of Trump and the Kardashians, that America's obsession with wealth grows ever-stronger. Photographer and Documentarian Lauren Greenfield has built a brilliant career both capturing and critiquing the conspicuous consumption of the 1% and wanna-be one percenters. Lauren joins co-hosts Eric Newman and Kate Wolf to discuss her new film, Generation Wealth; which, she explains, contrasts with her previous work because it shows how her super-wealthy subjects had a come-to-Jesus moment in the wake of the spectacular market crash of 2008 and subsequent Great Recession, which seemed, once-and-for-all, to kill the Greed is Good ethic. Generation Wealth then captures how quickly the super rich betrayed Jesus once their balance sheets recovered, even as the average household fell further behind.
Also, fittingly, LARB Radio's own Medaya Ocher stops by to recommend 99 Glimpses of Princess Margaret by Craig Brown, a fascinating study of a daughter of (the highest) privilege who remains more worthy of our attention than America's current crop of gluttonous narcissists.
