Taking its lead from Richard Wilkinson and Kate Pickett’s book The Spirit Level: Why Equality Is Better for Everyone, Katharine Round’s good-looking, slickly produced documentary provides yet another reminder of the growing divide between rich and poor in the UK and US. In a world in which poverty breeds ill health and debt is big business (adverts for Wonga and DollarsDirect intersperse the interviews), Round speaks to families on the breadline and venture capitalists on the make, none of whom seems happy. Noam Chomsky talks wearily about the myth of “informed consumers making rational choices”, while former Deutsche Bank VP Alexis Goldstein recalls Wall Street’s adoration of “fuck you money” – an amount so vast that you can “say fuck you to whoever you want without repercussion”.
