A little bit of modern capitalist theology:
– Is the Prince Alwaleed bin Talal richer than God?
– Certainly
– Is the Prince happy?
– Certainly not
– Why is the Prince unhappy?
– Because his story got screwed up
– How does a prince who is richer than God get his story screwed up?
– It’s a conspiracy
– What conspiracy?
– Western
evangelists
You think this is a piece of fiction? You are wrong!
The story began with the publication of the Forbes list of the world’s billionaires in early March, 2013, whereby the famous magazine put the Prince in the 26th place with ONLY $20 billion net worth.
Of course, the Saudi Prince was unhappy with the report. The Prince’s office was quick to respond, protest, and appeal. In a desperate move, it requested that Forbes remove the prince from its list, then issued a formal decision to sever all ties and forms of cooperation with the magazine and its valuation teams.
So what went wrong?
First hypothesis: Math
The Prince accuses the magazine
of underestimating his real net worth by $9 billion, which, if recounted, would immediately pull him in the top 10.
This also means that, by simple calculation, a small mistake of $9bn has cost the unhappy Prince at least 16 places on the prestigious list.
But the story seems to be more complicated than mere mathematics could account for.
Second hypothesis: Religion
So far we have cherished the thought the money has no religion. Yet the Prince has just proved the opposite: It’s all about religion.
First, the Prince accused Forbes of cultural bias, namely, religious discrimination, which he relates to the absence of casinos in Saudi Arabia. The Prince’s office then came up with a refined theory of conspiracy: Not only does Forbes magazine’s flawed valuation method undervalue the Prince’s real assets; it also reveals itself as a method shrewdly “designed to disadvantage Middle Eastern [a.k.a. Saudi] investors and institutions”.
This revelation curiously coincided with unhappy reports in the Western media on the Prince’s £240 million private jet (an Airbus A380 superjumbo), in which, along with a luxury bar, concert hall, and Turkish bath, there had been found an Islamic prayer room equipped with electronic mats which automatically turn towards Mecca.
So money does have religion after all, and there was an evangelistic conspiracy against the pious Saudi Prince. For what would be more conspiratorial than seeing our beloved tycoon’s place in Forbes get so screwed up by a bunch of Western evangelists?
