Benjamin Wallace, author of The Billionaire’s Vinegar: The Mystery of the World’s Most Expensive Bottle of Wine, has learned a thing or two about the finer things in life.
As our financial system was recovering from the depths of the Great Recession around 2010, Mr. Wallace set out on a mission to stimulate the economy, one ridiculous splurge at a time.
There were two questions he was hoping to answer.First, could he get someone else to bankroll this Brewster’s Millions style spending spree? The answer, surprisingly, was “yes.” While there were some expenses that were deemed too extravagant, GQ Magazine actually reimbursed many of his purchases in exchange for an article.
I first learned of Mr. Wallace’s experiment from a TED Talk entitled The Price of Happiness. If you’ve got 15 minutes to spare, give it a watch. He’s a pretty funny guy.
In the talk, he casually mentioned that a magazine did indeed pay for the food, drink, and experiences that he talked about, a fact that led me to his GQ article, How the Other Half (of the Top 1%) Lives.