Why the ultra-rich are giving up on luxury assets
Forget fine wine, great art and glitzy mansions. There are finer things in life
忘掉美酒、伟大的艺术和炫目的豪宅吧。生活中有更美好的东西
A BOTTLE OF Château d’Yquem 2010 is a fine thing. Apricot, toasted almond, citrus zest, juicy lemon, white truffles: it is all there. Until recently, the cost of the world’s finest sweet wine rose steadily. By 2023 a given bottle from the producer went for 60% more than in the mid-2010s. At the time, all forms of opulence were becoming more expensive. Classic cars, aged whiskies and enormous mansions shot up in value. From 2015 to 2023 a luxury-investment index produced by Knight Frank, a property firm, rose by 70%.
一瓶2010年的chateau d 'Yquem是一件好东西。杏，烤杏仁，柑橘皮，多汁柠檬，白松露，应有尽有。直到最近，世界上最好的甜葡萄酒的价格一直在稳步上涨。到2023年，该生产商生产的一瓶葡萄酒的价格将比2010年代中期高出60%。当时，各种形式的富裕都变得越来越昂贵。老爷车、陈年威士忌和巨大的豪宅价格飙升。从2015年到2023年，房地产公司莱坊（Knight Frank）编制的奢侈品投资指数上涨了70%。
And then something changed. From its peak in 2023, the index is down by 6%. The price of Bordeaux first growths, including Lafite Rothschild and Margaux, has fallen by 20%. In America the price of private jets and boats is down by 6%. Second-hand Rolexes change wrists for nearly 30% less than in 2022. Fine art is in a slump. According to Savills, a real-estate firm, prices of the very best properties in global cities are barely rising. The price of prime housing is falling in London and Paris. Two years ago a house on San Francisco’s Billionaires’ Row went on sale for $32m. The sellers have now cut the price to $26m.
然后事情发生了变化。与2023年的峰值相比，该指数下跌了6%。包括拉菲和玛歌在内的波尔多一级葡萄酒的价格已经下跌了20%。在美国，私人飞机和船只的价格下降了6%。二手劳力士手表的换腕价格比2022年降低了近30%。美术不景气。据房地产公司第一太平戴维斯（Savills）称，全球城市中最好的房产价格几乎没有上涨。伦敦和巴黎的高档住宅价格正在下跌。两年前，旧金山亿万富翁街（Billionaires’Row）的一栋房子以3200万美元的价格出售。卖家现在已将价格降至2600万美元。
Why the bear market in plutocratic assets? It seems unlikely that the super-rich are struggling. There are more than 3,000 billionaires in the world, according to Forbes, a magazine, up from 2,800 last year. The richest 0.1% of Americans now hold 14% of the country’s household wealth, the most in many decades. In San Francisco, where no one wants to buy a mansion, the AI boom mints millionaires each day. In contrast with poorer Americans, the richest 3.3% have greatly increased their outlays since 2022, finds Mark Zandi of Moody’s Analytics, a research firm.
为什么会出现富豪资产的熊市？超级富豪们似乎不太可能陷入困境。据《福布斯》（Forbes）杂志称，全球有3000多名亿万富翁，高于去年的2800人。最富有的0.1%的美国人现在拥有全国14%的家庭财富，是几十年来最高的。在没有人想买豪宅的旧金山，人工智能热潮每天都在催生百万富翁。研究公司穆迪分析的马克·赞迪发现，与较贫穷的美国人相比，最富有的3.3%的人自2022年以来大大增加了他们的支出。
Instead, the bear market is down to the fast-changing economics of luxury. To understand why, read Thorstein Veblen, an American economist who was prolific in the early 20th century. He argued that luxury depends on scarcity and rivalrousness. A good is truly luxurious not just because it is costly, but because one person’s consumption diminishes others’ ability to have it. Today, what counts as scarce and rivalrous has changed profoundly.
相反，熊市是由于奢侈品经济的快速变化。要理解其中的原因，请阅读20世纪初多产的美国经济学家托斯坦•凡勃伦（Thorstein Veblen）的著作。他认为奢侈依赖于稀缺和竞争。一件商品是真正奢侈的，不仅因为它昂贵，而且因为一个人的消费削弱了其他人拥有它的能力。如今，稀缺和竞争的定义已经发生了深刻的变化。
The problem, at least for the ultra-rich, is that fancy goods are everywhere. Lots of vineyards make great wine; is the best Bordeaux really that much better? Lab-grown diamonds are identical to the real thing. Anyone with a bit of dosh can claim a Kiton jacket from a second-hand marketplace or charter a privatejet. Art-world innovators talk of fractionalising old masters, with hundreds of people owning a tiny piece of a Rembrandt. These days everyone enjoys the finer things in life—and they post about it on social media. Such things are no longer scarce or rivalrous. So they no longer seem as luxurious.
问题是，至少对超级富豪来说，高档商品无处不在。许多葡萄园出产好酒；最好的波尔多葡萄酒真的好得多吗？实验室培育的钻石和真钻石一模一样。任何有点钱的人都可以在二手市场买一件Kiton夹克，或者租一架私人飞机。艺术界的革新者们谈论着将古代大师的作品分割开来，比如几百人拥有一幅小小的伦勃朗作品。如今，每个人都享受生活中更美好的事物——他们会在社交媒体上晒出自己的感受。这些东西不再稀缺，也不再具有竞争性。所以它们看起来不再那么奢侈了。
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The rich are therefore spending on bigger and better things; often services, rather than goods. We constructed an ultra-luxury-services index, including everything from a Super Bowl ticket to a three-Michelin-star meal. We chose experiences with both global recognition—not just nice, but the best of the best—and for which we could unearth reliable price data over many years. Our index has risen by 90% since 2019. It has even surged since 2023, as goods prices have fallen.
因此，富人把钱花在更大更好的东西上；通常是服务，而不是商品。我们构建了一个超奢华服务指数，涵盖了从超级碗（Super Bowl）门票到米其林三星（samsung - in-star）大餐的所有服务。我们选择了全球公认的经验——不仅是好的，而且是最好中的最好——我们可以从中挖掘出多年来可靠的价格数据。自2019年以来，我们的指数上涨了90%。自2023年以来，随着商品价格下跌，它甚至出现了飙升。
Soaring luxury-services prices reflect the very same dynamics that have harmed luxury goods. Consider Le Bristol, perhaps Paris’s finest hotel. There is global demand to swim in its roof-top pool, which boasts a view of the Eiffel Tower. Many of the guests on its leafy terrace spend more time photographing their cocktails than drinking them. Yet there are fewer than 200 rooms at Le Bristol, making accommodation intensely rivalrous. A night there now costs twice as much as in 2019.
奢侈品服务价格的飙升反映了损害奢侈品的同样的动力。以布里斯托尔酒店为例，它可能是巴黎最好的酒店。全世界都有在它的屋顶游泳池游泳的需求，在那里可以看到埃菲尔铁塔。在绿树成荫的露台上，许多客人花更多的时间拍摄鸡尾酒，而不是喝鸡尾酒。然而，布里斯托尔酒店只有不到200间客房，住宿竞争非常激烈。现在在那里住一晚的费用是2019年的两倍。
Many people would like a housemaid, but the best are hard to find. In America, their salaries are about 50% higher than in 2019. Housekeepers in Palm Beach, a ritzy part of Florida, now routinely pull in more than $150,000 a year. You can resell a watch, but you cannot resell a day spent on Centre Court at Wimbledon. Since 2016 the issue price of a five-year debenture, which entitles the holder to a ticket, has risen from around £50,000 ($67,000) to well over £100,000. The price of a ticket to the Super Bowl is double what it was a few years ago. Attending the Met Gala, if you can get a ticket, costs over twice as much as in 2019. The price of the menu at Benu, a three-Michelin-star restaurant in San Francisco, has risen by 78% since 2015. Was it worth the more than $500 that your correspondent paid to eat the food? Maybe?
许多人都想要一个女佣，但是最好的很难找到。在美国，他们的工资比2019年高出约50%。棕榈滩是佛罗里达州的一个豪华地段，这里的女管家现在每年的收入通常超过15万美元。你可以转售一块手表，但你无法转售在温布尔登中央球场度过的一天。自2016年以来，持有者有权获得门票的五年期债券的发行价格已从约5万英镑（合6.7万美元）上涨至远超10万英镑。超级碗的票价是几年前的两倍。如果你能买到票，参加Met Gala的费用将是2019年的两倍多。旧金山米其林三星餐厅Benu的菜单价格自2015年以来上涨了78%。你的记者花500多美元吃这些食物值得吗？也许?
Yet when eating at the restaurant, you buy not just the food—but the knowledge that, for those few hours, nobody else on Earth could sit at your table. New York and Paris fashion weeks, exclusive fundraisers, the NBA play-offs: there are no good deals any more, which makes it even more satisfying to tell others that they were not there. Goodness knows how much a resale ticket to next year’s football World Cup final, to be played near New York City, will cost. That is a large part of the appeal. When you could be one of a handful of people seeing Harry Kane and Kylian Mbappé face off, why would you bother with a bottle of Château d’Yquem? ■
然而，当你在餐馆吃饭时，你买的不仅仅是食物，而是知道，在那几个小时里，地球上没有其他人可以坐在你的桌子旁。纽约和巴黎时装周、独家筹款活动、NBA季后赛：再也没有什么好交易了，这使得告诉别人他们没有去那里更加令人满意。天知道明年在纽约附近举行的世界杯决赛的转卖门票会花多少钱。这是一个很大的吸引力。当你可以成为少数几个看到哈里·凯恩和基利安·姆巴佩尔对峙的人之一时，你为什么要去买一瓶德奎姆红葡萄酒呢？