Mammon by George Frederick Watts, 1885
The world being what it is the chosen value signifyer of our society, namely the chemical element gold, is awesome: We, the humans, have given this otherwise worthless metal power over us. Some have been engulfed by this power and does everything to make it known that they are "golden boys" or "golden girls". One of these people is the former president of USA, Donald Trump, who has a toilet in gold, gold plates, a "gold room" and the image of having been born a "golden boy", i. e. someone who is not only rich, but also super charming and always lucky in whatever he does. Now we know that's not the truth, he never was as "golden" as he set himself up to be ....
Are we surprised that this well-known coxcomb does everything in his power to attain the image of a "golden boy"? No, not really, because now we know more about him and see what he stands for, but what about this man, Winston Churchill:
I, for one, was surprised to learn that there was a theft of a 18-karat-gold-toilet from the family home of Blenheim Palace in 2019. Well, it was part of an exhibition of the works by the Italian artist Maurizio Cattelan, but still, it was set up to work the way toilets do so those who got to use it were "enthroned" on an artwork worth $6 million solid gold.
However, no matter what, neither the Trump nor the Churchill families may compete with the 14th-century African emperor Mansa Musa. His wealth has been described as "unimaginable" as well as "incalculable". Something that he himself explained by telling people that in his country gold was growing like plants. If that really was the case, it would lose value, as it's the rarity of gold that makes it valuable ....
Gold is normally protected in any way possible, but when it comes to Mansa Musa he gave a lot of his belongings out to ferment his power as well as his status. Well, he could afford it as his riches have been estimated to have been $400 BILLION. Neither Trump or the sheiks of SaudiArabia are able to compete with that.
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