crying all the way to the bank

A complete list of Salon's Money Week coverage - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - T O D A Y Lust for loot By Courtney Weaver Unzipped: Gold-diggers have feelings, too (10/29/97) Gazillions and kabillions By Cynthia Joyce The small screen equals big bucks for the writers and producers behind hit TV programs (10/29/97) - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - T O M O R R O W Will e-money change the world? (in 21st)

________TRUST-FUND BABIES OF ________THE WORLD ARE UNITING TO SHARE ________THEIR SECRET PAIN. BY MICHELLE GOLDBERG | The young and very rich, to paraphrase Fitzgerald, turn out to have different problems than you or me. That trust-fund babies have problems at all may come as a surprise: Wouldn't we all like to be Dodi Fayed (with a better driver, of course) -- dropping out of school, bouncing checks, welshing on the rent and cherishing as our only goal in life the dating of supermodels? Not all children of wealth are as feckless or as destined to flame out as tragically as the late deadbeat, but Dodi's problems are not entirely atypical: too much money in his pocket -- put there by a doting father no doubt aware of the tax advantages of a trust fund -- and too little idea of how to handle it. And there are a growing number of Dodis out there in post-Cold War, post-industrial, permanently prosperous Western society -- kids born not so much with a silver spoon in their mouth as with a 48-place setting of Puiforcat silverware. Never before have so many enormously rich men (mostly) bestowed such largesse on their heirs. Last year, you had to be worth $400 million to make it to the bottom rung of the Forbes 400. In his new book, "Who Has How Much and Why," Andrew Hacker estimates that 68,000 American families earn more than $1 million a year, five times as many as in 1979, adjusted for inflation. There are about 1 million individual millionaires in the U.S, according to Christopher Mogil, editor of the newsletter More Than Money. Over the next 20 years, says the Inheritance Project, an "heir advocacy" group, $10 trillion will be passed between generations, the largest transfer of private wealth in history. Now, in one of the stranger developments in America's support-groups-for-everything culture, the beneficiaries of this wealth are coming clean about their anguish and seeking counseling. "Up until now, there's been very little empathy," says psychotherapist Jessie O'Neill, author of "The Golden Ghetto: The Psychology of Affluence." "There's a lot of empathy for the poor, as there should be, but there's very little empathy for the problems of the rich. And why? Is the rich kid not in pain?" N E X T+P A G E+| Give the rich an enema - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - ILLUSTRATION BY CHRISTIAN CLAYTON

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