Traders, Guns and Money, 3rd Edition

CHAPTER FOUR

Show me the money – greed lost and regained

The power of money isn’t its purchasing power – it is its power to excite public imagination. It is the titillation. We talk about money, we read about money, we are fascinated by what those with money do with their wealth. As John Kenneth Galbraith, the American economist, noted: ‘Nothing so gives the illusion of intelligence as personal association with large sums of money. It is also, alas, an illusion.’¹

In September 1997, Viktor Kozeny, a Czech financier, entertained two people at Le Gavroche, a French restaurant in London’s Mayfair. The bill came to £13,000. It wasn’t for the food. Kozeny chose some fine wines – Montracher, Château Latour, Haut-Brion. Legend has it that Kozeny ...