this is not how that works.
how else would you read that?
Politicians invest whole careers and lives to play the game of politics. They gain power but not much wiggle room, too much is at stake to keep them in positions. Rich people on the other hand can buy the ticket to sit at the table, and they can leave any time they get bored. Having that kind of power without inherent responsibility is dangerous.
yet it's not as simple as Bill calls Angie and then Angie makes a bill for bill.
some things that help "the many" are proportional representation (in contrast to fptp based systems) and popular vote, see Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Netherlands...
I wonder what it takes short of a war to get such dramatic improvements into an established democracy?
In general, pleasure isn't that big of an issue. Go ahead buy all the nice cars, art, villas, etc.
The big danger is when money is converted into power. I think one of the big issues with all these billionaire foundations is that they are are vehicle for converting money into power.
Think of the early 90's when Gates was making all his money as Microsoft CEO. He had a lot of money, but (outside of computers) he had relatively little power (as the Justice Department demonstrated).
Now, through his foundation, Gates was able to turn that money into power. He has tremendous influence over policies that govern people who may never have even used Windows or Office. I am sure, he can pick up his cell phone and get in touch with dozens of presidents/prime ministers/etc immediately. He can tell elected (or not elected) leaders of countries exactly how they should be able to run their countries.
This is tremendous power, and I can see the danger of allowing a single person to amass so much power.
And foundations make it easy to hide that power in a velvet glove. The headline is that Bill Gates is giving all his money away. However, because of his foundation, he still retains much of the power of that money.