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The Rise of the Oligarchs
The Rise of the Oligarchs
Empire examines the rise and role of the new oligarchs and the decline of democracy in the United States and beyond.
Wealth inequality has risen to stratospheric heights. The statistics, the real statistics, sound like fragments spun off from a madman’s dream.
Eighty-five people have as much money as three and a half billion other people. Look at it like this: 85 people = 3,500,000,000 people.
Forbes Magazine, which used to gleefully refer to itself as a “capitalist tool,” creates an annual list of the richest 400 people in the world. Ten years ago, their combined wealth was $1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion dollars). Now, after a world wide crash and all sort of bailouts, their combined worth is $2,000,000,000,000. They have doubled their money. How have you done?
Did their money come to them because the magic of the market realised how ultra-special talented they were? Or because of power? Manipulating laws, buying politicians, even taking over governments. Has the power of money in the United States grown so great that democracy is just a charade? A large, frenetic, incredibly expensive one, but still, just play-acting and a dumb show for the public?
While all the real decisions come from a small group of the ultra-wealthy, to some degree very consciously, but to an even larger degree by the sheer weight of their incredible wealth, the Oligarchs.
That much money, it has to be about power.
…click on the above link to view the video…
Look Who’s Dragging Down the Global Economy Though No One Is Allowed to Say it
Look Who’s Dragging Down the Global Economy Though No One Is Allowed to Say it
“A bit of inequality is good as it creates incentives for hard work and rewards entrepreneurship,” explained Mohamed El-Erian, Chief Economic Advisor of Allianz and former CEO of PIMCO. “Lots of inequality is bad, disenfranchises segments of society, and erodes the social fabric,” he said, joining the chorus of voices that have been lamenting income and wealth inequality as an economic problem.
But none of these voices dare to mention the cause – though they all know it. And we just got numerical confirmation.
Hundreds of millions of people have been lifted out of abject poverty over the last two decades, mostly in Asia. In that respect, inequality has been reduced. But on a national level, “you get a different picture,” El-Erian said in the interview published on Monday:
Whether in the US, Brazil or China: there has been a significant increase in both income and wealth inequality, and so much so that it is now affecting access to equal opportunities. The minute you start talking about opportunities, you start making it a much deeper problem and harder to solve.
“Social cohesion is at risk,” said Allianz Chief Economist Michael Heise in the same interview. “That is a danger for industrialized and developing countries alike. In recent times we have seen social upheavals and conflicts where poverty played a major role.”
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Baby boomers getting wealthier, young Australians saving more but still poorer: Grattan Institute report – ABC News (Australian Broadcasting Corporation)
Baby boomers are hoarding the nation’s wealth and depriving their children of future living standards on par with their own, a new report from The Grattan Institute argues.
The think tank has crunched the numbers on the growing wealth gap between generations, and found that while older Australians have never had it better, adults aged under 35 are poorer than they were just eight years ago.
“There’s a real risk that we’ll end up with a generation in Australia less well-off than its parents,” Grattan Institute CEO John Daley said.
The report has found households whose main residents are aged between 55 years old and 64 years were $173,000 richer in real terms in 2011-12 than the same cohort was eight years earlier.
A household with residents aged 65 to 74 was $215,000 better off.
Meanwhile, householders with people aged 25 to 34 saw their wealth fall.
…click on the above link to read the rest of the article…
Wealth Inequality Is Not A Problem, It’s A Symptom – The Automatic Earth
Wealth Inequality Is Not A Problem, It’s A Symptom – The Automatic Earth.
NPC Dedication, George Washington Masonic Memorial, Alexandria, VA Nov 1 1923
The article in question is Charles Hugh Smith’s Why Nations (and organizations) Fail: Self-Serving Elites, and the book he references is Why Nations Fail: The Origins of Power, Prosperity, and Poverty by Daron Acemoglu and James Robinson.
Charles starts off by saying:
The book neatly summarizes why nations fail in a few lines:
(A nation) is poor precisely because it has been ruled by a narrow elite that has organized society for their own benefit at the expense of the vast mass of people. Political power has been narrowly concentrated, and has been used to create great wealth for those who possess it.
…click on the link above for the rest of the article…
