As much as I hate to admit, the savior of the populace might just be a democrat by the name of Bernie Sanders. Perhaps you have been reading the headlines about the world's wealthy individuals.
http://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/oct/13/half-world-wealth-in-hands-population-inequality-report
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/the-62-people-who-are-as-wealthy-as-the-poorest-half-of-humanity-combined-a6818766.html
Capitalism is all about competition. It is not unlike a race where there are a few winners and mostly losers. Well folks, the race is over and there are a few winners, but the vast majority of us are losers. Unlike the Olympics where there is usually a changing of the guard due to aging, that does not happen with the wealthy. They just pass it on to their children.
The interesting part is the wealthy no longer have to train (work), to keep winning. They can easily afford workers to do the work for them. However, like the Olympics, or soccer, they can fix the race. Once you have accumulated sufficient wealth, you can easily influence how the market works.
For example if you hold a large amount of a commodity in demand, you can sell it off at top prices, flooding the market and driving the price down, and then buying back the commodity at lower prices and sitting on it for a while and then repeating the cycle. Capitalism assumes no one has that type of control over the markets.
I am convinced the money markets work this way and there are sufficient day traders in Bangkok, making a living with small amounts of cash, buying and selling currencies. A billionaire can sell off a billion Canadian dollars worth $1 US and turn around a year later and buy them back at $.70, turning a 30% profit in a year. The Canadian government will even step in on our behalf and start buying back loonies to make the dollar appreciate, helping the wealthy currency trader even more. After all, what else are you going to do with your money when interest rates are 0.5%?
The take back Wall Street movement has the right idea, just the wrong target. The inequalities are even worse in developing economies like Thailand. Fifty percent of all the land is owned by 1% of Thais.
So what is one to do? I would suggest the 'normal' distribution should be adhered to with respect to standard deviations. The curve has flattened out too much and we have 62 outliers on the right that need to be reined in. Governments that are letting them shelter their money tax free ought to have sanctions imposed. Perhaps the French had the perfect solution a few hundred years ago .. off with their heads :-)
Seriously, (although I am seldom serious) this is just not fair. But, as I have always stated, who ever said life was fair?
TTYL,
Jim
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