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'The Second Gilded Age Is Upon Us' (theguardian.com)
Robotron23 writes: Wealth inequality is at its highest since the turn of the 20th century -- the so-called 'Gilded Age' -- as the proportion of capital held by the world's 1,542 dollar billionaires swells further. The report, commissioned by the Swiss banking giant UBS and UK accounting company PwC, discusses the impacts of technology and globalization on the situation, and arrives weeks after the IMF recommended that the world's richest pay higher taxes to ease the disparity of wealth.
Lol if us means USA then no, your poorest are definitively not better off since the lack of decent health care or labor laws. In fact they will be much better off in most other countries.
Debts: Yes, the rich have the ear of congress and certainly played a role in oil related debacles like Iraq, and Revenge of Iraq. As such the rich should help foot the bill better for the overseas adventures they helped instigate and profited from. Much of the debt is due to tax cuts that mostly went to the rich in the past, so maybe it is time for the chickens to come home to roost.
Hand outs to poor: If you mean decent funding for public schools, fixing roads and bridges, having good job retraining and income replacement to those who lost jobs to off shoring, then yes. We need much more money spent to keep our nation and its workforce maintained. I would like to see the rich who can most afford to pay higher taxes and whose businesses benefit from well trained job applicants help foot that bill.
If you're spending money at starbucks and investing in a 401k, then you are not at the bottom. Entitled comments like this show 100% why the wealthy -just don't get- the situation they're in. When people tell mattack2 that they are starving, his response is, "Let them eat cake!"
But, guillotines weren't needed to end the Gilded Age, and I see no reason why you think they're necessary to end the new gilded age. Market forces have done the job in the the past
Market forces did not end the Gilded Age, it was ended by two world wars and significant inflation (in part for countries to pay of debts from the wars). These were major shocks to accrued wealth globally, breaking apart, or inflating away the value of, most family fortunes. Sure there were no Guillotines, but I don't think we want to go through the disasters of the 10's , 30's and 40's again just to get some wealth distribution back.
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