Quote from TD80:
We need to keep a low profile lest things eventually turn into a Sao Paolo/Rio type of situation where you're going to need armored cars with flame throwers, or you're going to need to take a helicopter from your condo to work, because if there is even a hint that you have money you are a huge target. Massive wealth disparity can bring about this sort of thing (and this is coming for a fairly free-market libertarian-esque person here).
The bottom line is that the Baby Boom generation has cashed in, and has put us on a direct course to third-worldism. And yeah, most of them will be dead when we are subject to a Sao Paolo/Rio type existence.
Why the widening disparity? Well, there are a few producers and innovators and inventors and calculated risk-takers in this country, and people in those classes are drawing a larger and larger chunk of the pie as the size of this class of people gets smaller in relation to the rest of the masses.
Why do we have a shrinking pool of innovators and educated risk-takers who are commanding a bigger piece of the pie? Because the same class of people who have cashed out, the Baby Boomers, have short-shrifted a couple of generations of American kids in terms of a functional education. The long-hairs and flared-trousers set has won. Hippies have been our class of teachers since the 80s. The generation of people dedicated to feelin-good-all-the-time joined forces with the Teacher's Unions to get paid while making sure no one has the power to harsh on their mellow.
This Baby Boom generation has leveraged the country to the hilt. They are also the same shitheads who were against the Vietnam War when it was their turn to go, but then pretty much shrugged and put their money in Halliburton when Bush the Lesser was convinced it was a great idea to invade and occupy Iraq.
Incidentally, these are also the same dillweeds who are easily convinced that benevolent central planning is the way governments should work. So, they have no problem with Washington DC and the Fed playing with interest rates and money supply to keep producing economic bubbles. These people are not real workers or savers, so bubbles suit them just fine. Likewise, they are cool to look the other way and support bailouts so long as someone keeps inflating another bubble so they can feast in their lifetimes.
So, now, we have a huge mass of people who can't do jack, who have been taught that the gov't is their savior, and who think relevant news involves who some Kardashian is sleeping with today. These people are going to slide further and further down the global economic food chain, and opportunistic politicians are going to point at the shrinking class of truly educated innovators and tell the masses that they are poor because the richie-riches are eating their lunch.
So yeah, Rio here we come. If you're a producer, you're gonna need an armored car and guards because the current generation in power is still sucking the system dry, and when all the bills come due, we are going to end up like another street riot in Greece... except, we have a lot more guns and jacked-up addicts in our society.