Quote from nitro:
Perhaps you have heard the argument that, if everyone was forced to start at zero again, that the money would land in the same hands it is today anyway. There is a strong argument that this is true, but of course it is conjecture.
I do disagree with (what I think) is the tone of your objection (no offense meant). The people that have all the money today are extremely hard working. In fact, many of them have no lives to speak of outside work. But that in itself is a huge problem. Someone suggested to me that this has to do with protestant (Christian ?) guilt that built this nation, and espoused by Max Weber in "The protestant ethic and the spirit of Capitalism", but I am not sure.
One thing is fore sure, we are in critical "Red Queen" economic state. We may have more measured by the crap that we store in our closets, but we have to work way harder just to stay in place. The spirit is a wasteland in this country. The whole thing seems untenable to me, but then the problem is that we as humans don't live long enough to live through history. What I think is awful, may in fact be trivial by historical standards...
What is funny (tragic ?) is that the entire world has bought into the american system. Collapse is imminent within 200 years unless something fundamental changes.
Nothing will collapse, this by design. The world is run by a plutocracy. Individuals who can see this and act will be fine. Everyone else is labor. Surplus labor will be culled. People who endure a "collapse" are those people who did average in high school, average in college. They have been trained, but not educated. These types are not even a dime a dozen, they are more like a penny a dozen.
People who understand what is going on are preparing, and will be out of harms way when the tsunami comes.

