“The divide between the top 1 percent and the remainder of the country cannot and will not persist. Such divides have historically been resolved in one of three ways: taxes, wars, or revolution.”
Paul Tudor Jones
TED talk
The key issue facing our nation is the economic divide between the super rich and everyone else. It dwarfs all other issues we face, except global warming due to humans burning fossil fuels. Obscene wealth allows the 1% to control our political process. Because of this, we are losing our democracy.
If this is not resolved peaceably through the political process, it will be resolved violently, note the Russian revolution, the American revolution, the French revolution.
Some billionaires are concerned about all this. I urge you to read a NYT article, “Billionaires to the Barricades”:
Gad Rick—are you pushing my buttons on purpose?
Nobody can really deny there is and has been "climate change" for eons BUT has anybody really proven it is "MAN MADE CLIMATE CHANGE"? Even the Pope who as we all know is one of the foremost scientists in the world is on board the climate change bandwagon but he has listened to only one side. As a child of the 50’s you may recall the coming ice age, then the warming fear that was proven false or premature (pick one) so it is now CHANGE—not warm, not cold. Carbon dioxide in not your enemy nor is water vapor but both are cited as "green house" gases. We were going to run out of oil and food and now through innovation we are awash in both. Yes people are starving in some areas but is that not a result of politics?
There is a point about money and politics and how a few very powerful men (always men) control the economy and politics. (Skull and Bones; Trilateral commission etc.) but the answer may be a responsible third estate who has the balls to expose the corruption (Obama, Pelosi, Boehner, Clinton (x2) etc.) in our system and really expose the foreign money in our election process (Clinton et al.). The major media outlets are controlled by the 1%ers. So whats a guy to do? The left controls the media, the government, the schools and many of the states that have gotten us into this mess. Look carefully into the money of politics and end it. Clinton was crying about being "dead broke" now has a personal fortune of hundreds of millions. Where from? The Clinton foundation funded in large part by foreign interests and it has a 85% administration cost. These are things we should be looking at, but never will, you see the third estate is the left in this country.
I bet if you did something about our tax system this country could flourish again. Many of the so called 1%ers are paper rich by virtue of their overpriced stock. Apple for example is sitting on millions of profits offshore because it will cost too much in taxes to bring the money home. If it were here, it could be invested here for the benefit of Americans. Why is Facebook valued higher than many of our brick and mortar job producing firms?
Your source demonizes Buffett but Berkshire Hathaway has done alot of good and provided American jobs in many industries. (Full disclosure BH stock has been in my portfolio for 35 years.) Again Billionaire Buffett can be called that because his stock has done so well over the years because he and Munger are financial wizards and should they not be rewarded for that? Same with the dot com billionaires. Who is to say how much is too much? This is a very slippery slope driven I am certain by the politics of envy.