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Money is less powerful than it used to be. Technology and global markets have driven tremendous efficiencies. Companies can make more money selling a $300 TV to the poor than a $3,000,000 TV to the rich. Up until around 1900, in the US, the top 10% lived drastically better than the bottom 10% (or whatever top/bottom chunk you want to look at). Now, extreme money just doesn't buy you anything special. It will have more gold on it, less inconvenience, be bigger (or smaller), faster, etc. - Bezos has a private plane, the poor have Southwest
- Gates has a Porsche 959, the poor can take a bus
- Buffet lives in a small house in Nebraska (well, bad example) So the rich earn and/or accumulate more and more money, but since they can only spend $1200 max on a new phone once a year, it mostly get re-invested into the market. |
Sure, most Americans can afford the bare necessities of life: food, water, housing. However many cannot afford it without going into debt, which then fuels the financial lenders with more money to spend through parasitic interest usury (in addition to the central bank engaged in schemes to pump more money into these lenders to "stimulate the economy"). Not to mention the state of medical care where many cannot afford it or else they will go bankrupt.
Money is also increasingly being funneled into the top percentages with the relative lack of wage growth since the 70's. (What filled that gap? Going into debt.) "Free money," as the article states but is in the form of debt, is given to people with good credit scores and denied to people with bad credit scores. This in itself helps creates the divide that the article refers to “The system of making capitalism work well for most people is broken.” and "...which contributes to the rising wealth, opportunity, and political gap."