The corruption at the top hollows out the bottom of the economy. Younger people don’t have much interest in an honest day’s work as they see that those gaming the system and not working are doing so much better. There will be no one to do the work, little to eat. If the super wealthy think they will be safe in their guarded havens, they haven’t been reading history. The aristocrats of *Ancien Régime* France were the most coddled and protected and privileged class since the heyday of Ancient Egypt.
Most of them lost their heads. King Charles I of England was reputedly a very jolly fellow until Oliver Cromwell and the Roundheads had enough of subsidising his shallow lascivity.
I’m not sure what we — the intelligentsia or upper middle class — can do to stop these shenanigans. If they don’t stop it will end badly for all of us. The upper middle class will be the first to suffer – as we’re easier to get to — eventually the really rich will pay an even higher price. Not to put too blunt a point on it, the redistribution of wealth does not start again soon, the fate of Ghadaffi awaits their heirs. I originally wrote elite instead of rich. But these people are not elite. They are scum, lacking either ethics or humanity, only interested in pecuniary gain and willing to break any rules to obtain these riches.
No one can take wealth to the grave. Wealth should be a tool to improve the world, not a method to hold it senselessly ransom.
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