

The Richest of the Rich, Proud of a New Gilded Age (2007) - siavosh
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/15/business/15gilded.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

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siavosh
OP here, just to add some context. I remember reading this piece back in 2007
when I lived in NYC and worked on software on Wall Street, and this line stuck
with me:

“I think this is a time of great prosperity and a time of great danger"

...which was in direct contrast to the self aggrandizing pride of the main
character in the piece, Sanford I. Weill. Within a few a months, if I recall,
almost everything he was defending and boasting of in the interview was proven
to be a complete farce, delusion and some criminal, as the world neared
another Great Depression. Large amounts of human suffering ensued (and still
does) as a result of what happened.

I really wish there was a resource that would collect pieces like this,
meaning, journalism right before some large societal self-inflicted disaster
(war, financial etc) where media and cultural hype helped blind everyone to
impending catastrophe. When the idolizing puff journalism and self-
congratulation of industry heads reach a deafening crescendo, it's time to
brace yourself.

~~~
adwhit
The tragedy, though, is because of the way the very rich are embedded at the
very top of political and economic power structures, they got away scott-free
and are now more powerful than ever [1].

Their wealth is pure rent-extraction and they will happily consume and destroy
every person and resource on this planet before they voluntarily surrender a
single cent ("nu-philanthropy" notwithstanding).

These are complicated political problems that I think the tech community
cannot solve on it's own (and possibly lacks the language to even discuss
sensibly).

[1] e.g. [http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/19/world-wealth-
oxfam_...](http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/01/19/world-wealth-
oxfam_n_6499798.html)

~~~
wikiwaka
The unelected bureaucrats who hoard political power instead of wealth have
happily destroyed people in many societies as well.

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m-i-l
_" Society should place an initial emphasis on abundance," Mr. Buffett argued,
but "then should continuously strive" to redistribute the abundance more
equitably._

This is both succinct and extraordinarily perspicacious. I believe an ability
to reconcile these two would solve so many problems in our current society. As
it is now, we have a right wing focusing on wealth creation and inadvertently
widening the gap between rich and poor, and a left wing focusing on wealth
redistribution and inadvertently causing wealth destruction.

~~~
adwhit
How odd, I see things completely differently.

The Right focus on widening the gap between rich and poor and inadvertantly
causing wealth destruction.

The Left... there is no Left. But generally, when governments have focused on
reducing inequalities and providing for everyone (in the US, this was the
postwar era through to the late 70's, similarly in Europe), growth was strong
- far stronger than it is now.

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wikiwaka
I think there needs to be a balance between the two extremes. Wealth
concentrated at the top serves some purpose, provides investment capital for
new technologies and increases growth, but at the same time there needs to be
less inequality. The issue is not black and white and I don't think society
should shuffle back every few decades between high taxes and low taxes, but
reconfigure the system for highest wealth creation as well as an appropriate
amount of redistribution, perhaps through a yet untried way such as basic
income.

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austenallred
Fascinating.

> Such concentration at the very top occurred in 1915 and 1916, as the Gilded
> Age was ending, and again briefly in the late 1920s, before the stock market
> crash. Now it is back.

Quite literally, "Every time this has happened in the past there was a crash."
Said without the least hint of irony or indication that anyone should worry.

