Quote:
Originally Posted by Relentless
You are aware that 85 people is many less than the total population of the house, senate and Supreme Court. You are also aware, especially in the aftermath of citizens united that those 85 wield considerably more power than anyone in congress since they can now effectively pick the people in congress. The ONLY thing protecting anyone right now is that the 85 are not in agreement. As that number becomes even smaller agreement become even easier to reach.
Having 85 people control as much wealth as 50% of the population is not a financial problem. It's a power problem. A very dangerous one, with fewer and fewer meaningful safeguards and rapidly accelerating concentration. If wealth did not create influence it would hardly be a problem at all... But it does.
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The good news is that it is mathematically impossible/improbable for 85 people to actually agree on anything. And those wealthy people still have a boss. And those are the customers. Sears was a heavy hitter for 100 years. They owned retail and catalog sales. Money changes hands based on performance, not luck.
I am less concerned about people like Warren Buffet than I am about the Paul Ryan's and Barack Obamas of the world. With people like Buffet you have an incumbant..someone that has decades of experience to fall back on to make important decisions. With politicians they are mostly transient. They have 4 - 8 years to make an impact and if they are successful, great! If not they become a footnote in history and the rest of the world pays for it.