85 richest people as wealthy as poorest 3.5bn

[eynon81]

[eynon81]

[Indy]

Well that's certainly true. The ultra-wealthy are using their wealth simply to create more wealth for themselves. What they're not doing is creating jobs and new businesses and goods and the employment that comes with them.

Yet in pluto-speak we keep calling them "job creators." They're wealth creators, and that wealth is not something they're going to share with others.

[Bauce]

[Medius]

[Winchester]

[Indy]

[Professor]

So, how different are we from, say 100 years ago? Or 1000?

I looked, but didn't find any compelling data.

My supposition is that wealth has always been concentrated among the few at the top. Perhaps even to the amount it is today. You'd have kings and lords who had lots of money, and peasants (numbering in the millions) that had nothing. In the 20s, it was the robber barons.

What I'm wondering is, is the relative "equality of wealth" found post WW2 actually an anomaly, or the norm? Either way, it's something to strive for.

[Winchester]

[Indy]

Well what happened post-WWII certainly does seem to be an anomaly now since we've moved backwards from that. We've also instituted numerous economic policies to roll back the gains from that era--for the middle class.