On the Care and Feeding of the Affluent

By Allen Kolmes

Something I have not yet heard discussed when the topic is the ever-more-rapidly  increasing redistribution of wealth into the hands of the already wealthy--

Currently, five percent of the U.S. population owns 70% of the nations wealth. Theoretically, at least, it follows that 70% of the nation's economic activity goes to the care and feeding of that 5% of the population.* And then it also follows that a proportional  amount of the nation's entrepreneurial activity will also be devoted to catering to the needs and desires of 5% of us.

No sense wasting time and money creating something that would benefit oh, say, most of the population. Why bother. Those people don't have much money anyway. Plus, it is difficult to compete for the dollars of people who are spending their money on things like, um, necessities.

OK,no doubt some of the great things invented on behalf of the megawealthy will someday benefit everybody else as well. But emblematic, I'm sure, of future trends, is the Virgin Atlantic Space Plane. At $200,000 a ride, it will give corporate CEOs even more incentive to fuck over their workers, shareholders, and suppliers to be able to afford a trip on that baby.**

Based purely on economic incentives, whom are you the brilliant designer going to design handbags for--the ladies that summer in the Hamptons, or the ladies that serve them their burgers at the local 5 Guys? Are you the world-class engineer going to work on a better city bus when the real money is in yachts? And are you, the math genius, going to work on statistical models to figure out how the world's food supply can be better distributed, or are you going to work on ways to make the investment vehicles you are selling too imcomprehensible for even the most intelligent federal regulator to decipher?

And, so, a prediction for the future--look for our economy to put a lot more effort into inventing and producing stuff that people don't need, and a lot less effort into creating and making stuff that people could really use.

*I know--that figure is bound to be off. Rich people tend to save more of their money rather than spend it, a lot of the income of the wealthy goes to taxes, blah blah blah. But even if the real figure is WAY different--maybe it's as low as 50%--my argument is no less valid

**to be fair, if Wikipedia is to be believed, Richard Branson sounds like a pretty good guy.