This is an interesting question and one I've discussed several times in my
own private list. My conclusion (so far) is that the rich of America
increasingly don't need the rest of America but that, in this industrial,
metal-bashing, increasingly automated mass production era, they still need
growing mass markets -- such as in China, in which they've invested a lot
of money so far. But those countries will also grow their new rich who will
also want new markets. Sooner or later (if resources, and fossil fuels last
out -- which they won't) the whole world could be full up of mass produced
consumer goods just as Europe and America is today. So the rich will then
be in as serious a condition as the rest (if the rest exist! -- see further).
The rich themselves could then no longer exist unless, in the meantime, a
new energy and production era grows in the meantime. I'm in no doubts
myself what this new era will be. Firstly we will develop biological energy
systems to replace fossil fuels. This will probably be the production of
hydrogen and probably beginning to be developed within ten years. This will
enable local communities to become more self-supporting than at present.
Secondly, by means of customized DNA, we will be able to grow consumer
goods with local resources. They'll be very simple at first and the new
production era of complex goods like those of today will probably be at
least two or three centuries in the making, just like indsutrial-consumer
revolution. However, it will need a far higher general standard of
education than at present with a considerable proportion of highly-skilled
specialist scientists in every community/firm.
Unless the advanced countries apply dynamite to their present state-run
education systems and continue to allow only a small privately educated
minority of children (7% in the UK) to become a dominant elite
(increasingly of scientists also), then we will have an increasingly
divided society and, in due course, two species. This is no different from
has happened so far (at least half a dozen times) so far in hominid evolution.
Keith
At 10:43 07/08/2010 -0700, you wrote:
-----Original Message-----
From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of
Sid Shniad
Sent: Friday, August 06, 2010 12:15 PM
Subject: Do the Rich Need the Rest of America? Wall Street Journal
<http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2010/08/02/do-the-rich-even-need-the-rest-of-america-anymore/?blog_id=25&post_id=3375>http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2010/08/02/do-the-rich-even-need-the-rest-of-america-anymore/?blog_id=25&post_id=3375
Wall Street
Journal
August 05, 2010
Do the Rich Need the Rest of America?
By Robert Frank
As stocks boomed, the wealthy bounced back. And while the Main Street
economy was wracked by high unemployment and the real-estate crash, the
wealthywhose financial fates were more tied to capital markets than jobs
and housespicked themselves up, brushed themselves off and started buying
luxury goods again.
Who knows what the next few months and years will bring. But one thing
seems clear: the economic fate of Richistan seems increasingly separate
from the fate of the U.S.
Some argue that the decoupling has gone even further. Michael Lind, a
policy director for the Economic Growth Program at the New American
Foundation, argues in Salon that
<http://www.salon.com/news/us_economy/index.html?story=/news/feature/2010/07/27/american_people_obsolete>the
American rich no longer need the rest of America.
He says the wealthy increasingly earn their fortunes with overseas labor,
selling to overseas consumers and managing financial transactions that
have little to do with the rest of the U.S. A member of the elite can make
money from factories in China that sell to consumers in India, while
relying entirely or almost entirely on immigrant servants at one of
several homes around the country.
He adds:
If the American rich increasingly do not depend for their wealth on
American workers and American consumers or for their safety on American
soldiers or police officers, then it is hardly surprising that so many of
them should be so hostile to paying taxes to support the infrastructure
and the social programs that help the majority of the American people. The
rich dont need the rest anymore.
Some would argue this is a vast overstatement. The U.S. remains the
largest consumer market in the world and still matters to Bill Gates,
Warren Buffett and Lloyd Blankfein alike. The American wealthy benefit
greatly from the countrys legal system and business transparency, not to
mention its armed forces.
Yet the increasingly global elite do seem to be forming something of their
own financial culture, unattached to any single nation or set of rules,
and increasingly free to move their money and resources (and tax dollars)
wherever they are treated best.
Rather than having a second home in Richistan, an increasing number of
rich people seem to be moving their money there full time.
Do you think the rest of America matters anymore to the rich?
!DSPAM:2676,4c5c5f47177557131421311!
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Keith Hudson, Saltford, England
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