The Polarization Of Wealth And What We Can Do About It

Everybody wants to have a lot of money right?  But what if having more money means other people having less?  After all, money has a finite quantity.  In this day and age about 1% of the population holds 90% or more of the worlds money.  The put it another way, the obscenely rich are holding the world hostage with its own money.  During the economic crisis of 2008 former President Barack Obama had the opportunity to make an example out of some of the bankers who had caused the crisis, but he didn't do anything to them because he knew that if he punished them then the wealthiest Americans would simply move to another country for fear of it happening to them too.

If the richest of the rich were to leave and pull their investments out of the United States then the american economy would collapse all over again.  Nation-states are powerless to stop the threat of rich people taking their money elsewhere.  Most people think that governments are in control of the world because they have bombs and armies, but the truth is that bombs and armies are expensive, it's money itself that's in control.  Even rich people will admit that money controls their lives.

Do you think the wealthy elitists want to leave the wealthy countries?  If that were really true then they would have already left a long time ago.  But the thing is that money really does control their lives.  If you're a rich person and you have to face an ultimatum, like it's either your homeland or your money...  well let's just say that it's a lot easier to just move to a different country than it is to become rich all over again, especially if your homeland is an environment that's hostile towards folks being so rich.

So, what can we do about the super-rich hoarding all the loot and not leaving any for the rest of us?  We can't just bomb the money, bombs are expensive.  Countries can't arrest rich bankers for causing a financial crisis, all the other rich people (and corporations) would leave those countries.  If everybody got together and decided to be really mean to all the known rich people it still wouldn't work because then there would still be some places that are still friendly to the rich and those places would get all the tourism money.

So, what can we really do?  Well, you might not want to hear this, but if you want rich people to spread the wealth around then you might have to try negotiating with them.   Hollywood always depicts every story as unfolding like a drama with conflict and action, but this isn't Hollywood.  You may actually have to talk to a rich person and explain to them calmly and logically why you think they need to let go of some of their holdings for the good of humanity.  It's going to be super boring, and you'll probably rather be hanging out with your friends, but in the end it might be worth it.

The problem is that first you need to find rich people, and a lot of them are very busy and probably won't want to take your call.  So you're going to have to make it interesting for them.  Learn to think like how rich people think.  Find out what their motivations are, and get to know them.  And learn how to negotiate with them, there's a ton of YouTube videos about that.  Negotiating is important because that's how rich people think, you just need to talk to them in their own language of profits and deals.  Find out what they really want, and sell it to them.

It may seem like sour grapes to give them what they want in life after they've kept so much money to themselves, but try to think of it like helping a drug addict come down from their addiction to become a normal productive member of society again (because wealthy people are just money addicts), they just need something that makes them happy other than the drug/money.  Getting money away from the rich who abuse it, and into the hands of the poor who need it is very much worthwhile.  It just takes a lot of boring conversations with people to make that happen.

Violence isn't the answer, if you want to make a difference then you should speak out about it.  The trick is to say the right things to the right people.