English: A chart demonstrating increases in the annual income of the top 1% of wealthy persons in the U.S. before economic crises. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
Lehman Brothers Rockefeller centre (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
This series of articles by Spiegel is well worth a read. Check it out!
via Capitalism in Crisis Amid Slow Growth and Growing Inequality – SPIEGEL ONLINE.
Let me try to get to the heart of the matter. The wealthy and privileged have seen their incomes and wealth increase substantially since the financial crash of 2008. Unfortunately, middle and working class people have received a smaller and smaller slice of the cake. I agree with Spiegel that the the crux of the problem is the banks which are not working effectively.
Let me ask a few open questions:
- Following the financial crisis of 2008, how many dodgy bankers have ended up in jail?
- Also why have the big banks not been broken up to increase competition?
- Surely, it would have been prudent to reintroduce the Glass Stiegel Act in the US, separating retail and investment banking.
Thoughts?
Dr Alf's Blog 
Dr Alf poses interesting and entertaining questions.
1)The answer to his first question is hardly any in the UK.
The US does jail bankers and dodgy securities and share salespeople like the rehabilitated “Wolf of Wall Street”(Jordan Belfort) but even there the men who gave them their instructions still walk free.
One HSBC banker implicated in New York for permitting Mexican drug barons to launder their proceeds through his bank(teller windows in HSBC branches were widened so as to be better able to accept holdalls containing drug dealing cash) is actually working for the UK Government.
This no doubt on the basis that he knew nothing about what was going on and despite the $1.5 billion USD fine imposed on that bank by the US courts.
2)Because by keeping them bigger future opportunities to plunder bank depositors using “haircutting” and other as yet to be tried techniques are preserved for future use on the basis that these banks are “too big to fail”.
The so called “Crises” were nothing of the kind but were deliberately engineered collapses designed to fleece ordinary people and further enrich those in ultimate control.
They succeeded brilliantly and the real culprits escaped scott free with vastly enhanced untraceable wealth.
Breaking up banks into smaller units makes them easier to police so it will not happen.
3)Glass Steagall will not happen for the same reason
As to growing inequality SPIEGEL ONLINE will have more of it to write about long into the future as things are set to get much worse.
This not least because AI,robotics,automation .cybernetics,voice recognition and 3D printing will eliminate swathes of jobs and directors of those businesses will for the time being pocket the extra profits by paying themselves even more than they do now.