RE: https://climatejustice.social/@GeofCox/117455433180740704
The clarity of the economist Piketty's description of our (human) wealth today must not be missed.
We have a Billionaire financial aneurysm crisis because the theives have never taken so much.
Humanity has never been richer, the theives have never taken so much.
Forgive extensive quote from this Thomas Piketty piece in LeMonde today - ostensibly it's about France's recent foolish disinvestment in education - but this argument applies to almost any area of public expenditure, in almost any western democracy...
"To justify the inadequacy of education funding, and in particular the decrease in spending per student, the government and its supporters argue that France cannot afford to invest more. They are making two reasoning errors. Public debt has indeed risen from 20% of GDP in 1970 to 120% today. But at the same time, private wealth has grown much more dramatically: It has gone from 300% to 600% of GDP, with extreme concentration among the wealthiest financial fortunes. In other words, France's national wealth – the sum of private and public assets minus private and public debts – has never been so high, not only in absolute terms but also as a percentage of GDP (which itself has never been higher).
"In other words, France has never been richer. The problem to solve is simply one of distribution. The situation was far more difficult in 1945, when public debt was even higher than today and private fortunes were depleted. Yet that did not prevent the introduction of a national solidarity tax with rates of several dozen percent on the largest fortunes, which could yield much more today. Those who endlessly repeat that nothing substantial can be expected from this side are clearly at odds with mathematics, as well as with history."
