By the end of this decade, expect a hybrid system:
Piketty, T. (2014). Capital in the twenty-first century. Harvard University Press. money so big
To understand "Money So Big," you first have to understand that it is no longer personal. By the end of this decade, expect a
Saez, E., & Zucman, G. (2019). The triumph of injustice: How the rich dodge taxes and how to make them pay. W.W. Norton & Company. Harvard University Press
When an oligarch spends $450 million on a Leonardo da Vinci painting ( Salvator Mundi ), they remove that piece of culture from the public sphere, locking it away on a yacht or in a vault. But the ripple effect goes further. In cities like London, New York, and Hong Kong, "Big Money" has distorted the housing market so severely that the middle class has been priced out of existence.
The past few decades have witnessed an unprecedented increase in wealth inequality. According to a report by the Economic Policy Institute (EPI), the top 1% of earners in the United States now hold more than 40% of the country's wealth, while the bottom 90% hold just 27% (Mishel & Sabadish, 2020). This trend is not unique to the United States; many countries around the world are experiencing similar increases in wealth inequality.