This is my first Diary, but I had to share this 2005 paper from CitiGroup:
http://canadianclimateaction.files.wordpress.com/...
I was taken aback by the cold, calculating tone in which its authors discuss how to best exploit the massive wealth inequality present in the US. They explain, in explicit detail, how the the US is already a fractured society, and how there is no potential for profit in investing in the "Average Consumer" because this consumer has ceased to exist. The middle class is not dying in the US, it has already died.
The only sector worth investing in is the top 1% of earners who have the money to buy luxury goods and take advantage of new financial instruments.
The authors of the piece also detail how 1st world countries become plutonomies, or remain egalitarian societies. The short list really explains how the US descended and continues to descend into a plutocracy.
1)Technological revolutions reducing the need for unskilled workers
2)Capitalist friendly governments and tax regimes
3)Re-arrangement of global supply to benefit well-capitalized elites and use low cost immigrants
4)Greater financial complexity and innovation
5)Rule of law
6)Extensive patent and copyright protection
This piece hit me right in the guts. This is not our future, this is the America we are living in.
-k