[Pops]

Aaron mentioned the gap between executive pay and average workers pay being the largest since the ‘20’s.

This article talks about overall wealth.

Published on Tuesday, June 1, 2004 by the CBS.MarketWatch.com
Growing Wealth Gap Rates an 'Orange Alert''Inequality Matters' Conference Puts Nations on Alert
by Thomas Kostigen

Snip…

“Thursday is when the Inequality Matters conference begins in New York City to discuss the biggest wealth and income gap -- and its consequences on society -- since the Hoover Administration. The Congressional Budget Office says the income gap in the United States is now the widest in 75 years.
While the richest one percent of the U.S. population saw its financial wealth grow 109 percent from 1983 to 2001, the bottom two-fifths watched as its wealth fell 46 percent.”


------------

Bill Gates or the Waltons (the WalMart ones) have more wealth than many nations. I’m no expert in huge fortunes but assume much of the assets are only money. However, as the Great Decline becomes obvious, I can imagine the handlers deciding to cash out while they can and begin to acquire hard assets just as anyone hoping to survive.

As all fortunes, big and small, shrink over the next 50 years I would guess there would be a larger and larger stratification of wealth and power, with the wealthy buying up assets the rest can’t hold on to. After all, even most upper middleclass families’ assets are their home and possibly retirement accounts – all of which are bound to lose value dramatically if not completely.

So for you Doomers out there, what effect will this have on future society?

Serfdom?

Private armies?

Plantations?

All of the above?

[Rural man]

One view I hold is that in a free society wealth would be distributed in a normal bell curve fashion, with the majority of the poulation possessing the majority of the wealth, and with extreme wealth and extreme poverty being statistical raraties.

In slave societies typically wealth distribution is skewed with the majority, the slaves, possessing very little wealth, and the minority, the masters, possessing the bulk of the wealth.

I think that wealth distribution is an indication of the degree of freedom in and economy. Typically the ruling class establish laws that give themselves an economic advantage (monopoly) to the detriment of the majority, a good example being the fractional reserve banking monopoly (find me a community where the banks are not among the nicest buildings in town, and the bank owners among the best off financially).

So if we have a shrinking economic pie, which is inherent in the peak oil theory, then overall wealth will decline, and of course those in power will see to it that they suffer the least. As a consequence the wealth decrease will fall upon the shoulders of the majority, and in most cases that means you.

There will likely be isolated cases that are exceptions to this general formula. Those who position themselves to bring people what they need may have some advantage, but this will be difficult , as is swimming against the current. Choosing a path will be a challenge, so I guess Mr. Charles Darwin's principles will be controlling factor.

[Cool Hand Linc]

I have a brother whom we debate the peak oil issue and more inportantly, what will follow.

The surfs of the future? One thing I can see is that the rich will be better able to prepare for the future. Having food supplies on hand. land enough to grow food.

Today right now. We have a working class poor. How does the working class poor prepare? Surfdom is really possible. Work for food to a new level.

Here's a shack and a plow and the animals and seeds. Get to work and I'll see to it that you and your family has food.

I wonder what will happen when a few have the land and the many need to grow food.

The gap between the wealthy and the poor grows wider......

[Yavicleus]

I completely believe that we are heading towards a sort of neo-feudalism.

I mean, think about it. It makes complete sense. If you are rich, you want to either grow or preserve your money. So, when it becomes obvious that the equity market sucks, people will flood into the bond markets. When those begin to tank because the US Treasury cannot pay back the loans, people will fload into real estate and precious metals.

When it becomes obvious that the only business left making any money is
farming (because food is scarce, thus driving prices up), people will buy up land and work out some sort of "tennent farmer" aka serf, agreement.

Or at least, that's my opinion of the doom we are facing.

[cannottell]

Serfdom doesn't fulfill the need for total global control for this manufactured total global crisis. We have machines to do most of the farming work, so tieing an individual to the land has little value for us. We win big if we can have people accept a total apparatus that will rule their lives forever. Global tracking via microchips, universal surveillance, working at gunpoint, you know... slavery.

I suppose it will look a bit like serfdom as the credits we give can buy some things, mostly food but maybe a trinket or two to keep people as complacent as possible. But the orders cannot get contravened in the same manner as serfs do. To disobey will mean death. Only terrorists disobey governments. We have gotten the police to believe this, and through our managed die-off, we will get the rest to believe too.

And if you have never heard of any of this, you have been slated for the "slave" spot. Enjoy! We mandate it so.

[Leanan]

I fear it's likely we will revert to feudalism, or become something a police state, with the government confiscating all arable land.

In any case, it will be a drop in our standard of living. Even a poor person in the U.S. today lives better than the lord of the manor did in the old days.

The reason we abolished slavery (and indentiture) wasn't because we suddenly became morally enlightened. It's because the industrial age made it more profitable to use machines instead of people. It's not a coincidence that slavery was abolished in the industrial north first.

[tkn317071]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Leanan', ' ') Even a poor person in the U.S. today lives better than the lord of the manor did in the old days.

[Leanan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'P')lease elaborate. If watching 8 hours of tv a day is better then I would agree with you but who would argue such a thing?

[Cool Hand Linc]

What?
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'A')nd keeping a large estate running is a lot of work, especially when you have to depend on other people to do a lot of the labor. Slaves and serfs are a lot more trouble than employees or machines. They rebel, which annoys the neighbors. When they're injured or sick or too old to work, you still have to take care of them. They are your responsibility from cradle to grave. It's a lot easier to just shell out for a machine to do the work - assuming they are available.

[cannottell]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Leanan', ' ')

I think that's questionable. Today's worker bee is hardly a slave. You can quit. You can open your own business. You can move somewhere else.

And keeping a large estate running is a lot of work, especially when you have to depend on other people to do a lot of the labor. Slaves and serfs are a lot more trouble than employees or machines. They rebel, which annoys the neighbors. When they're injured or sick or too old to work, you still have to take care of them. They are your responsibility from cradle to grave. It's a lot easier to just shell out for a machine to do the work - assuming they are available.

[Leanan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') can quite my job any time I want. True! If I want to take a huge pay cut. I can't start at near what I make.

[Cool Hand Linc]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'B')ut it did in the days of feudalism,

[Leanan]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('', 'I') don't hate my job. I dislike not being able to set on my but and relax with a fishing pole in my hand and a beer in the other. I mean really. I would RATHER BE FISHING! LOL

[Cool Hand Linc]

I guess that is why I have several books on wild edible plants of North America. I want to just pick what grows and catch a few fish and shoot a few animals. Hunter gatherer wound be acurate except all land is owned and I can't hunt and gather and fish on private land.

The land"LORD" won't let me!

[Leanan]

Yeah, well, the hunter-gatherer lifestyle only works with a low population density. That's the big drawback. But if there's a big dieoff, you could be set.

[Cool Hand Linc]

I can grow foods as well. I am also working with my brother to grow foods and get viable seeds from them. To regrow the same crop requires that a person understands how to get viable seeds. Not planting different variates to close so cross breeding does occur. You know not to plant cucumbers to close to muskmelons because they will cross. I have always know this. Can you grow a crop, obtain seeds, and then grow from these seeds next year, and next year....

Thats not a true hunter gatherer. Growing trees that have many limbs that fall each year that can be burned to ensure heat. What category does this fall into?

[Leanan]

Perhaps "horticulturalist." They are not very nomadic, tending to stay in the same general area. (Though they may have to move their gardens around, as the soil gets exhausted - early crop rotation.) They have gardens that are enough to feed their families, but don't produce a lot of extra for sale or storage. It's more work than being a hunter-gatherer, but less work than full-blown agriculture.

[Mower]

$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('Pops', 'A')s all fortunes, big and small, shrink over the next 50 years I would guess there would be a larger and larger stratification of wealth and power, with the wealthy buying up assets the rest can’t hold on to. After all, even most upper middleclass families’ assets are their home and possibly retirement accounts – all of which are bound to lose value dramatically if not completely.

[Dustin]

cannottell, you sound like a John Ashcroft crossed with a Donald Rumsfeld, with an Agent Smith accent working in the Ministry of Truth.