Comment by akiselev | Hacker News Reader

Comment by akiselev | Hacker News Reader

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Who cares who controls the majority of the world's assets when global standards of living are increasing, apparently quite drastically? It seems like living in the developed world puts you in a bubble relative to the world that is similar to the culture on Wall Street. It doesn't matter that everyone (still there after the recession) is stil getting paid an order or two of magnitude more than 99.5% of the country, many traders are still ridiculously competitive and hung up on the fact that there are people up the ladder making more than them while entirely taking their good fortune for granted.

The world is getting better for everyone and the point of the article is that the luxuries that come with increased wealth (internet, mobiles, greater political awareness, travel) make old power structures harder and harder to maintain, in almost every facet of society.

It's easy to get lost in the massive problems and doom and gloom facing everyone but if you step back and look at the forest, it's not all that gloomy.

Revolutions occur not during, but after times of intense hardship. When the general population has enough time and resources to inform themselves of perceived imbalances in the power structure, and isn't expending all their efforts on survival, they have the opportunity to become politically active.

This is why smart dictators keep their populations in constant poverty and either war, or war-readiness.

Yes, indeed, the average cage is getting bigger and shinier.

Because whether you can use that mobile phone or not is determined by who controls the money.

Whether we're talking cartels, the Fed, Congress, oligarchs, big corporations, or good 'ol fashioned free market billionaires. They dictate ultimately whether your phone 'works,' whether you can get on a plane, whether you can use Google or the Internet, or drive a car, or draw power when you plug into an outlet (at least for 99.9% of the population).

None of that has changed one bit, and none of it is going to. You can swap one power broker for another, but what you can never do is remove them. You can start by asking who has the military weapons, who has the control over money standards, who controls taxing authorities - and then you can follow the chart of money / power on down.

>Who cares who controls the majority of the world's assets

The author. The article is about power and it's safe to say that he who controls the majority of the world's assets holds the power (and vice-versa).

Things are pretty gloomy if you like fish.

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