Listen above or read below

Consider Jethro’s village. An early farming village from 10,000 years ago. The people grow an excess of food, mainly wheat grain, year after year. There’s enough food for everyone and the chief builds storehouses to store the excess food.

The excess food means the chief can always help his villagers when necessary, but most of the food is just stored for years, going unused.

After several generations, a new chief starts to borrow excess food from other villages. He builds more storehouses to store even more food that he doesn’t need and goes unused.

As he borrowed the food, he has to pay interest to the other villages. However, he makes the villagers pay the interest on the food that they don’t own.

Now, substitute the USA for the village and substitute money for food. That’s how the wealthiest Americans have accumulated almost a third of their wealth. They’ve used their influence over politicians to get the government to borrow money and give it to the wealthy, even though they don’t need it. The government has then forced the rest of the people to pay the interest.

Wealthy Americans will say it’s unfair to make them pay off the debt with money they earned. But they didn’t earn it. If you’re American and not part of the wealthiest 10%, they forged your signature on a loan application, hid the money under their mattress and tricked your bank into setting up a monthly payment to pay the interest.

In December 2025, the wealthiest 10% of Americans had almost $120 trillion while the national debt was about $38.4 trillion. The debt wasn’t even a third of the wealth owned by the 10%.

Like Jethro’s village never needed to borrow more food, the US never needed to borrow more money.

So, should the wealthiest Americans use the money they borrowed to pay off the debt they created?

Listen above or read below

Which natural resource is the most valuable? Rare earths, oil, diamonds, gold? Those are some of the most obvious contenders. So, which one do you think or is it something else altogether?

These are all estimates in US dollars, but they give us some interesting ballpark figures to consider.

To date, around $1 trillion worth of diamonds have been mined and there may be as much still in the earth. Even if we tripled those estimates, that’s still “just” $6 trillion.

The most abundant rare earth mineral is Cerium which has accessible supplies of about 6.3 billion metric tons, valued at about $23.6 trillion.

So Cerium looks more attractive than diamonds, but the world’s mined and known gold reserves total about twice as much at $47 trillion.

However, at the current price of about $105 per barrel, the world’s known oil reserves total about $185.5 trillion.

Have we found our winner in oil? No, there’s one often overlooked natural resource that’s worth much, much more.

In 2025, the 340 million American people generated $30.76 trillion. The average American works for 45 years, so the American population has a lifetime value of $1,384 trillion. More than seven times greater in value than the world’s oil reserves.

Humans are the single most valuable resource on the planet. To the wealthy, we’re just one more asset class to own.

In the US, the poorest 50% share just 2.5% of all American wealth, while the wealthiest 10% have already hoarded 68.3% of the wealth. That’s with America as a democratic nation.

How much more unequal do you think the wealth share would be if America wasn’t a democracy?

Listen above or read below

When it comes to war, shouldn’t those who have the most to lose be the ones who fight and die first?

If you’re one of the poorest 50% of Americans, you share 2.5% of the USA’s wealth.

At the same time, the wealthiest 10% of Americans hoard 68.3% of the country’s wealth.

If America is attacked, they have much more to lose. Shouldn’t they be the ones to fight and die first? That’s 34 million soldiers. They’d whip everyone’s ass.

Though perhaps you only need the top 1% to fight. That’s 3.4 million people fighting to protect their 31% share of America’s wealth. Don’t you think they’d be super-motivated to protect all their money?

And if the war’s not even against a near-peer adversary, the top 0.1% could probably handle it on their own. 340,000 super-wealthy people trying to save their 14.5% wealth share. For a total of $25.47 trillion or $75 million each.

Surely they’d all fight like maniacs to defend their indefensible share of America’s wealth?

The poorest Americans have the least to lose. So why do they have to die fighting America’s wars?

Listen above or read below

A government is like a company. Both have employees. And both provide products and services. And both have customers, the government’s customers being the citizens.

Put simply, a government is a publicly owned company with a diverse operating portfolio, though it doesn’t have to make a profit, which makes the job a bit easier.

So, how come the wealthy insist that big government is inefficient and wasteful? Yet they praise big businesses for being more efficient and less wasteful, claiming they push down prices for their customers.

Obviously, big businesses are more efficient. Just look around the main streets and shopping malls that you frequent and note how big chain brands have killed many of the small and independent businesses.

Small businesses can’t compete with big businesses for cost-effectiveness. And it’s just as untrue that small government is more efficient and cost-effective.

The wealthy lie about big government because they don’t need most government services and they don’t want to pay to provide those services to others. The wealthy don’t need help with healthcare, food or housing. And they don’t want governments to regulate their businesses and hurt their profits by protecting consumers. And they absolutely don’t want to pay for tax agencies that investigate their tax evasion and punish them because they’re too smart to pay taxes.

Big government works for the big majority of the people, while small government works for a small minority of the people. The wealthiest 10% of Americans have already hoarded 68.3% of all US wealth. Smaller government will make it easier for them to hoard even more.

And the USA isn’t unusual, though it is an extreme case. While the poorest 50% of Americans share just 2.5% of US wealth, the poorest 50% of Russians, Europeans and Britons share just 3%, 4% and almost 6% respectively.

Do you want big government that works for you or small government that works for the wealthy?

Listen above or read below

We both know that immigration systems across the Western world are a bit of a mess, but whatever your views, park them for two minutes.

Obviously, hitting a big target is easier than a small one, so why do the wealthy and the politicians that serve them insist we should target immigrants to improve our standards of living?

Let’s focus on the US because the figures are easier to get, but this affects all Western countries. We’re using a mix of figures from the Fed, US government and some other sources. These numbers are not 100% accurate, but they’re illustrative.

The 12.8 million illegal immingrants cost US taxpayers about $91 billion per year, once the taxes they pay are included.

If all the immigrants were removed and the money saved was shared evenly between all Americans, each citizen would be $278.73 better off per year.

That’s less than 77 cents per day. Doesn’t feel like a big win, does it? Particularly as removing one million migrants per year would cost almost as much as is currently spent on supporting all the migrants. So it’ll take about 12.5 years until the full 77 cents is paid every day.

Since 1989, the wealthiest 10% of Americans have captured an extra 7.5% of all the US wealth, giving them a total share of 68.3%.

If we took that 7.5% of US wealth and gave it to the poorest 50% instead, they’d each receive $77,316, without even removing any immigrants. That’s 275 years of 77 cents per day.

And it wouldn’t hurt the wealthiest 10% of Americans. They’d still be hoarding 60.8% of all US wealth, compared to just 10% for the poorest 50% of Americans.

It also saves wasting time and money raiding Mexican restaurants and farms. The wealthiest 10% of Americans are easy to find. They’re the ones with expensive accountants and relatively tiny tax bills.

Your choice. $77,316 today or wait 12 and a half years for less than 77 cents a day?

Listen above or read below

I will answer the question, though not in the way you expect, but first a question for you.

Who creates the massive wealth in the US economy?

Yes, of course, the workers. Entrepreneurs may form the businesses that employ them, but without the workers, those businesses would supply no products or services. And CEOs and senior managers may get paid crazy amounts to sit in corner offices making “big” decisions, but it’s the workers who make the profits.

Since 1989, the US economy doubled in size in real terms and that increase relied on the 170 million workers. But despite the part they played in boosting the economy, the poorest 50% of Americans saw their share of America’s wealth fall from 3.5% to 2.5%.

No wonder poor Americans get upset when they hear that the money they earned is going to people who didn’t earn it. And I don’t mean the immigrants who many politicians blame for taking money they didn’t earn. Even though immigrants cost every single American about $279 each year.

Since 1989 the wealthiest 1% of Americans captured an additional 9.1% of US wealth, giving them a total share of 31.9%. Almost a third of America’s total wealth has been hoarded by just 1% of the people.

Based on 2025 end figures, if the poorest 50% hadn’t lost 1%, they’d each have $10,308 more today. If that whole 9.1% had gone to them instead of the wealthiest 1%, they’d each have $93,810 more today.

Add both together and that’s $104,118 that Americans workers earned by working to double the US economy. But the $104,118 they earned was given to people who didn’t earn it. The wealthiest 1% of Americans have now hoarded almost $56 trillion. Almost 1.5 times the US national debt. And guess who’s paying the interest on that.

So, how much do you think the poorest 50% of Americans deserve for their work that doubled the US economy? $279 or $104,118?

Ignore the fact that for some lucky people it comes from their parents. Wealth comes from an excess of income. Having more income than you need to spend.

Tens of thousands of years ago, humans spent their day finding or hunting enough food to eat and then resting before doing it again tomorrow. Food was income and we were getting enough to survive. Or we died.

Then we started farming and some of us could produce more food than we needed and the grains we grew could be stored for years. Food was still income, but now some of us could store excess income. The excess income became wealth.

That wealth could be used to feed others in return for their time working to grow more crops. So our wealthiest ancestors were able to convert the time of our poorer ancestors into even more wealth for themselves.

This pattern continues today. The wealthy are able to convert the income of poorer people into more wealth for themselves in many ways. A popular method is buying and renting housing.

Since the turn of the century, the US has suffered a worsening housing shortage. Many people can no longer afford to buy their own home. US politicians’ response is to talk about the need to build more housing. Politicians in the UK offer the same solution for a similar problem there too.

But data shows that the ratio of housing units in the US to the population is higher now than at any time this century. The UK has seen a similar increase in the ratio of housing units to people too.

The housing shortage is caused by wealthy people paying more for housing so they can rent it to poorer people and convert their income into wealth. The wealthy can use poorer people like livestock, milking wealth out of them.

This understanding of capitalism explains how the wealthiest 10% of Americans have now hoarded 68.3% of the country’s wealth. Leaving the poorest 50% of Americans with a measly 2.5% between them.

During COVID, there was outrage at businesses that profited unfairly from their customers.

Is it any different when wealthy people push up property prices so they can profit from people who are poorer than them?

That’s worked pretty well for them so far, but as extreme weather events happen more often and we’re no longer able to insure our property against the effects, just lying about climate change isn’t going to work anymore.

For more than a century, the wealthy have tolerated democracy. They hate the times when the people choose more liberal governments, but they’ve done a good job of convincing the people that prioritizing the interests of big businesses is best for all of us. That’s allowed the wealthiest 10% of Americans to hoard 68.3% of all US wealth, leaving the poorest 50% of Americans with just 2.5% between them. In the EU and UK, the poorest 50% share just 4% and less than 6% of the wealth, so it’s not just a US problem.

But as more people realize that big businesses owned by the wealthy have caused the climate problem, more people are going to vote for governments that make the wealthy use the money they’ve taken from the rest of the people to pay to fix their problem.

It gets worse though, because by that point, it will be too late to prevent many of the problems and the costs that arise from climate change are predicted to be far greater than the costs of preventing it. So the wealthy will face the worst of both worlds in paying to try and stop further warming and paying to resolve the issues caused by them ignoring the truth.

The costs will be absolutely massive. But using their wealth to pay for politicians who will undermine and then end democracy will save them from paying for the damage they’ve caused. Autocratic governments can simply ignore the effects of climate change and leave the poor to sort themselves out when the effects become impossible to deny anymore.

So, does climate change make autocractic governments inevitable?

It’s complete nonsense, of course. If you want to make a poor person wealthier, give them the money.

Consider two piles of cash. $1 billion in each. Over ten years, I give all of the money in one pile to a single person. $100 million a year to that one person. In the first year, they’ll buy a couple of houses and a handful of cars. They’ll probably splurge on other things too, but still have loads of cash left at the end of the year. It’s not that easy to spend loads of money. After ten years, I bet they’ll still have more than $800 million sitting in investments. Money that’s doing nothing but creating more wealth for our hugely wealthy individual.

Compare that to the other pile of $1 billion. This pile I share equally with 2,000 people over the same ten years. Each one will get $50,000 a year and each one will spend all of their money because they have to. Across the ten years, each one of them will buy a home, meaning 2,000 realtors and mortgage agents make commission, instead of just a couple. And each of them buys a car. So 2,000 salespeople make commissions, instead of a handful. But more than that, the businesses that make the parts for those cars sell much more. 2,000 wiper motors instead of five and 8,000 tires instead of 20. Everything that they buy will benefit many more people.

Over the full ten years, those 2,000 people ensure that the full $1 billion goes back into the economy. In the final quarter of 2025, 2/3 of US GDP came from consumer spending. That’s how important it is to the country for money to be active and productive.

The wealth of the wealthiest 10% is largely unusued. It would make no real difference to them if one third of it was used to pay off the whole US debt. That would save more than $1 trillion a year in interest payments, much of which would also end up as cash in the economy. A win-win for everyone.

By the start of 2026, the wealthiest 10% of Americans had hoarded more than three times the US national debt. In fact, that small group of Americans has seized 68.3% of all US wealth, while the poorest 50% share just 2.5%.

So why doesn’t money trickle down like it’s meant to?

Most are owned by very wealthy people. You need to be very wealthy to buy a newspaper or a radio or TV station. And social media channels like Facebook and X are owned by some of the world’s wealthiest people.

Do you think that the very wealthy owners of these various channels bought them because they wanted to play at journalism? Or do you think they bought them to help them grow their wealth?

I only ask, because the wealthiest 10% of Americans have hoarded 68.3% of the country’s wealth, while the poorest 50% share just 2.5%. That looks like the wealthy are grabbing as much as they can.

You may think the only fake news is told by the other side. Your channels only ever tell the truth. Yet, it doesn’t matter whether the channel is conservative or liberal. It convinces you to accept government actions that continuously hand more to the wealthy, even as you and your neighbors struggle day to day.

If a country had more food than it needed and then their government borrowed more food from other countries, taxing the people to pay the interest on the borrowed food, wouldn’t you expect independent media to report on the absurdity of it? Why don’t they report on the absurdity of borrowing money?

The wealthiest 10% of Americans could pay off the entire US national debt with just a third of their wealth. The US government has borrowed over $39 trillion which the country never needed. The top 10% could clear the entire debt and still have two thirds of their wealth left.

But your favorite news source, whether conservative or liberal, will explain to you it’s an absurd suggestion that the wealthy could pay off the debt. The real world isn’t that simple. Unfortunately, the only possible solution is for poor people like you to pay the interest on huge wealth that has been hoarded by just a few very wealthy people.

They’ll insist that the claim that the wealthy could clear the debt is clearly fake news. And if we were wealthy, we’d probably insist it was fake news too.

So, is fake news simply news that we don’t like?

That’s nonsense. The truth is that communism simply doesn’t work. Every time it’s been atttempted, it’s failed.

It fails because of human nature. Communism is meant to ensure everyone receives what they need, but communist governments are invariably led by leaders who want more than they need.

Because private property is banned, businesses are taken away from entrepreneurs and run by mediocre bureaucrats. Badly run businesses lead to a smaller economy and with the leaders and the bureaucrats taking more than they need, most of the people are left struggling with less than they need.

But capitalism isn’t any better. Oddly, it suffers from the exact same two problems described above.

Like communism, capitalism drives a minority to take more than they need. Less expected though, most companies are also taken from entrepreneurs. Mediocre managers take over to maximize value for stockholders. 60% of founders are replaced by the time startups go public and half of the remainder are then replaced within three. The new business leaders are focused on short-term results for stockholders, rather than the long-term performance of the business.

This understanding of capitalism helps explain how the wealthiest 10% of Americans have now hoarded 68.3% of the country’s wealth. Leaving the poorest 50% of Americans with a measly 2.5% between them. The workers who have built American wealth and prosperity have been all but excluded from sharing in it.

The wealthy claim communism is evil, but does capitalism look very different?

Why don’t politicians have a fiduciary duty of care to their constituents?

A politician can say they’ll act for the voters, but once elected, they can do whatever they like. There is no legal imperative for them to act in the best interests of the majority of the people. As long as they don’t break the law, they’re free to ignore the voters and work 100% in their own best interests.

One of the arguments against a fiduciary duty of care for politicians is that it will be too messy to enforce. That it will be difficult to prove a politician failed to fulfill their fiduciary duty of care. That may be the case sometimes, but often it will be 100% clear.

For example, the wealthiest 10% of Americans hoard 68.3% of the country’s wealth, while the poorest 50% share just 2.5%.

Could any politician argue that the policies that created and maintain that huge inequality were enacted in the best interests of the majority of the people, rather than just the wealthiest?

They get to declare what they’ve earned, in effect allowing them to choose how much tax they pay. Particularly because they can afford to pay imaginative accountants to play a tax system designed to help the wealthy reduce even further how much tax they pay.

Which leads to the claim from at least one very wealthy American that it’s smart not paying taxes. And it seems clear that almost all wealthy Americans believe the same thing.

I guess some poor Americans look at the wealthy taking advantage of their position to avoid paying taxes and think, “Good for them, they’re sticking it to the man.”

Of course, perhaps they don’t realise that while the poorest 50% of Americans share just 2.5% of America’s wealth, the weathiest 10% have already hoarded 68.3% of all the wealth, and their share is still growing even larger. No doubt, helped by not paying all the taxes they should, while poor Americans have no choice but to pay their taxes.

So, when smart wealthy Americans don’t pay their taxes, are they sticking it to the man, or are they sticking it to the poor?

Politicians may seem important too, but during the 2025 US government shutdown, the 3rd highest ranked politician in America sent the House home for most of the 43 day crisis. Obviously, Mike Johnson doesn’t think they’re important. And why should he?

After the 2010 Belgian election, the country went 589 days without an elected government. Civil servants can keep things running fine.

A day without trash collectors may not be an issue everywhere, but in a busy city, that could be long enough for some alleys and sidewalks to become hard to pass. After a week, some alleys and sidewalks will be completely blocked. After a month, many roads are completely blocked and rats and pigeons are making themselves at home. After six months, even lights and sirens won’t get you through the city as main routes are completely blocked and packs of feral dogs are moving as freely as the airborne diseases that are striking down the old and infirm.

We don’t even need a full day without nurses to suffer multiple unnecessary deaths. After a week, the health system has collapsed. After a month, the economy is trending hard downwards as not only are sick workers missing from their jobs, so are family and friends who are staying home to care for them. After six months, society has regressed more than a century and minor ailments are once again a matter of life and death.

CEOs and politicians invariably form part of the wealthiest 10% of Americans, who hoard 68.3% of the country’s wealth. Trash collectors and nurses are much more likely to be in the poorest 50%, who share just 2.5% of America’s wealth.

So why does society reward CEOs and politicians so well, when they provide so little value, yet reward trash collectors and nurses so badly when they literally save our lives?

We only ever hate things that we’re scared of. We never hate things that excite us. Those are the things we love. The logic is impossible to argue with. So, if you really want to know what things you’re scared of, ask yourself what you hate.

Racists hate people with different skin because they’re scared of them. Misogynists hate women because they’re scared of them. Homophobes hate gay people because they’re scared of them.

Those haters are the minority, but we all have our own odd little fears. And politicians know they can tap into our fears.

Politicians tell us that immigrants taking jobs and government welfare is what is making us poor. We’re encouraged to fear immigrants, even being told immigrants are different or more lawless.

But our real fear isn’t immigrants. Our fear is failure. Failure to support our loved ones and ourselves. Failure to house, feed, clothe and keep them safe.

But even that’s not the root fear. No, the root fear for all of us is the fear that we’re responsible for our own failure.

That’s why attacking minorities is so effective, because they become responsible for our failure. It removes the fear that we’re to blame, passing it to a weaker group instead. So we can hate them for making us fail.

Of course, the big irony is that failure for most of us comes from not being able to earn enough money. And the wealthy could help with this.

In the US, the wealthiest 10% of Americans have hoarded 68.3% of the nation’s wealth, while the poorest 50% struggle with just 2.5% between them.

The wealthy have more than they need and could remove the fear of failure from the majority just by sharing some of their excess wealth. Since 1989, the wealthiest 1% alone have captured an extra 9.1% of America’s wealth, while the poorest 50% have lost 1%. If that full 10.1% had gone to the poorest 50%, they’d each be $104,118 better off today.

The greed of the wealthy is causing the poor to fail. But, the wealthy stoke fear and hatred of minorities and pretend that the blame lies with them instead.

What do you hate more: failing or being lied to about why you’re failing?

The wealthy usually earn their money differently and aren’t taxed at source. They tell the government how much they earn and also employ experts to justify them paying as little tax as possible. If the government thinks they’ve underpaid, the government has to spend their time and money fighting against expensive financial experts to prove the underpayment.

This is a system that makes it nearly impossible for the poor to avoid income taxes and relatively easy for the wealthy to avoid those taxes. And because it can be difficult and expensive for the government to prove bad behavior by the wealthy, it may often go unchallenged.

That’s allowed the wealthiest 10% of Americans to hoard 68.3% of all US wealth, leaving the poorest 50% of Americans with just 2.5% between them. 

A tax at source system for the wealthy would level the playing field.

For example, the government could insist that all payments to banks, payment services and other financial institutions have tax deducted before the account holder receives it. This would ensure that the government knows exactly how much money the wealthy are earning and that they will always get the tax due.

It could also avoid the problem of international coporations making money in one country, but paying the tax on it in another country. All the payments received in each country would be taxed there before businesses received it.

Granted, this may be hard and complex, particularly when taxing large businesses in this way. But taxing the poor at source probably looked hard and complex too and lots of countries made that work. I’m sure they could work it out for the wealthy too. And yes, the wealthy may look to use crypto currencies to avoid such a system, but we can always just ban their use. They mainly only benefit the wealthy and criminally inclined anyway.

So, what’s not fair about a system that taxes the wealthy at source?

About 12,000 years ago, humans emerged from an ice age and started to farm crops. For the first time in our history, humans could count on a supply of food without having to move around with the seasons. More importantly, because the grains they grew could be stored for many years, they could produce excess amounts of food to protect them from starving if they had future crop failures.

Being able to store excess food opened up the possibility of theft. Others could use the threat of violence to extract food from others without farming themselves. Small, but strong and violent groups could take food from larger more passive groups.

These were the first protection rackets. In time, the owners of the largest rackets would try to steal other protection rackets.

Not a problem for the smartest protection racket bosses, though. They just convinced the farmers under their “protection” that the other groups were too powerful and would steal their property, unless they themselves fought to protect it.

Of course, in effect they’re fighting to defend the protection racket. And once the fight is over, they go back to paying protection, even though they’re the ones protecting the mob boss now. And their protection payments are renamed taxes.

And that’s how a country is born.

Not convinced? That’s understandable. From an early age, we’re taught to love our country and show respect to its flag like it’s a living being. We’re told that we and our fellow country folk are exceptional, with unique and high-minded characteristics that we don’t share with people from other countries. We’re persuaded to believe we’re all part of the same team while being taught to show deference to our betters at the top of society.

What you read above may feel disloyal and unpatriotic, but focus on the facts.

By the end of 2025, the wealthiest 10% of Americans had hoarded 68.3% of all the country’s wealth, while the poorest 50% were left with just 2.5% of all the wealth.

Doesn’t that look like how a protection racket would split the money?

And in the EU, the poorest 50% share about 4% of all the wealth, while the poorest 50% in the UK have less than 6%, so protection racket economics aren’t just an American thing.

A simple definition is that it gives everyone the freedom to say whatever they want, whenever they want.

For example, you could say to me, “You are the ugliest and most stupid person I have ever met.” Ignoring the accuracy of your statement, what is the benefit of you being free to say that?

Do you think that the people who wrote the different laws and constitutions of our planet’s remaining democracies planned to protect the right of one citizen to insult another?

Perhaps they did, but such freedom doesn’t seem to offer any great constructive benefit to society.

Clearly, it is essential that everyone who lives in a democracy is free to say what they believe. But does calling it free speech confuse us about what needs to be protected?

We should be free to say how we want to be governed. We should be free to criticize politicians and other citizens who do things that we don’t agree with. We should be free to protest against regulations, laws and actions that we believe are wrong.

These rights and protections, and many others too, are essential to ensure the freedom of every single person living in a democracy.

Telling strangers that they smell should have less importance. Though the right to say such a thing should exist and should continue to exist. If only because trying to manage what people can and can’t say is a much more complex task than we might imagine at first thought.

Arguably, there should be limits, but exactly where they should lie is no easy question to answer. Ideally, such limits would be self-policed by reasonable individuals, but that seems absurdly idealistic right now.

Most societies appear hugely divided. In the US, the wealthiest 10% have hoarded 68.3% of American wealth, leaving the poorest 50% with just 2.5%. Oddly, that bottom 50% seems particularly divided, rather than working together to claim a bigger share of the economy that their work powers. And free speech often seems to fuel that division.

Still, could we argue that the concept of free speech should be banned, without undermining the core aim of free speech? To ensure, regardless of any change made, all people remain free to speak out about how ther lives and societies are governed and regulated.

Should we, perhaps, ban the right to free speech and replace it with the right to free debate?

Quickly, what is kleptocracy? Google tells me it’s a “system ruled by people who use their power to steal their country’s resources.”

Can we seriously believe that modern Western democracies are really kleptocracies? Well, just considering the massive inequality in wealth might support the idea. The wealthiest 10% of Americans have hoarded 68% of all US wealth (31% by the top 1% alone), leaving the poorest 50% to share just 2.5% between them. In the EU, the poorest 50% have about 4% of the continent’s wealth and the poorest Britons share almost 6%. So the wealth share in the Old World is a bit better than the US, but still suggests those democracies are functioning like kleptocracies.

Politicians who use their positions to help the wealthy can be richly rewarded. Tony Blair wasn’t poor before his 10 years as UK Prime Minister, but in the years since, his wealth has ballooned to an estimated $60 million. Boris Johnson is reported to have made more than $6 million in the first six months after resigning as UK PM.

The US presidency can be even more lucrative, shown by the difference between wealth before and after winning the White House. Obama went from $1.3 million to $70 million, while Clinton grew $1.3 million to $120 million. Daddy Bush turned $4 million into $23 million and junior doubled $20 million to $40 million. Trump is generally opaque about the details of his finances, but even if the claims of $1.4 billion from the first year of his second term are an order of magnitude greater than reality, he’s already profited at a higher level than any president before him, with three more years to go.

You don’t have to be at the top of the tree to make money from government, either. The Revolving Door refers to the practice of people working in government who go on to work with companies they were responsible for regulating. So if they treat companies well, they can expect a well paid job later in return.

Most countries have rules to try and stop this, but it’s ineffective. A study found more than 50 UK ministers from a six year period went on to work for companies in industries they had been responsible for – probably about half of all ministers during that period. And a US report found about a third of federal employees later headed through the revolving door.

They’re meant to serve the people, but serve themselves instead.

So if kleptocracy isn’t great for the rest of us, why do we keep electing kleptocrats?

So, the US is obviously doing lots for the wealthy, but if you’re one of the poorest 50%, what has your country done for you?

They gave you roads, railways and air travel. Of course, the wealthy need all those to transport workers and the goods that they make their money from.

There’s healthcare. Though voters in every Western nation will tell you that their health services are underfunded and essential treatments can be difficult to get in a timely manner. At least many don’t have the situation of US voters who are expected to organise and fund their own health care.

Sanitation and essential utilities. Yep, you can rely on water, sewage and power in most parts of every Western nation. The wealthy see the risk to them if diseases are allowed to flourish in their workers. Besides, many countries let private companies run these services and profit from them. Because apparently companies that have to pay for workers, equipment and stockholder dividends cost less than companies that only have to pay for workers and equipment.

Food. We can buy pretty much anything all year round, often shipped from the other side of the world. Assuming we can afford it. In the US, it’s reported that more than 50 million people a year turn to food charities to help feed them. The British government’s own figures say 4% of Britons use charities for food support.

Housing. The US and UK are both suffering from “housing shortages”, despite the ratio of housing units to households being higher today than in 2000. But since then, both countries have seen ever more housing being bought by the wealthy to rent, allowing them to convert the income of the poor into more wealth for the wealthy.

In 1944, with global war threatening the long-term wealth of the wealthiest Americans, they paid 94% income tax to fund the war and protect their future. America’s poorest paid an even higher price, with more than a million killed or injured fighting that war.

Yet, just 16 years later, President Kennedy was already shaming America’s poor into asking what they could do for their country.

Assuming you’re one of the poorest 50% of Americans sharing just 2.5% of your nation’s wealth, what has your country done for you lately? And if you live in another Western nation, the same question applies to your country.

Politicians are elected by the people and they’re meant to serve the people. In every action they take, they should be doing what they believe to be best for their constituents. Yet every political party has whips, members who are responsible for making politicans from their party vote in the way that the party wants them to. So, you can vote for someone because you want them to work in your best interests, but their party can force them to work against your best interests.

That doesn’t seem right, does it? Should we ban political parties, then?

As tempting as that might seem to some of us, it probably isn’t that simple. Parties do bring a degree of order to government that might be missed. Leadership roles in legislative assemblies, like the House of Representatives and Senate in the US, tend to go to a senior member of the dominant party. There could be much more chaos when it comes to voting to fill these roles without parties.

Also, how do we define membership of a political party? If we ban them, it’s likely that politicians with similar beliefs would still group together informally. How do we identify whether an informal grouping has crossed the line into a political party?

While in theory, banning parties can seem attractive, the idea seems to be impractical in the real world.

There is a way to achieve much the same result, though, and while making no changes to legislation. Voters can simply refuse to vote for any candidate who is a member of a political party and only vote for independent candidates. While that may make selecting the best candidate more complex, it has the benefit of ensuring each vote goes to someone who plans to do what’s best for the voters rather than their party.

Political parties have helped the wealthiest 10% of Americans hoard 68.3% of all US wealth, leaving the poorest 50% to share just 2.5%. In the EU and the UK, political parties have limited the poorest 50% of their populations to wealth shares of just 4% and less than 6% respectively.

If banning political parties isn’t possible, should voters do the next best thing and virtually ban them by voting for independents?

So the known reserves of up to 1.7 trillion barrels of oil might keep our world running for another 50 years, but it’s not much use if we can’t get it out of the ground.

How long do you think before we start using renewable energy to extract oil? Sure, that sounds crazy, but the wealthy are determined to extract as much oil as possible. They can’t make money from it if it stays in the ground. And that’s the main reason they attack renewable energy as being expensive and unreliable. They want to use up as much oil as possible first.

Ernest Hemingway said that bankruptcy comes gradually, then suddenly. He was describing financial bankruptcy, but it’ll be no different for energy bankruptcy. It’s already coming gradually and when it comes suddenly, the poor will suffer most and the wealthy will profit most.

The best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago and the second best time is today. That saying applies just as well to developing renewable energy sources. If we leave it too late, there won’t be enough energy for all of us and the costs will skyrocket. Of course, that’s a feature, not a bug for the wealthiest. They’ll profit even more from the high prices that result from them slowing down the development of new energy sources until it’s too late.

What? We don’t need to panic because nuclear fusion will save us all. Even though after 70 years of research, the longest fusion reaction is just 22 minutes and the most energy from a sustained reaction was enough to power 12,000 homes for 5.2 seconds? Maybe God decided the inside of huge balls of explosive gas was the best place for nuclear fusion reactions, rather than the surface of rocky planets, for a good reason. But even if I’m being overly negative, the wealthy will want to recover the vast sums of money spent on fusion, so they’re not going to be giving their new energy away.

Considering the wealthiest 10% of Americans have already hoarded 68.3% of American wealth, how much more do you think they’ll take? On the bright side, as the poorest 50% of Americans already share just 2.5% of America’s wealth, things can’t get much worse for them.

So, when is the right time to start going all in on renewable energy?

We all think we’re smarter than we really are. And that misplaced self-confidence is what makes both you and I much more easily duped than we want. I’m going to use Americans to try and convince you, but only because the US government is more open about US wealth than most countries. Voters in every other democracy are just as easily manipulated.

We both know the most important thing to us, when we vote, is whether they’re going to make us better off. Everything else is just nice to have. Those who convince us they’ll put more money in our pocket get our vote.

Since 1989, the US has had 17 years of Republican presidents and 20 of Democratic presidents. During that time the wealth share of the poorest 50% of Americans has fallen from 3.5% to 2.5%. The share has gone up and down under both parties. But the trend is downwards, a drop of 1% so far.

Meanwhile, the trend for the wealthiest 10% of Americans is upwards. Over the same period, they gained an extra 7.5% share of America’s wealth, taking their share to 68.3%.

Stop and think about that for a moment. Just one tenth of Americans have grasped more than two thirds of all America’s wealth. And the poorest half share just a fortieth of all America’s wealth.

Based on end of 2025 figures, if the poorest 50% hadn’t lost 1%, they’d each have $10,308 more today. If that whole 7.5% had gone to them instead, they’d each have $77,316 more today. Add both and they’d each have $87,624 more money right now.

However, rather than Americans arguing about the wealthy making the poorest Americans poorer, Americans are arguing about immigrants making them poorer. If every single illegal immigrant in the US left today at their own expense, the poorest 50% of Americans would be just $278.73 better off next year. It would take 311 years for each to gain the equivalent of $87,624 at that rate.

The wealthiest Americans hoarded this extra wealth under both Democrats and Republicans and both Democrats and Republicans have got Americans arguing about how to deal with immigrants, rather than how to deal with the wealthiest Americans taking more than their fair share.

So, are we more easily duped than we think or is it just the other suckers?

In 1959, an internal report at the Shell oil company stated that use of their products would cause climatic change by the end of the century.

An internal report at Exxon during the 1970s predicted global warming due to fossil fuels, with their predictions closely matching actual changes since then.

None of these companies or organisations went public with their findings. At least one, Exxon, actually paid scientists to lie on their behalf and undermine the legitimate claims of researchers who were publicising the connection between Exxon’s products and climate change.

And if these three had discovered the link, don’t you imagine every oil company knew the truth?

A crime against humanity is defined as “a deliberate act, typically as part of a systematic campaign, that causes human suffering or death on a large scale.”

Don’t you think it would be fair to say that publicly denying science they privately knew was true, knowing that it would lead to future human suffering, just so they could continue making vast amounts of money, fits in with the definition of a crime against humanity?

Since 1989, the wealthiest 1% of Americans have increased their wealth share by 9.1% to 31.9% of the whole country’s wealth, helping the top 10% to hoard 68.3% of all wealth in total. While the poorest 50% share just 2.5% between them.

So, is lying about man-made climate change a crime or are you happy for very wealthy people to sacrifice our planet to make themselves even richer?

Surely you know the phrase Follow the money. If we want to know who did a crime, find out who benefitted most.

So, if the crime is making the majority of the people poor and causing them to struggle to afford the basics of everyday life, literally following the money should clearly reveal who’s to blame.

And obviously the money doesn’t lead to illegal immigrants.

On the contrary, it leads straight upwards, towards the wealthy. Many of whom are pointing the finger of blame at immigrants.

The poorest 50% of Americans share just 2.5% of America’s wealth. The wealthiest 10% of Americans hoard 68.3% of America’s wealth.

You can blame immigrants for American poverty, but that’s not going to change anything. They’re not the ones stealing American wealth.

And yes, you could claim immigrants should be removed because of their criminality. But a Department of Justice report states that undocumented immigrants are arrested at less than half the rate of US born citizens for violent and drug crimes. The rate drops to a quarter for property crimes.

So, who’s really committing the biggest crimes against poor Americans, immigrants or wealthy Americans?

Betas answer yes. They see themselves as part of society and recognize that it’s necessary for all members to play their part. Even if that means making the ultimate sacrifice to ensure their loved ones and neighbors will be safe.

Alphas will always answer no. They live their lives with the intention of getting the best outcomes for themselves and only themselves.

It’s a common misconception that Alphas are naturally our leaders. In reality, we can find both Alphas and Betas among the politicians of democratic nations.

The difference between them is that Betas go into politics to serve the people.

Alphas go into politics to rule the people. Because they can literally make the rules and bend them to help themselves.

And Alphas will shout about the honor of patriotism and heroism, because they know Betas consider patriotism their duty. But Alphas will never make a sacrifice for country because it makes no sense to them.

While a Beta will accept years of mistreatment rather than accept privileges not afforded to their sisters and brothers, an Alpha will think anyone who doesn’t take every opportunity to put themself first is a sucker and a loser.

Research shows that groups problem solve better than individuals and that groups have better outcomes from their decision making. Meaning dominant Alpha leaders are instantly at a disadvantage to group intellect, a situation made worse by their basic compulsion to follow their urges and emotional whims, without thinking things through.

The people would be better off being led by the Alpha of a chimpanzee troop. At least they’d only hoard bananas, rather than the 31.9% of all American wealth that the 1% of US alphas have hoarded instead.

That’s $55.92 trillion or about 1.5 times the US national debt. The same debt whose interest is paid by the taxes of the poorest 50% of Americans. Even though those poorest Americans only share 2.5% of America’s wealth between them. Did I mention that the Alphas only care about themselves?

So, who do you stand with, the Alphas or the Betas?

The ideal politician is someone who takes time out from their career to give back and serve the people of their country. There are a few like this. Most politicians, though, see the role as an opportunity to serve themselves.

Politicians who make it to the very top can make millions of dollars once they retire. US Presidents Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump have all made huge amounts of money from being in the White House.

But even low level success as a politician can be hugely profitable. The revolving door of politics sees many retiring politicians going on to work for businesses that they previously had responsibility for regulating.

The temptation to profit from politics is simply too great for most politicians. Arguably the only way to stop this corruption is by banning elections.

Woah, don’t panic. That doesn’t mean giving up democracy. With modern technology, it could be feasible to allow every citizen to vote directly on every point of legislation.

In reality, though, that might not be a great plan. Can we really expect every citizen to carefully study all aspects of an issue before casting their vote? Probably not.

However, an alternative has already been tested in another form of public decision making. The juries for criminal trials are picked by random and each jury member is effectively making a decision on behalf of every other citizen.

Why not select politicians using a similar random process? No-one wants to be picked for jury duty, but people understand the importance and act responsibly when selected. Couldn’t people be trusted to make responsible decisions on politicial issues too?

Of course, there would need to be careful consideration given to how civil servants work with this system. And it may even be possible to combine it with direct voting for those who want to.

The wealthiest 10% of Americans have hoarded 68.3% of all US wealth, leaving the poorest 50% to share just 2.5%. In the EU and the UK, politicians have limited the poorest 50% of their populations to wealth shares of just 4% and less than 6% respectively. Randomly selected politicians would reverse this unfair share of wealth.

So, could banning elections be the most effective way to ensure true democracy?

In Western democracies, we’re all meant to be the modern equivalent of freemen, but many of us still act like serfs for the wealthiest members of our societies.

In early 2026. the US cabinet has a net worth of $11.8 billion or more. Biden’s cabinet had a net worth of about $118 million. In 2020, more than half the members of congress were millionaires. Meanwhile, most Americans will earn little more than a million dollars across their whole working life. Many will earn much less.

Government is run by the wealthy for the wealthy. The poorest 50% of Americans share just 2.5% of US wealth, while the wealthiest 10% have hoarded 68% of all US wealth. And most of the people just accept that, like the serfs accepted their landlords could do whatever they wanted.

So, when the government advocates trickle down economics, saying it will make the poor wealthier, the serfs cheer, even though it means giving more money to the wealthy.

And when the government privatises public services, the serfs applaud, even though private companies make the services more expensive because they have to make profits for their stockholders.

And when the government say they need to slash big government, the serfs fall over in rapture, even though that cuts services the poor rely on and the wealthy never use.

And when it’s pointed out that government like this, by both Republicans and Democrats, has given the wealthiest 10% of Americans wealth that’s three times greater than the US national debt, while the poorest Americans’ taxes go to cover the interest payments, the serfs cry “encore”.

And the serfs agree completely when the wealthy insist they’ve earned it for doing such a good job of running the country. Even though they used the power of government to give more than two thirds of all American wealth to just one tenth of all Americans.

Serfs think that the wealthy are better than them and they blindly accept whatever the wealthy tell them and gratefully accept the little they’re given. At best, serfs are stooges being pushed around by the wealthy. At worst, they’re appeasers collaborating with their betters.

So, are you a freeman or a serf?

Firstly, let’s ignore whether it’s right for Americans to take oil that’s already been stolen once from poor Venezuelans. That’s how the world works again. Fox eats rabbit.

In 1989, US GDP was $5.64 trillion or about $14.72 trillion converted to early 2026 USD. US GDP for 2025 is projected at $30.6 trillion. So GDP roughly doubled in real terms.

In 1989, an American in the wealthiest 1% had average wealth of $4,926,124, while someone in the poorest 50% had just $15,235 (both in today’s terms).

Today, an American in the wealthiest 1% has average wealth of $14,958,824, while someone in the poorest 50% has just $24,765. An increase of $10,032,700 for wealthy Americans vs $9,530 for poor Americans.

So, since 1989, as GDP doubled, the wealthiest 1% of Americans have enjoyed an average increase in their wealth that is more than 1,053 times greater than the average increase enjoyed by the poorest 50% of Americans.

If the US takes Venezuelan oil, that will increase the US GDP, which means Americans will be wealthier. However, history shows the wealthiest 1% of Americans will get much, much, much, much more of that wealth than the poorest 50% of Americans. Fox eats rabbit.

Still, at least the poorest Americans will make more from Venezuela’s oil than the poorest Venezuelans. Rabbit pokes rabbit in eye.

On episode #2404 of the Joe Rogan Experience, Elon Musk highlighted the US national debt and called the wasted interest payments a threat to the economic future of the USA, as without it being addressed, the nation going bankrupt is inevitable?

The US paid more than $1 trillion in interest in 2024 servicing the debt. Interest payments in 2025 are projected to be $1.1 trillion. Based on 2024, that’s about the same as the entire defense budget and agriculture budgets combined.

Ensuring Americans are secure and fed are clearly huge priorities for any government, so doesn’t it seem crazy to be wasting so much money every year on interest? Especially when less than a third of the wealth of the wealthiest 10% of Americans would clear the entire debt. No more wasted interest payments.

Elon Musk, Gavin Newsom and Donald Trump, are all billionaires, so obviously in the wealthiest 10% of Americans. Also the Clintons, George W Bush, Barack Obama and Joe Biden are all in the wealthiest 10%.

And with a collective net worth of almost $12 billion, I think we can assume that most, if not all, of the current US cabinet are in the wealthiest 10% too.

So if these great leaders are also great American patriots, why aren’t they stepping up and using their immense wealth to remove this grave threat to the USA’s economic future?

Instead of cutting essential services for the poorest 50% of Americans, who share just 2.5% of US wealth between them.

Or is it simply that the wealthy are too smart to be patriots? After all, patriots put their country first and, if necessary, even die for their country. Death would make it very difficult for the wealthy to enjoy their huge wealth, wouldn’t it?

During the first 25 years of this century, the poorest 50% of Americans have never owned more than 3.2% of the country’s wealth. That was under Clinton and Bush. At its lowest, for 18 months under Obama, they owned just 0.4%. At the end of 2024, it stood at 2.5%, at which time, the wealthiest 10% of Americans had captured 67.4% of the whole country’s wealth.

To help illustrate that, the average wealth for the poorest 50% was $24,000. At the same time, the average wealth of someone in the top 10% was more than $3,205,882.

Does any sane member of the poorest 50% of Americans believe they’re receiving their fair share? If you work hard, you shouldn’t be struggling to pay for a home, heating, gas, clothes and food.

Surely in a healthy and fully functioning democracy, the poorest 50% would use their voting power to elect politicians to make them better off. End food insecurity and sort the housing and general affordability crises. Yet at every election they vote for politicians who keep everything the same.

Actually, that underplays it. Since 1989, the poorest 50% have voted for politicians who have increased the wealth share of the richest 1% from 22.8% to 30.9%.

Wouldn’t that 8.1% have made a bigger difference being given to the poorest 50% rather than the already super-wealthy top 1%?

Clearly, Americans enjoy the mechanics of democracy, but the results are more like we’d expect from an oligarchical regime?

Democracy is meant to allow the majority to vote for their best interests. But the majority of Americans keep voting for the best interests of a tiny elite, instead.

So, considering the massive inequality, is the USA really a democracy?

And the US isn’t some weird anomaly. The same question could also be asked of the European Union, where the poorest 50% own about 4%, and the UK, where it’s about 6%.

So, someone will read one or two articles or watch a couple of videos on a subject and reach a conclusion based on that limited information. Then, rather than looking for more information on the subject to help them further prove or disprove their belief, they lock themself into their first opinion. And they convince themself that they already know everything that they need to know about the subject.

And the inverse is also true. People who understand the most about a subject tend to underestimate their expertise. Which seems to come from them realizing how complex a subject is and then doubting their ability to fully understand everything about that subject.

So, oddly, someone who claims to know everything about a subject probably knows very little, while someone who plays down their expertise, probably knows a lot about it.

Put simply, Dunning-Kruger is a mental deficiency, though one that afflicts all of us. Those who know about it, and are smart enough, will fight it by always seeking more information and opinions. The majority don’t, though, which is why most people online tell us why they’re right, rather than listening to why we think we’re right.

And the wealthy, and the politicians in their pocket, rely on Dunning-Kruger sufferers. They know that when they tell lies, DK sufferers will happily repeat those lies on social media without realising they’re stooges being played.

Could that help explain how the wealthiest 10% of Americans have managed to hoard 68.3% of America’s wealth while the poorest 50% share just 2.5%?

So, obviously paying elected politicians is a good thing for democracy as it means that poor people can compete with wealthy people.

But is that really true?

Despite some loose attempts at controlling electoral spending, the guardrails are easily sidestepped. Meaning that the wealthiest can throw more money at an election than the other side and have a good chance of winning just because of their bigger budget.

We may like to think we’re far too smart to be influenced by advertising, but we’re clearly fooling ourselves. Why else would political campaigns throw so much money at advertising?

And they have at least two good reasons to. Two aspects of human behavior.

Consistency is key

We hate being inconsistent. Changing our mind is an admission that we were wrong and we hate having to admit being wrong. Especially in front of others, but even to ourselves. So if a political candidate can get us to back them in front of others, unless they do something crazy stupid, we’ll stick with our first choice. Doing anything else flags to others that we made a mistake.

Political campaigns know they need to get in early and big with advertising. It’s a race to get voters making a choice and a commitment as early as possible. They know most people will stick to their choice once they make it.

Next time a friend defends a politician that you think is a poor choice, understand that they’re not defending the politician. Your friend is defending their personal choice, and they care shed-loads more about that than any politician.

Of course, the ads don’t stop until the voting starts and a second aspect of human nature is key here.

Familiarity doesn’t breed contempt

Research shows that just seeing banner ads can make people choose the advertised product when given a choice. And that happens even when they don’t recall seeing any ads for the product.

It’s the same for political candidates who still need to leverage familiarity throughout the campaign to keep the voters’ original choices front of mind. There’s a little more to it, too. Pre-election polls always show undecided voters right up to the last moment. Making one politician’s name more familiar could be enough to get the vote of undecided voters when they have to make their choice. With these voters, politicians and the wealthy who fund them know that they don’t need to win the arguments, they just need to outspend the opposition.

And all this makes it near, but not quite, impossible for independents with little funding to compete on just the arguments and their policies.

Clearly, it should be no surprise that the US is run by politicians who ensure that the poorest 50% of Americans share just 2.5% of all wealth, while the wealthiest 10% of Americans hoard 67.4% of the wealth.

So, if the wealthy can effectively buy voters by paying for advertising, are US elections unfair?

In each case there were a few cross-over votes, but they were the exceptions that prove the rule.

In federal court cases between 1980 and 1997, hung juries only ever occurred in about 2% of cases. Yet in the two articles of impeachment that Clinton faced in the Senate and the three articles that Trump was tried on, the Senate returned the equivalent of hung juries 100% of the time.

Ignore your feelings about Clinton and Trump; focus on the actions of the Senators. They’re elected to serve the American people. The American people aren’t able to try the President that they elected. The American people give that power to the Senators.

The Senators are meant to listen to the evidence presented to them and make a decision on guilt or innocence based on that evidence. That’s the promise they make to their constituents.

Clearly, that’s not what they’re doing. The experience of federal court juries tells us that a hung Senate should have been unusual in even just one of the articles of impeachment. To be hung in all five tells us that they ignored the evidence and their promise to serve the people and instead served their respective political parties.

Imagine if every defendant in court got to pick six or so members of the jury from their family and friends. No-one would ever be found guilty and the USA would be overrun with criminals. Rather like the federal government, some might say.

Have you ever thought, the average American might be better off if their Representatives and Senators voted for what they thought would be best for their constituents, instead of political parties that work for the wealthy? And I don’t mean just during impeachments, but every time they vote in Congress.

Maybe then the poorest 50% of Americans would have a greater share of the country’s wealth than just 2.5% and the wealthiest 10% wouldn’t be hoarding 67.4% of all the wealth.

The wealthy tell us that capitalism is good because it allows anyone who learns a skill and who works hard to lift themselves up to a better position in society.

They also tell us that socialism is bad because it pays people money that they have not directly earned.

And they also tell us that they should be allowed to leave all of their wealth to their children and that taxes when they die are unfair.

Yet inherited wealth allows their children to raise themselves up without developing a talent or putting in any hard work. That’s clearly against the ethos of capitalism.

And inherited wealth is paying money to their children that they haven’t directly earned. Clearly, that’s a form of socialism, nepotistic socialism in this case.

It’s a prime example of how the wealthy support socialism when it works for them, but condemn it when it works for others. And also shows how they press the myth of capitalism being in the best interests of all of us, when it’s really only in the best interests of the wealthy.

Which explains why the poorest 50% of Americans share just 2.5% of all US wealth, while the wealthiest 10% of Americans hoard 68.3% of all American wealth

So is it wrong to tax death or is the real problem that it isn’t taxed heavily enough?

Poor people buy foreign goods because they have no choice but to buy cheaper goods when they’re available, regardless of where they come from.

The irony is that poor people are more likely to be “team players”. They know that buying locally can help their neighbors, so try to use local businesses when possible. And that scales up to buying US produced goods, where possible, too.

The wealthy, however, buy foreign goods because of the status it gives them. A Jeep Grand Wagoneer may get them from A to B well enough, but it doesn’t shout “I’m better than you” like a Rolls Royce Cullinan does. Supporting local businesses is irrelevant to the wealthy. They prioritize spending more on products that both give them and highlight their higher status. They don’t want to be a team player, they want to own the team.

Tariffs make cheap foreign goods more expensive for the poor people who have to buy them. Ironically, tariffs increase the status of foreign luxury products, as high price is a large part what makes luxury products high status.

Targeted tariffs can help American businesses compete against unfair foreign competition. However, broad, across the board tariffs just make it easier for businesses that are badly run by lazy, wealthy owners to compete without becoming more efficient.

And those wealthy owners can afford higher prices because they’re in the wealthiest 10% of Americans, who hoard 67.4% of the country’s wealth, while the poorest 50% of Americans share just 2.5% of the wealth.

Should tariffs be used to protect key American businesses against unfair foreign competition or to make wealthy Americans even wealthier?

Obviously the 50. The single contestant might take some of the 50 with them, but it would all be over within a couple of minutes. The sheer weight of numbers would mean the individual has no real chance, even if they were built like a bull and the 50 were a random mix of average Joes and Joannas

Okay, game over. In the real world, the wealthiest 1% have hoarded 37% of the planet’s wealth. It sounds even worse when you learn that the poorest 50% share just 2% of the wealth.

The figures are slightly better in most Western countries with the poorest half of Americans sharing 2.5%, poor Europeans with about 4% and poorest Britons with almost 6%. In each case, the real life equivalent of 50 vs 1, but the 50 lose every time.

How have the wealthy managed to game the system in the real world? By dividing the rest of us. In the gladiator game, the 50 were all on one side, but in the real world, the wealthy have split the poorest 50% into all sorts of sides.

Men vs women. Christian vs Muslims. White vs black. Citizen vs immigrant. Young vs old. Homophobe vs gay. Blue collar vs white collar. Patriot vs traitor. Conservative vs liberal. Left vs right. I’m sure you could add to that list, but the last one is particularly interesting.

With politics, we’re taught that our opponents are to the side of us. Unless we’re at one of the extremes, there will always be people we don’t agree with to our left and our right.

But the wealthy know politics doesn’t split between left and right. Politics splits between top and bottom. And the wealthy know that they can only win by being being united at the top.

While the rest of us fragment ourselves into multiple sides. One side at the top and hundreds, perhaps thousands or more, at the bottom. Our advantage of strength in numbers carelessly diluted.

So, whose side are you on?