What do you think are the major pros/cons of each current generation?

[JasonBlack]

Quote:You might want to give Thomas Pikkety's book Capital in the 21st Century a read (not a trivial undertaking, to be totally honest about it).  He makes the point with one simple mathematical expression: r > G.  What he means by that is, rate of return on investments exceeds the Growth rate of the economy.  This has been going on for a long time and is in full crescendo today.  When that occurs, the holders of capital, mostly the already very wealthy, increase their wealth faster than the economy grows, so the excess becomes even more capital and buys what they don't already own.  Given enough time, and that time frame isn't all that long, the few hyper wealthy will own everything.  OK, you might have a home, at least for a while, but that imbalance is terminal.  It's a formula for modern Feudalism.  The purpose of the book is to show that in terms that can't be ignored -- which it does in spades.

Personally I blame this as much on fiat currency as anything else. We went off the gold standard in 1971 and this happened. Wages have a long history of rising far slower than inflation under such a model. The primary people it hurts are wage earners, responsible savers and retirees no longer earning income. 

I can tell you as an investor, it's not us it hurts haha. 

Quote:The idea is wonderful in theory and unworkable in practice.  A capitalist economy operates on a positive feedback loop: get rich, use that wealth to get richer, rinse and repeat.  Lobbyists, disgusting as they are, are a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself.

It's not unworkable in practice. New Zealand saw HUGE drops in corruption when they severely restricted campaign spending. Currently they fluctuate between 1st and 2nd place in terms of low government corruption.