Looking into the Abyss

[Retread]

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/19/b...s-finance.html

In a Twitter post from the Swiss resort, Ian Bremmer, the president of Eurasia Group, a political-research firm, offered his advice: “Elites won’t be able to manage populism until they stop seeing it as a threat and start seeing it as a symptom.”
If that is the case, Davos has, so far, made little progress.

“I want to be loud and clear: Populism scares me,” Ray Dalio, the billionaire hedge fund manager, said during a panel on how to fix the middle-class crisis. “The No. 1 issue economically as a market participant is how populism manifests itself over the next year or two.” But Mr. Dalio offered little by way of a solution, beyond opining on the positive aspects of loosening regulation and lowering taxes.

On the subject of rising populism, Mr. Dalio, who runs the $150 billion investment firm Bridgewater Associates, added: “It’s an anti-Davos way of operating.”

Jack Ma, the founder of Alibaba in China, offered his view of the problem in the United States. Americans, he said, “do not distribute the money properly.”

Just maybe folks are wishing up. Observed in a comic strip last week:
"People scream about the price of gasoline yet don't say a word about paying $700 for a phone."

[Banacek]

If you needed a prime example of what gross economic inequality looks like, look no further than what happened in the state of Connecticut today. The State Bond Commission voted 7-2 to approve $22 million in grants and loans to Bridgewater Associates, the world's largest hedge fund. The fund manages roughly $150 billion in investments and apparently couldn't cover the money to renovate and expand its headquarters. The state made this decision at the same time that it is cutting its budget and planning to lay off more than 2,500 workers from the state rolls

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/5...e-Cutting-Jobs