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Mark Blyth[1] has a simple warning: "It is a no win scenario until basically until elites figure out that at the end of the day, as I like to say to my American
by pdkl95 9y ago
Mark Blyth[1] has a simple warning: "It is a no win scenario until basically until elites figure out that at the end of the day, as I like to say to my American hedge fund friends, the Hamptons is not a defensible position. The Hamptons is a very rich area on Long Island that lies on low lying beaches. Very hard to defend a low lying beach. Eventually people are going to come for you."[2]
I encourage everybody interested in trying to prevent that outcome to listen to this[3] talk where Blyth summarizes the root cause and suggests a few reasonable steps towards a solution.
[1] prof. of political economy at Brown
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGvZil0qWPg https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rGvZil0qWPg
[3] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsqGITb0W4A https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BsqGITb0W4A
- rorykoehler 9y agoWhat i don't understand is why the mega rich don't realise that wealth inequality is hurting their quality of life too. Having a safer world benefits everyone.
- pdkl95 9y agoThey literally don't live in the same reality the rest of us live in. In the above talk[3], Blyth mentions how someone geolocated every mentioned location in the infamous Podesta emails released by WikiLeaks. The most frequent location mentioned across all the emails? "Martha" ['s vineyards]. The 2nd was "Hampton", followed by SF and NY. Everything[4] else was two standard deviations lower. [4] I might be forgetting another city
- rorykoehler 9y agoI've spent time in both Marthas Vineyard and New York and can say that everyone in NYC would definitely benefit from having a more equitable society with less poverty.
- ryandrake 9y agoSeriously. Find any CEO who makes 100m, and ask them when was the last time they had an actual in-person interaction with someone who made minimum wage or less.
- Bombthecat 9y agoBecause, if it gets really bad. They buy: security guards, self shooting drones and self shooting guns.
- craigds 9y agoThe type of guns and drones that shoot themselves?
- rorykoehler 9y agoThat's my idea of a living hell. Who would want to deal with the thoughts around all that potential violence and aggression. This is exactly what I mean. We all have 2 things that are most valuable. Time and our health. Having all that security apparatus is not good for your mental health.
- closeparen 9y agoThe Silicon Valley elite are pretty well known (and often derided) for their support of redistributive liberal politics. It's not the "mega rich" that voted in the opposite direction.
- Waterluvian 9y agoI get his point. But in his rhetoric is he literally referring to the tactical situation of the Hamptons or not defensible as in economically?
- mediocrejoker 9y agoI haven't read the link but I think perhaps he's using one as a metaphor for the other?
- pdkl95 9y agoTactical. It's obviously a metaphor for civil unrest in general, but he is serious about the danger of living in e.g. the Hamptons while pretending unrest isn't actually a problem. At some point people will come for your head. In another recent interview[5], Blyth discusses this topic in more detail, including "plan B" for the super-rich that have realized the tactical disadvantages of the Hamptons: escape to a secure bunker in New Zealand[6] [5] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5iia9kdsuM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e5iia9kdsuM [6] https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/doomsday-prep-for-the-super-rich https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/01/30/doomsday-prep-...
- cinquemb 9y ago>…escape to a secure bunker in New Zealand[6] Let us fast-forward to a future, where drones armed with munitions like the BLU-116 that patrol the skys/seas, can be rooted based on information/tools available to the public…