It's important to note that over time, wealth always gathers itself into a few hands. Money will flow to the rich because they're good at getting it to flow to

It's important to note that over time, wealth always gathers itself into a few hands. Money will flow to the rich because they're good at getting it to flow to them. That's why they're rich, duh. As they grow rich, any sensible person looking to sell something will try and sell it to the rich, because they have discretionary income. The problem is that the rich are good at making money flow to them (remember---that's why they're rich), and so most of what they buy are investments of some kind. Which means they make more money, etc. In the past this has been mitigated by crazy amounts of philanthropy a la Carnegie or Rockefeller. I get the impression this is less so now, for two reasons. The first is that we're a more global culture, so philanthropy efforts go toward the third world rather than the third precinct. The second is that I suspect some of the rich feel persecuted by all this talk about the rich, and aren't kindly disposed towards donating their money to people who hate them. I'd love to hear recordings of Bill Gates's phone calls gone bad. As for solutions: I don't know. One that I've been working on is better financial software for the common man (to run on a phone, rather than a PC); perhaps that will at least stop him from being suckered by predatory lending.