Thank you for your excellent research and your cogent writing. Why do these evil greedy people want more and more and more? I don't get it. You can't eat more than four meals a day. I wish there was some way to stop these people.
Behavior from our current greedy 1% is fascinating for me to watch, from a historical perspective. I wish I could live another 100 years to see a third Gilded Age cycle play out. From the Gilded Age to today, in the U.S. anyway, good times for a growing middle class lasted about 30 years, and good times for the wealthy 1% lasted about 100 years.
The last Gilded Age, in the U.S., started after the Civil War, some time during the late 1870s. The 1% gained 99% of the wealth until WWI and the Great Depression. During all that time, the men and women (and children) who made the 1% wealthy couldn't afford food or minimally-decent housing.
The beginning of the end of the Gilded Age came with the leader who designed the New Deal. The gov't hired volunteers (men) from Hoovervilles and gave them a free meal in lieu of wages--oops! that's slavery. The middle class still couldn't afford to buy food during this time. That decade ended with World War II.
Enter Reagan. He started the current down cycle in the U.S. for the middle class, with his tax cuts benefitting only the rich and corporations. Disposable income for the middle class has decreased steadily each year since Reagan's term in office, and each year more people go without affordable housing, food and medicine. Rinse, repeat.
The current cycle likely will end when the 1% AGAIN have 99% of the wealth, and the 99% have 1%, and we're almost there. Pray it doesn't end with another WW, but it looks likely.
Signs to look for as we start the downslope from the apex (the maximum benefit to the 1% and corporations) include the rise of an organization such as KKK or Nazism (Hitler's Make Germany Great Again plan). They're detractors that use scapegoats, such as Blacks and Jews. Perhaps women are next? We'll have to wait and see, but with JD and his Christian Right, it looks possible.
Get your popcorn and settle in; the newsreel already started with news of the end of reproductive rights, the U.S. bombing Iran, and 5,000,000 people demonstrating in the streets....
Totally agree with this - I've been working with an Oxfam report that came out today showing that the richest 1% gained $33.9tn in the last decades - it could end poverty 22 times over but instead they're just sending us further into destruction and inequality... https://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/jun/26/billionaires-wealth-oxfam-report
Thank you, again, for a wonderful post. I plan to go check out the link to the post about this not always being humanity's Achilles heel (gotta have something to lift my spirits). I hope your spirits are lifted while you swim in the sea, read books and explore ruins. No pressure, but we'll be waiting.
I was part of a coalition of comfortably off people in Aotearoa/New Zealand who were saying, we are willing to pay more tax. it was very popular but the Labour Party in power were too afraid to follow this in their election campaign. they lost. i think what has happened in the NYC primary campaign shows, if politicians are brave enough to promote simple socialists ideas, the people will follow
Fantastic post, Katie. I wasn't familiar with the Erysichthon myth until now. It's an apt springboard for addressing billionaire freed. Really well done. Enjoy your vacation!
I think Palantir is the company that's supposed to build the government surveillance app that will keep us all controlled, just like in China or in 1984? So I suppose that particular pay package is justified 🙄 ☹️
thank you, Katie, for yet another insightful, thought-provoking piece. on the topic of greed, there is a brilliant, if somewhat uncomfortable, documentary produced by Deutsche Welle: Money, happiness and eternal life - Greed (Director's Cut) | DW Documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVuVlk2E_e4 highly recommend
the way i see it, greed, together with a few other ices-turned-sins are the corrupt equivalents of the ‘personality’ and ‘character’ traits Gabor Maté talked framed as coping strategies in the face of adversity. fundamental existential fear of scarcity, insufficiency of resources required to sustain life has turned us inwards, replacing the sense of collective identity, still present in indigenous cultures, with overgrown individuality.
Yes, it really does seem like the current society rewards greedy unfair people and punishes ethical people. There is not much motivation to be a good person when you see how goodness leads to poverty while the lying cheating assholes get richer and richer. The reward structure of society is very, very wrong.
We humans reward the wrong people. We reward a lot of bad behavior, and we reward it a lot.
I read this a few days ago but what you’ve said has been on my mind ever since. I’ve been on some tours while in Italy and a common theme that comes up is that rich people and families in the past always have back some of their wealth to the city for the people to enjoy, whether it was in art galleries, public gardens or simply nice statues to look at. What a concept.
Excellent post!
Thank you for your excellent research and your cogent writing. Why do these evil greedy people want more and more and more? I don't get it. You can't eat more than four meals a day. I wish there was some way to stop these people.
My 2¢-worth.... Gilded Age, rinse, repeat.
Behavior from our current greedy 1% is fascinating for me to watch, from a historical perspective. I wish I could live another 100 years to see a third Gilded Age cycle play out. From the Gilded Age to today, in the U.S. anyway, good times for a growing middle class lasted about 30 years, and good times for the wealthy 1% lasted about 100 years.
The last Gilded Age, in the U.S., started after the Civil War, some time during the late 1870s. The 1% gained 99% of the wealth until WWI and the Great Depression. During all that time, the men and women (and children) who made the 1% wealthy couldn't afford food or minimally-decent housing.
The beginning of the end of the Gilded Age came with the leader who designed the New Deal. The gov't hired volunteers (men) from Hoovervilles and gave them a free meal in lieu of wages--oops! that's slavery. The middle class still couldn't afford to buy food during this time. That decade ended with World War II.
Enter Reagan. He started the current down cycle in the U.S. for the middle class, with his tax cuts benefitting only the rich and corporations. Disposable income for the middle class has decreased steadily each year since Reagan's term in office, and each year more people go without affordable housing, food and medicine. Rinse, repeat.
The current cycle likely will end when the 1% AGAIN have 99% of the wealth, and the 99% have 1%, and we're almost there. Pray it doesn't end with another WW, but it looks likely.
Signs to look for as we start the downslope from the apex (the maximum benefit to the 1% and corporations) include the rise of an organization such as KKK or Nazism (Hitler's Make Germany Great Again plan). They're detractors that use scapegoats, such as Blacks and Jews. Perhaps women are next? We'll have to wait and see, but with JD and his Christian Right, it looks possible.
Get your popcorn and settle in; the newsreel already started with news of the end of reproductive rights, the U.S. bombing Iran, and 5,000,000 people demonstrating in the streets....
The greed is baked into the system and has been from the beginning.
https://accumulationism.substack.com/p/accumulationism-the-self-consuming
Your post is spot on! Thank you for sharing and enjoy your time away.
Totally agree with this - I've been working with an Oxfam report that came out today showing that the richest 1% gained $33.9tn in the last decades - it could end poverty 22 times over but instead they're just sending us further into destruction and inequality... https://www.theguardian.com/news/2025/jun/26/billionaires-wealth-oxfam-report
Excellent column, so incredibly well sourced too. Thank you.
Thank you, again, for a wonderful post. I plan to go check out the link to the post about this not always being humanity's Achilles heel (gotta have something to lift my spirits). I hope your spirits are lifted while you swim in the sea, read books and explore ruins. No pressure, but we'll be waiting.
I was part of a coalition of comfortably off people in Aotearoa/New Zealand who were saying, we are willing to pay more tax. it was very popular but the Labour Party in power were too afraid to follow this in their election campaign. they lost. i think what has happened in the NYC primary campaign shows, if politicians are brave enough to promote simple socialists ideas, the people will follow
Fantastic post, Katie. I wasn't familiar with the Erysichthon myth until now. It's an apt springboard for addressing billionaire freed. Really well done. Enjoy your vacation!
We need to increase minimum pay, bust up monopolies, get money out of politics and raise the top marginal tax rate to 90 percent.
I think Palantir is the company that's supposed to build the government surveillance app that will keep us all controlled, just like in China or in 1984? So I suppose that particular pay package is justified 🙄 ☹️
thank you, Katie, for yet another insightful, thought-provoking piece. on the topic of greed, there is a brilliant, if somewhat uncomfortable, documentary produced by Deutsche Welle: Money, happiness and eternal life - Greed (Director's Cut) | DW Documentary https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVuVlk2E_e4 highly recommend
the way i see it, greed, together with a few other ices-turned-sins are the corrupt equivalents of the ‘personality’ and ‘character’ traits Gabor Maté talked framed as coping strategies in the face of adversity. fundamental existential fear of scarcity, insufficiency of resources required to sustain life has turned us inwards, replacing the sense of collective identity, still present in indigenous cultures, with overgrown individuality.
Yes, it really does seem like the current society rewards greedy unfair people and punishes ethical people. There is not much motivation to be a good person when you see how goodness leads to poverty while the lying cheating assholes get richer and richer. The reward structure of society is very, very wrong.
We humans reward the wrong people. We reward a lot of bad behavior, and we reward it a lot.
I read this a few days ago but what you’ve said has been on my mind ever since. I’ve been on some tours while in Italy and a common theme that comes up is that rich people and families in the past always have back some of their wealth to the city for the people to enjoy, whether it was in art galleries, public gardens or simply nice statues to look at. What a concept.
Wow. Terrifying.