Academic-Capital

Dr. Thomas Piketty, a professor at the Paris School of Economics, delves into the new gilded age where a smaller percentage of people accumulate wealth while vast majorities struggle to make ends meet.   The trend is continuing as those who hold capital beyond their daily living expenses continue to become wealthier while the incomes of others have failed to rise substantially to keep pace.   Under current trends the problem will become more pronounced and possibly destructive. The book discusses the history of wealth and how during World War I the top one percent owned approximately 1/5 of national wealth. That number has dramatically changed over the decades with a much higher concentration of wealth landing into fewer hands. Compounded wealth is becoming limited to fewer people highlighting income disparity.  The gilded age comment shows how the capital of a society is owned by too few people and this is being passed on from generation to the next versus being earned