richness and decay The super-rich otherwise Daily writes columnist Philip Löpfe display in a viewing before the vote Sunday for SP-wealth tax. The tax initiative, which comes soon before the people, it's not just about money. It is also about the influence of money oligarchy on society. "The rich are different from you and I," says the fictional character Nick Carraway in Scott Fitzgerald's "Great Gatsby." The Ernest Hemingway led to the sarcastic reply: ". Yes, they have more money," the dialogue of the two American writer has that never occurred. Nevertheless, he became world famous, because he hits the mark. The question "Are the super rich a curse or a blessing for a nation?" Drives currently once again to Switzerland.
The income distribution of a country can be measured with a complicated formula. It is called "Gini coefficient", named after its eponymous inventor, an Italian economist. A Gini coefficient of 0 being perfect equality of distribution, a coefficient of 1 would correspond to the maximum inequality. In Switzerland, increases the Gini coefficient, as in most modern societies. This is due to globalization. She has a "winner-get-all" economy out.
The "winners get-it-all" principle can be observed in its purest form in sports or show business. The stars are now world stars. A Lady Gaga or a Roger Federer is known from Kazakhstan to the Caribbean. Accordingly, much is their income. Roger Federer could just learn that he will earn this year alone with his advertising contracts of around 40 million Swiss francs. In sports and show business is the "winner-get-all" principle particularly pronounced. It starts but also in all other industries to enforce. Manager earn a hundred times the average wage, bankers get bonuses in astronomical heights, etc. The result is a new global financial oligarchy.
As a taxpayer, this super-rich are very popular. In purely economic terms this is logical, even if the super-rich have to deliver less and less percentage of their income and assets to the Treasury, it is more and more. From this perspective, tax competition seems to be logical in the Swiss cantons. Whoever succeeds to attract the super rich, which is his worries go. Finally, the measured super-rich pay in Swiss Francs on average much more than we are SMEs. Left and do-gooders who like to interfere in the question of justice. But who cares? We are realists. Who expects that says the "World Week", "rich and super rich - warm "welcome.
Unfortunately, the rich are really different. This can be traced at about the position of the bankers in society. Hans Baer, \u200b\u200bfor example, still the epitome of a gentleman Zurich banker. His father was an ETH professor, his mother a scientist. The same private bank, led his uncle. Baer describes in his biography how insignificant the pay gap in the upper middle class at that time were. There was no such thing as a community. Bear in the house upside down professors, bankers, artists and politicians at eye level. You knew the party, sports or art associations, etc. Even then, there were differences in income, but they played first no role and were covered up second. The bear had, for example, two identical cars, so it does not noticed that there were two.
time earned a banker, possibly twice as much as an ETH-Professor, now it can be a little more, for example to say when Brady Dougan, and as head of the CS in the current year, pocketing more than 90 million francs. The new financial oligarchy is no longer a part of the Zurich establishment, you do not know everything from party, sports or arts club. The new super-rich have logged into a parallel world. On the banks of Lake Zurich and around train caused the rich ghettos, from which the locals are distributed gradually. In talks Wollerau one of a "Russian Hill", a posh neighborhood where the shops are usually let down, because no one is home. In the Swiss canton of train known more leave than immigrants.
super-rich have occurred throughout history and time again. Arnold Toynbee, one of the leading historians of the last century, examines his life, why civilizations fall apart. He has studied the rise and decay of 21 civilizations. Toynbee could hardly find common ground. One feature stands out, however, all declining civilizations: they all had an extreme concentration of wealth.
Source:
Tagesanzeiger.ch / News network
