Do you ever wonder, as I do, how it is that so many countries are in political turmoil these days? Well, I have a theory and it is pretty simple. I will show you one chart, and the reason will become clear.

The chart below shows the wealth of the richest one percent of the people in the world versus the remaining ninety-nine percent. 2015 was a significant year, because the two reached parity. The richest one percent had as much wealth as all the rest of us put together. This year they'll have more than all of us, and the trend will continue toward a time in the future when they will get it all.

Of course, they never will. The whole system will collapse first. The chaos and turmoil we are seeing all around us may be the first tremors of that collapse.

We know we are losing economic ground every year and we need something to change, but we're not sure what. The most convenient people to blame are our politicians, so we vote for change. The real villains, of course, are the one percent. Who are they? It is surprisingly easy to find out. The list gets published every year. Take a look LINK

This is only the first fifty, and I reserve a few spaces at the top for those with enough power to keep their names off the list, but this is a fair representation. How many names do you recognize? How many politicians are listed there?

In ancient Rome they had a diversionary technique called “bread and circus”—provide the population with enough to eat and sufficient entertainment and they won’t rise up and take control from the elite who run the show. The Romans built those massive stadia to provide a place for the circus (gladiator contests, slaughter of innocents, Christians against the lions, etc.) and the population was largely passified. Our modern media (TV, movies, Internet entertainment, etc.) are our circus. The media are provided by the one percent to keep us occupied. They also buy the politicians through lavish campaign donations. We keep falling for the game by voting for these politicians and wondering why things don't change.

The question is: what to do about it. I don't know the answer to that one, but I suspect we won't get very far by blaming aliens from outer space, the EU fat cats, the liberals, or the Tea Partiers. The villians are ordinary humans like ourselves who are gobbling up all the world’s resources. I think we need to save them from themselves by gently relieving them of their excess wealth. There is a traditional way of doing that, which is effective. Tax them on their excess income. There. I've given myself away as a liberal. I'd say tax the richest individuals and companies to bring the chart above into a more reasonable balance. It's the traditional way, and it works.

That is at least my theory. What do you think?