This week Phil and Steve talk about the staggering accumulation of capital, which has ratcheted up since the pandemic. In the US the top 0.1 percent of companies hold 88 percent of all corporate assets. In 2017, the top 10 S&P companies accounted for 20% of the market cap of all 500 companies, now they account for 37%. And its not because these companies are good. It’s because the nature of products today gives them a stranglehold on their customers, however bad their offering. Steve calls it the ‘shitification’ of business and Phil managed to get Microsoft’s AI to admit just how bad their own products are. ‘Held together with duct tape’ was the gist of it. So bad products, capital accumulation, income and wealth diversity – and governments do nothing but embrace it all, ignorant of what damage it is doing to society.
