The new capitalism is growing in extremes

In today's NYT's real estate section it is reported that a 22 year old daughter of a Russian oligarch, in her own name, bought an apartment at 15 Central Park West for "a record-shattering $88 million". She needed a place to live when in New York and going to college.

We have all probably read about the Indian industrialist who built a ten story house in Mumbai, essentially his own hotel. Of course, the titans of China's "controlled" market economy are not living in any shabby way either. Mexico's Carlos Slim(not really so slim) is the supposedly the wealthiest man in the world.

It's unclear whether the so-called "1%" here in the U.S. are leading the way or have just set an example that is now being taken to greater extremes elsewhere. Of course there has always been massive inequality in wealth in non-market economies and dictatorships where a few families control or government "leaders" control everything while the rest of the population lives in day to day poverty.

Capitalism by its nature leads to inequalities, but still allows for a relatively prosperous middle class to develop and often leads to governments that provide backstops for those at the lowest levels of the ladder. What is said here is nothing new, just rambling remarks with the observation that OWS is a result of the widening inequality of wealth that is obvious in this country with the shrinking of a prosperous middle class.

Instead of Russia, India, China and other countries now following the U.S. market economy model that has been viewed as such a positive development in the last two decades, maybe the tables have turned and we are now following those countries newer variations of the model.