Two months ago, legendary trader and investor Paul Tudor Jones, when observing the growing chasm between the 1% and the rest of America, and between the US and the rest of the world, said that this gap "cannot and will not persist [3]" and ominously added that "historically, these kinds of gaps get closed in one of three ways: by revolution, higher taxes or wars."
And while the US government is doing its best to push both the war and higher tax "mandate", it is the revolution that nobody expects, and everyone is shocked when it happens, despite what is clearly an unprecedented level of class, wealth, religious, educational, age, gender and - after a quick stroll through St. Louis or Baltimore - racial division.
It is therefore appropriate that the following documentary reminder of what happens when the class divide gets too wide, in this case captured by the French Revolution, carries the following words of caution: "no one could have foreseen the turbulent times ahead on one spring day in 1770. The shadow of Versailles is packed to its gilded rafters with the glittering crowds of the royal court."
Replace Versailles with modern day Monte Carlo, New York or St. Barts, and the "crowds of the royal court" with the "0.001%", and one can easily see why 'nobody' can foresee that which in retrospect will have been all too obvious, only not 250 years ago, but this very moment.
So for those who would prefer to learn from the past which they may have forgotten as they follow every tick higher in the stock 'market', here is NatGeo's documents on the French Revolution.
