I am reading Roger Bootle's "Money for Nothing" which is excellent. It is an overview of the modern economic world, with several dire warnings, but an overall optimistic intent.

This is a mainstream thinker - not someone too easy to dismiss as a crank, the way Bucky was for years. Still - Bucky appears to have got most of this right - the shift from valuing land and property (thingism) to valuing knowledge and information; doing more with less (ephemeralisation); increasing the flow of resources around the planet; the effect of belief systems (the human factor) which undermine any logical planning at times.

That the rich get richer is hardly a surprise. That it is a rigged game is no surprise. That people handling our money have first of all made sure to boost their own 'take' , without worrying about the losers is no surprise at all. That we (the bulk of humanity) still believe these people is what astounds me. They say you can't criticize or you will shake consumer confidence, and the whole house of cards is just staying up because everyone is holding their breath...Sooner or later you HAVE to let your population know there is no God (OK, OK, sorry - let's say Tooth Fairy, then) and let them work out what to do with the shock of being on our own in the universe, and working out our own fate.