[Caligula]

It's much more easier to point your finger at a nebulous elite or at individuals who are seen to personify the problems we're seeing. However, it's really a systemic failing. A long term failure of institutions, legislators and regulation.

A lot of it comes down to the short term thinking that our system encourages. The stock market has gone from being conducive to investment and growth to being fuelled by speculation and the pursuit of short term gains. I saw a study somewhere recently that showed that the stock market has, in recent years, not been fulfilling its primary purpose which is to facilitate investment and by extension economic growth.

Most of these problems have to do with incentives. With current legislation and regulation there's a strong incentive to pursue short term gains, and so everyone will pursue short term gains over long term thinking.

China, on the other hand, is very focused on the long term and because of how the government there is structured this is possible. A democracy with short election cycles will always default back to short term thinking.