First, wealth — in monetary or “financial instrument” forms — is but an agreed upon volatile fiction; and second, since (in our reality) matter cannot be created or destroyed (only rearranged) real wealth occurs when a single human primate, or group of human primates, exploits available resources at the expense of other human primates (such resources are always mined one way or another, doesn’t matter if they are human, information or natural resources).

As for resource grabbing bullies, they come in all shapes and sizes, educated, uneducated and everything in between.

The good, old U S of A is perhaps the greatest example to date of the educated bully brand of “wealth creation” (a/k/a grabbing):

“Most people reading this are haves. So am I. We are implicated. It is written in the Tao te Ching: “Prosperity rests on disaster; disaster is hidden in prosperity.” This is true of our prosperity, whether Republicans or Democrats rule Congress and the White House. If our leaders are criminals that should come as no surprise, for we live on theft. We’ve invented polite words for our theft (”capitalism,” “the global economy,” “the free market”), but in fact it takes a lot of muscle and legalized theft for 5% of Earth’s population to gobble 50% of its resources. Our way of life is a criminal enterprise, and it takes criminals to run it. For more than a century we’ve depended upon thinly veiled criminality for our good fortune, and we damn well are implicated.”

- Michael Ventura, If New Orleans were dry