Stephan:   Here is the latest report on the rise of Neo-feudalism. We are moving into a world with a small aristocracy of ultra-high net worth individuals, as they are known to economists, a small middle class, mostly professional people, lawyers, doctors, engineers, and a vast peasantry. In the middle ages wealth was largely determined by large land ownership farmed by villeins or serfs who worked the land but did not own it, or only a small strip.  In the modern manifestation the peasants are mostly the people who work for hourly wages -- which is to say most of the U.S. population -- but own nothing but a car, and perhaps a mortgaged modest house, if they own even that. Sixty two per cent of Americans have less than a $1000 of cash available to them, 21% don't even have a savings account and live paycheck to paycheck. The multi-national corporations owned by the uber-rich are becoming the true power centers as they buy and control legislatures by proxy, which is giving birth to what can appropriately be seen as baronies and duchies. This process is being hurried along by racist nativism of the people with the least education and lowest income Whites, the ones most easily dispossessed by immigrants. It is this reality that elected Donald Trump; ironically a member of the 1%. Based on the news today he seems poised to benefit from being President as Louis XIV benefited from being King of France. And his followers to unwelcome surprises.