Billionaire Cartier Owner Sees Wealth Gap Fueling Social Unrest

[Jesus Malverde]

Johann Rupert, the South African who has made billions peddling Cartier jewelry and Chloe fashion, said tension between the rich and poor is set to escalate as robots and artificial intelligence fuel mass unemployment.

“We cannot have 0.1 percent of 0.1 percent taking all the spoils,” said Rupert, who has a fortune worth $7.5 billion, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. “It’s unfair and it is not sustainable.”

The founder and chairman of Richemont, whose 20 brands also include Vacheron Constantin and Montblanc, said he expects advances in technology to lead to job losses after having read books on the subject recently. Conflicts between social classes will make selling luxury goods more tricky as the rich will want to conceal their wealth, Rupert said in a speech Monday at the Financial Times Business of Luxury Summit in Monaco.

“How is society going to cope with structural unemployment and the envy, hatred and the social warfare?” he said. “We are destroying the middle classes at this stage and it will affect us. It’s unfair. So that’s what keeps me awake at night.”

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2015-06-08/billionaire-cartier-owner-sees-wealth-gap-fueling-social-unrest

[hatrack]

1. Oh, now he starts to think about it

Very commendable, but a bit late in the game.

[daleanime]

2. As long as he's willing to do something about it.....

no it's not to late. If he's unwillingly to do anything, then yeah far too late.

[cstanleytech]

4. Agreed. nt

[63splitwindow]

3. He didn't amass 7.5 billion...

worrying a lot about this. When he says " “We are destroying the middle classes at this stage and it will affect us. It’s unfair. So that’s what keeps me awake at night.” who's he talking about it being "unfair" to? Him or them?

[daredtowork]

7. *emails resume to Cartier*

Make things fair for me, please!

[Jesus Malverde]

13. Actually the rub is that robots don't wear fashion...nt

[Aerows]

5. Montblanc sells $200 pens

and have about 3 dollars worth of parts in them. You pay for the big white star.

I have 2 fountain pens that I manually ink not out of necessity, because I have ink cartridges, but because it just enjoy it.

I'm not sure I'd use a Montblanc pen even if one was gifted to me. If the ink is your issue, just buy one of their refills and put it in the pen of your choice.

I like having exactly the ink that goes in my pen, and no, it didn't cost $200 which is absurd.

[awoke_in_2003]

12. I'm a Pelikan guy myself...

The only pen that sees more use than my M200 is my Parker51 from 1947.

[daredtowork]

6. Meanwhile calls to cut SSI/SSDI play on

insinuations that programs to aid the disabled are "stealth welfare". Americans resent support income for people who don't work - including for disabled people! They have absolutely no problem over-paying a colossal poverty bureaucracy to surveille and police and penny-pinch the people who receive that pittance.

Given that situation, what does Cartier propose to do with all the structurally unemployed that are ALREADY HERE in the form of the long-term unemployed - craftily being juggled between welfare, education programs, couch surfing with friends, and living with parents on a "temporary" basis. Economists continue to argue a certain percent has to be unemployed for the economy to work. The recession "recovery" seems to be made up largely of part-time and gig jobs - not covered by labor law so the US can "compete" with Third World countries! The perspective of "scale" always gets priority over how people on the ground are being forced to live their lives.

Americans traditionally handle this sort of crisis by letting the weakest and most vulnerable people fall through the cracks. Then if riots start to break out in the street, deals are made that benefit certain political stakeholders that get to be at the table. i.e., some people will get paid off to avoid revolution instead of doing the right thing and noticing that the New Economy *structurally* excludes a lot of people, and the American mindset allows those people no fallback resources.

[Betty Karlson]

8. That's him and one of the investors in Amazon

within days after another. It's almost as if there is writing on the wall.

Which begs the question: have the rest of the billionaires never learned to read?

[cascadiance]

9. The thing about this is that those who have given them these robots, etc. are ALSO unemployed too!

... or victimized by "guest worker" programs like H-1B, etc. so that they have less jobs, less pay, etc.

So, who is rewarded for putting in place these newer robots that raise productivity? The engineers that designed and put together these robots, etc. that have been allowing them to put more automation in place? NO! Their higher level managers and the owners of stock in the company? YES! Now, WHY are THEY being rewarded for things they didn't do to help these companies be more "productive" with less people working?

They are rewarded simply because of the power structure that LETS them reward themselves instead of others, and not have these productivity gains be shared up and down the ladder. From those who helped put together these technologies, to those workers who leverage these technologies and do much more and should be PAID MORE in generating more output, even if they have robots helping them a lot more now than they used to. If they are able to work within those environments and help this machine turn out more widgets they should also be rewarded more. But they AREN'T!!!

The problem we have today is not so much who is providing the productivity and getting rewarded for it. The problem is who has the power to set who is working and who is not and who gets to reward themselves and not anyone else... BECAUSE THEY CAN!

[JEB]

10. It's going to get ugly.

0.1 percent of 0.1 percent can only hire so many security guards. Wages will remain low, supply and demand, you know.

[appalachiablue]

11. K & R. This needs to be widely read. Many people are clueless about AI, robotic automation.