Rabbits can never be predators.

A study by Oxfam has suggested that the top 1% of the world's population owned 48% of all the wealth of the world in 2014 and by 2020 this will rise to 54%, which means that the combined wealth of 99% will be less than that. Of the remaining 52% of wealth, not owned by the rich in 2014, 46% was owned by 19% of the rest, leaving just 5.5% of wealth to be shared by 80% of the people in the world.  The combined wealth of the top 1% was $1.9 trillion last year, which is equal to the GDP of India, a country of 1.2 billion people. While a rich person delays a flight and throws out the chief steward from the plane because of daring to serve macadamia nuts in a bag instead of on a plate, discount stores have to hold sales to entice the poor to spend their money. But is it wrong for rich people to be rich? A study has suggested that really wealthy people are ' scary smart ' and are more likely to have attended elite colleges, such as Harvard. Liberals argue that only the children of the rich are able to afford expensive private schools which gives them an advantage when it comes to finding places at elite institutions. Those who go to elite colleges build up an ' old boys network ' of friends which helps them become richer, so it is not what you know but who you know that maybe more important. Prof Thomas Piketty wrote a book in which he suggested that much of the wealth of the rich is inherited, is due to controlling assets, such as real estate, is generated from non-productive financial manipulations and by getting politicians to pass laws favorable to them. Critics snarl that Piketty's book is nothing but ' legal plunder ' where money is looted from those who have worked hard and doled out to lazy scroungers. But there maybe something in what Piketty suggests because one of the first orders of business in the new Republican-controlled House, in the US, has been to try and dilute the Dodd-Frank Act, which was passed in 2010 to control renegade bankers. Prof Nouriel Roubini wrote that technology, such as robots, will replace humans not only in manufacturing but also in services, such as education and healthcare, which will leave vast numbers of people redundant. His solution is a continuous system of education and re-skilling so that workers are abreast of advances in technology. Prof Dani Rodrik writes that Europe responded to the first industrial revolution by creating a welfare state providing a safety net for those who were left behind by new inventions. His solution is that governments should create venture funds which will invest in new research and thus create new wealth with which to help the poor. But the Pope has said what these gentlemen dare not when he said that you do not have to breed like ' rabbits ' to be good Catholics. Reduce supply to increase your value. Sound economics.