It helped to build a middle class in the richest and most powerful countries, but it has had the opposite effect in countries from which the rich and powerful stole much of the resources that helped to make them so rich and powerful. And every time there is a bubble and the inevitable burst, more resources move away from the lower and middle classes, toward the top. The rich get richer and the poor get poorer. This is not by accident. It is by design.

It is precisely that (almost entirely unrealistic) hope on the part of the unwashed masses to be able to get into the top percentiles that entices them to support a system that really is not to their overall benefit. Look at all of the people (in the US, in particular, as well as some other countries, less so in Canada), who have lost their life savings and their retirement income because of this latest debacle. Fat lot of good the dream of getting into the top percentile did them.

Here's a great talk by economist and Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz about what's wrong with our current system (foremost among those he mentions is that it is ultimately unsustainable)...

http://www.politube.org/show/2062