"Ajay Kapur, global strategist at Citigroup, and his research team came up with the term “Plutonomy” in 2005 to describe a country that is defined by massive income and wealth inequality. According to their definition, the U.S. is a Plutonomy, along with the U.K., Canada and Australia."

"In a series of research notes over the past year, Kapur and his team explained that Plutonomies have three basic characteristics:

1. They are all created by “disruptive technology-driven productivity gains, creative financial innovation, capitalist friendly cooperative governments, immigrants…the rule of law and patenting inventions. Often these wealth waves involve great complexity exploited best by the rich and educated of the time.”

2. There is no “average” consumer in Plutonomies. [..]

3. Plutonomies are likely to grow in the future, fed by capitalist-friendly governments, more technology-driven productivity and globalization."

"Germans have learned two things in the last century: When they went it alone, as in two world wars, they failed miserably, and worse each time. When they shifted into pussy cat mode and chose alliance and community with the West, they flourished."