rentier some hundred years ago, the players in a free market were divided into three groups: laborers, capitalists, and rentiers. you've probably never heard of rentiers. cause contemporary economic thinking divides the players into laborers and capitalists. it's pretty obvious what the laborers are. they're the ones who knead the dough, chop the veggies, assemble the pizza, bake it, box it, and deliver it. capitalist has more than one meaning. in common usage it means you believe the free market is superior to socialism or communism. fair enough. in this context though, it means the investor. the people who put assets at risk. the money to pay wages and buy ingredients comes from their bank account. but it's not just cash. capitalists provide anything that is consumed or used up. like oil, soil, cash, cows, etc. they also pay the rent for the buildings and the land. to the rentiers. the mystery group. the rentiers provide the things that are not consumed. like land, buildings, water rights, copyrights, patents, etc. unlike the capitalist, the rentier still has the rented thing after renting it. okay, so after the pizza is made and sold, the profits are divided among the three groups. and everyone's happy, right? heh. one of the things that pissed ye olde commoners off so much that they were willing to hazard a three month voyage on a teeny tiny ship across a vast vast ocean, was that the nobility had a monopoly on the rentier position. they collected taxes and dues and fees way out of proportion to the value they added to the product. like say, not killing you for living on their land. one of the reasons the american economy has historically been so strong is we've been actively persecuting the rentier class. historically. we let down our guard during the oil boom of the 20th century. slowly and steadily. no one really cared cause everyone was getting rich. the rentiers have been masquerading as capitalists and now have a virtual lock on banks, governments, wall street, and many (not all) corporations. case in point, an economist won a nobel prize for showing that hedge fund managers are no better at picking winner stocks than a chimpanzee. it's a game of chance, not skill. they might as well roll dice. yet the lucky ones who win the lottery walk off with billion dollar cash prizes. that's billion with a b. annually. i expect to see the term rentier in the news more often. cause we've hit the oil ceiling. the economy isn't growing any more. we're not getting richer any more. and the commoners have noticed that the royalty is. occupy wall street is the first expression of this unhappiness. even if people don't really understand the underlying economic principles. they know they're busting their humps and not getting ahead. and the rich kids make more money while sleeping than the working stiff kids will make in a year. wall street is filled with psychopaths. they're not stupid. so they'll hand out just enough candy to quiet this rebellion. which i think will be status quo for the whole next generation. sucks to be them.  ¶ 8:00 AM