Wealth concentration is the subject of one of the few questions in his first Q&A that John Kiriakou answers by agreeing outright with the questioner. Asked whether a revolution was likely in the United States within the next hundred years, or whether that is merely what every generation says, he replies: “You know what, Zach? I have to agree with you.”[1]
Why this time is different
He concedes the general point first — “you’re right that every generation says, ‘Oh, these events are unprecedented’” — and then insists on the exception: “Actually, these events are unprecedented. We’ve never had trillionaires.” The measure he uses is comparative: “when five men have as much wealth as the bottom, whatever it is, 80% of the world’s population, there’s a problem with distribution of wealth. Nobody is worth a trillion dollars. I don’t care what you do. You’re not worth a trillion dollars.”[2][3]
The budgetary corollary
Kiriakou does not leave the argument at inequality; he attaches it to federal spending. “the defense budget is untenable. Uh it’s a trillion dollars. The administration’s asking for 1.5 trillion dollars. We’re practically bankrupt as a country.” From there he poses the choice as a series of impossible cuts — “You’re going to cut social security? You going to cut Medicare, Medicaid? You going to cut, you know, aid to hungry children? You going to cut education? You you’re to cut highway funds? For what? To make more F-35s and and missiles?”[3][4]
The timeline
He is careful about the horizon, and grateful the question was not framed shorter: “I’m glad you didn’t say the next 10 years. Uh I don’t think we’re going to see anything like that in the next 10 years. In the next 100 years, yeah, something’s coming. There’s going to have to be a major societal change because this situation, this this thing that we’ve created, it’s just not tenable over the long term.”[4][5]