I Still Hate Neil Irwin - part the twelfth

The first of these odes to the writer-I'd-trade-to-be was July, 2014. Every one which dealt with macro-analysis (most of them) found me lamenting that Mr. Irwin wouldn't state the base cause of macro problems: collapse of aggregate demand. Yet another entry today. And he takes yet another baby step toward the goal:

Despite some promising signs of vitality during much of last year, issues that have dogged the world economy for the last decade — an aging work force in many of the biggest economies, weak growth in productivity, excessive global savings and industrial capacity, and a shortage of worldwide demand — haven't disappeared.
[my emphasis]

He nearly gets it. To paraphrase Bubba, "It's aggregate demand, stupid!" The other entries in his list are motivators of the decline (or, at least, lack of necessary growth) in aggregate demand.

Here's another motivating factoid:

The top 1 percent now owns 50.1 percent of the world's wealth, up from 45.5 percent in 2001.