What about political influence? Irrespective of how much you can buy, if dollars equal political influence, which is not far from wrong, people in the middle class now have less control over their lives and those of their children.
"somehow led to the tragic result of him taking his own life" That "somehow" word really rings wrong with me. It is not that hard to understand how being under a federal indictment would contribute to depression and even eventually suicide.
I use the following scripts, both by Petar Marinov, they've saved me an enormous amount of keystrokes. One replaces CTRL-R history search, the other makes a much friendlier replacement for pushd and popd.
I've a little bit periodically over the past few years.
The most I've ever done is 20m at a time, but every day.
I've had the same reservations as you, is it doing any good, how can I tell? It is trivially easy to be wrong.
I do like something I see in the people who are more advanced practioners and I keep being drawn back to it.
My latest thinking is that since I can not for the moment find anything longterm to measure, I'll do it for the immediate enjoyment I get directly from the session - from physically relaxing if nothing else. This has now made my sessions very short, just a few minutes at a time before I stop enjoying it.
I'll add another recomendation for "Mindfulness in Plain English", I like it a lot. I'm slowly consuming it, reading a few paragraphs before each meditation session.
If all the wealth is dynastic and concentrated at the top, there goes the American dream of social mobility. The estate tax is a brake on that process.