Turkey and the U.S. are engrossed in a similar discussion these days. The question of when the U.S. Federal Reserve will launch their interest rate hikes is gradually going beyond the economic sphere and evolving into a political debate. During a House Financial Services Committee hearing on Wednesday, Fed Chair Janet Yellen came under fire from House Republicans, who, by referring to her October speech on income inequality, accused her of delaying interest rate hikes in an effort to support the administration of President Barack Obama. In the midst of all this, discussions about the independence of the Fed have come into play, as Republicans argue that Yellen violates the independence of the central bank. A similar discussion on the independence of the central bank is also seen in Turkey, where President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan argues that the central bank unnecessarily keeps interest rates up, which results in lesser investment and higher unemployment. What lies behind these discussions in both countries is the constant deterioration of income and wealth distribution in the world. We have come to see the grave consequences of the crisis that the world has been facing since 2008. It seems that we will often be referring to the "Global Wealth Report for 2013" by the Switzerland-based research institute Credit Suisse in the upcoming years, as it clearly puts wealth inequality in the world as follows: "We expect global wealth to rise by nearly 40 percent over the next five years, reaching $334 trillion by 2018. Emerging markets are responsible for 29 percent of that growth. China will account for nearly 50 percent of the increase in the emerging economies' wealth. Wealth growth will primarily be driven by growth in the middle segment, but the number of millionaires will also rise markedly over the next five years." The report reveals that the wealth inequality is constantly growing in favor of developed countries and that emerging markets will go up in parallel with relative high growth rates in economies such as China and India in the next five years as of 2013. While China and India constitute 37.85 percent of the world's population, they merely hold 10.71 percent of global wealth. On the other hand, North America constitutes 5.71 percent of the global population, but it owns one-third of global wealth. Certainly, this is a great problem for the moment, but it will begin unfolding in the next five years. Another striking point revealed by the report is that rapid growth in emerging markets and rapid global capital inflow into them has begun creating an ultra-wealthy segment in these countries. The number of dollar billionaires in three major developing countries - Turkey, Brazil and India - triples those in Japan and the U.K. This is undoubtedly a big problem for the countries since such a concentration of great amount of wealth might lead to major political problems in parallel with democratic shortcomings and even backlash as a permanent problem of democracy. We can draw the following conclusion here: The money that previously flew into emerging markets as credit capital and was invested in financial fields, began flowing as foreign direct investment after 2008. This resulted in rapid growth and introduced the new holders of great wealth in these countries, while creating a new trend of impoverishment in developed countries. Even though this is merely a trend for the moment, developed and developing countries are gradually converging. As required by the dynamics of capitalism, the middle strata of developed countries are getting poor, while a new ultra wealthy segment is being formed in developing countries. In this regard, Obama and Erdoğan are two leaders who see this basic problem and propose basic amendments on mainstream economic policies to handle that problem.Currently, the operation profitability ratio of the Turkish manufacturing industry ranges between 5.3 percent and 5.5 percent while its return on equity is around 4.5 percent. This means that an entrepreneur who invests equity capital in manufacturing industry would obtain a return that is almost half of the capital he invests in a financial field. Thus, it becomes impossible for Turkey to steer its domestic savings and foreign direct investments to the manufacturing industry, and its position is declining among the countries that generate the most added value in manufacturing industry. Erdoğan objects to this situation and, as a popularly elected president, he wishes that it be fixed soon. Erdoğan also wants Turkey to have a free and open economy that prioritizes global competition and allows unlimited free market entry. He wants to see more investment and growth so that a far-reaching growth and sustainable income equality prevails in the country. Similarly, Obama wants the U.S. to close its budget and foreign trade deficits and the gap between savings and investments with its own economic dynamics and argues that the dollar should not be unnecessarily valuable. Actually, the wants of these two leaders are based on Swedish economist Knut Wickell's thesis that if the average profit rates of new investments are lower than interest rates, there is something wrong. This indicates a worsening and collapsing economy dominated by rotten financial capital, and this is our current concern about interest rates. Another indicator of this decay is that wealth inequality deteriorates faster than income distribution inequality. Income is the gain we achieve in a certain period of time. Unlike wealth, income is a dynamic phenomenon. If income distribution is very bad, the distortion in wealth distribution will grow more rapidly. Those who have too much income to spend and invest steer their wealth to bank capital and they get more interest. Thus, financial capital becomes the economy itself indicating a collapse, as incomes obtained from interest and derivative financial instruments soar, investment declines and wages fall. This is the root cause of crisis, and you cannot handle crisis without changing it.