85 Peoples’ Wealth=Half The World

[marmar]

http://www.workinglife.org/2014/01/20/85-peoples-wealthhalf-the-world/#sthash.eHoQHYzn.dpuf


from the Working Life blog:


85 Peoples’ Wealth=Half The World
Posted on 20 January 2014


Not a new idea but worth spotlighting on MLK Day that class warfare is forging ahead. Oxfam, in anticipation of the gathering of the Masters of the Universe at Davos, tells us this nugget: the richest 85 people have the same wealth as 3.5 billion people, half the population of the world.

More:

In the past year, 210 people have become billionaires, joining a select group of 1,426 individuals with a combined net worth of $5.4 trillion.Corporate profits, chief executive officer (CEO) salaries, and stock exchanges are breaking new records daily, with no signs of slowing down. At the time of writing, the Dow Jones industrial average reached the highest mark in its 117-year history.

The wealth of the one percent richest people in the world amounts to $110 trillion. That’s 65 times the total wealth of the bottom half.

And:

• Almost half of the world’s wealth is now owned by just one percent of the population.
• The wealth of the one percent richest people in the world amounts to $110 trillion. That’s 65 times the total wealth of the bottom half of the world’s population.
• The bottom half of the world’s population owns the same as the richest 85 people in the world.
• Seven out of ten people live in countries where economic inequality has increased in the last 30 years.
• The richest one percent increased their share of income in 24 out of 26 countries for which we have data between 1980 and 2012.
• In the US, the wealthiest one percent captured 95 percent of post-financial crisis growth since 2009, while the bottom 90 percent became poorer

I appreciate Oxfam’s work but the truth is that it’s kind of irrelevant to be appealing to the Davos types. It’s a flaw to think that those who benefit from the privilege of this huge robbery will do much, other than tinkering around the edges, to reverse course–because that would mean declaring that the entire system, their system, has utterly failed.

[neverforget]

1. Disgusting! The system is rigged.

[reformist2]

2. It's absurd. We've exchanged one stupid monarchy with another.

[RobertEarl]

3. Rewrite:

85 people are hoarding 50% of all the money.

[BKH70041]

4. It would be an inaccurate rewrite.

"the richest 85 people have the same wealth as 3.5 billion people, half the population of the world"

That's not the same as saying they have 50% of all the money.

[seattledo]

5. But does that detail matter...

to the 3 billion people they're taking from?

[RobertEarl]

6. Wealth is not just money

But those 85 have half of the money.

The other 99.999999 % have the other 50% of the money. If those 85 gave up all their money each of us could have 25% more money.

Then you could donate $125,000.

[BKH70041]

12. The study doesn't bear out what you claim.

85 do not have half the money; they have the same as the bottom 3.5 billion. Big difference.

[RobertEarl]

13. Yeah, you're right, I'm wrong

I was thinking along the lines that no one deserves any more than anyone else. That we all should share the wealth equally. If it were shared equally, that most humans in now the bottom half of the world would have far more money than they do now, as they should.

And people who were just in the top 10% would have far less. Those in the top say 40%, less too. What we would have would be a world where those at the median range in having wealth would be the story across the board.

So then I wonder: what is the median range, and why the fuck should we let the top 50% hoard all that money?

[legcramp]

7. It would be interesting to see the list of those 85 individuals.

For example...

The report did not name the world's 85 richest individuals, but cited lists compiled by Credit Suisse bank and Forbes magazine.

Oxfam said the income alone derived from the $73 billion fortune of the world's richest individual, Mexican telecommunications mogul Carlos Slim, could pay the yearly wages of 440,000 Mexicans.

Mexico is one of the poorest and most corrupt countries in the world yet somehow Slim is the worlds richest man.

I wonder how many others fit that description. Russian Billionaires, Arab oil Sheiks and Sultans not to mention 3rd world dictators like Kim Jong-un and African strongmen whose countries are poverty stricken waste lands while they have siphoned off their peoples wealth.

[marmar]

9. American corporate assholes, European banksters ..... Can't blame this on the "Third World"

[legcramp]

11. So you've seen the list?

Gotta link, I looked but can't find it.

[moondust]

8. Corporatocracy has failed.

Some charts from the report:





Of course the Soviet Union began to fall apart in the 80s, after which I think the global capitalists decided they had won the Cold War and were now free to conquer and exploit the whole planet without restraint.

[Ghost Dog]

14. Curious that the likes of UK, Germany and Italy are left out of this statistical sample list,

along with all Latin-American and most Asian nations...

[moondust]

15. From the report:

Some countries are managing to buck this global trend though. In Latin America, countries have achieved declining inequality during the past decade. However, these improvements must be tempered, as they are taking place in some of the most unequal countries in the world.The rate and depth at which inequality is declining also varies, and it is too soon to suggest a real trend.

Among the G20 countries, emerging economies were usually those with higher levels of inequality (including South Africa, Brazil, Mexico, Russia, Argentina, China, and Turkey) whereas developed countries tended to have lower levels of inequality (France, Germany, Canada, Italy, and Australia). Yet even this is changing, and now high-income G20 countries (except South Korea) are experiencing rising inequality, while Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina are seeing levels of inequality decline.

Oxfam report pdf can be downloaded here:
http://www.oxfam.org/en/policy/working-for-the-few-economic-inequality

[warrant46]

10. 2 of those Thugs are the Koch Brothers

and 4 more are the Waltons including drunken Alice