'Out of Control' Inequality: Global One Percent Owns Half of World's Wealth

[eridani]

http://www.commondreams.org/news/2015/10/14/out-control-inequality-global-one-percent-owns-half-worlds-wealth

The top one percent of households "account for half of all assets in the world," according to a new report from a leading multinational bank.

The 2015 Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report puts worldwide wealth inequality at a level "possibly not seen for almost a century," the researchers write. The data also reveals a declining middle class and that the poorest half of the world's population owns just one percent of its assets. Meanwhile, the number of "ultra-wealthy" people continues to climb.

Credit Suisse's analysis is in line with a warning from the international humanitarian group Oxfam, issued earlier this year, that the richest one percent of people on the planet would own at least half of the world's wealth by 2016.

"The Credit Suisse report shows that inequality is growing faster than we had thought," said Claire Godfrey, global inequality policy lead for Oxfam. "The fact that it has happened this year underlines the urgency of the problem."

Furthermore, Godfrey said, the report illustrates how "the 'trickle up' economic model is working its magic for the super rich at the expense of the rest. This is bad news for global economic growth and bad news for democracy. Our political leaders must take action now to raise the incomes of the poor and maintain the incomes of the middle class."

[TheFrenchRazor]

1. nothing to see here, folks; move along... nt