Richest 2% own 'half the wealth'

[superconnected]

The richest 2% of adults in the world own more than half of all household wealth, according to a new study by a United Nations research institute.
The report, from the World Institute of Development Economics Research at the UN University, says that the poorer half of the world's population own barely 1% of global wealth.

There have of course been many studies of worldwide inequality.

But what is new about this report, the authors say, is its coverage.

It deals with all countries in the world - either actual data or estimates based on statistical analysis - and it deals with wealth, where most previous research has looked at income.

more...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6211250.stm

[Howardx]

1. REDISTRIBUTION OF WEALTH

just wanted to throw that out there:toast:

[nashville_brook]

4. redist of wealth occurs when labor isn't compensated fairly (labor creates value)

and when taxes favor the wealthy.

right now we have the government interfereing ON BEHALF of the rich, so the "redistribution" is stealing from the poor and giving to the wealthy.

[TexasLawyer]

12. also corruption and despotic political structures

fuel much of the world's disparity in wealth.

[nashville_brook]

16. same diff -- :)

[Kellyiswise]

74. And our children are used as their private military to protect their global interests.

[Tellurian]

19. correction..

They are NOT stealing from the POOR..

They are stealing from the MIDDLE CLASS..

The $250,000 dollar wage earners pay the highest Tax Rate!

The POOR wage earners, earn $25,000 or less.

[RUMMYisFROSTED]

23. Left with a paltry $175K.

:cry:

The person making $30K and paying $6K is hit much harder because at that level there is no, or very little, disposable income. But your point is taken. It is indeed the $15K-$300K people that are financing an undue share of American debt.

A couple of years ago, I proposed a tiered tax that exempted the first $30-50K of income (depending on necessary receipts). Once you're making over a $1M you're in a 70-95% tax bracket. At a $100K you're paying x% of $50K. At $250K you're paying x% of $50K and y% of $100K and z% of $50K. No exemptions. None.

Bill Gates would be worth about $2B. Struggling along money.

And the economy would be cooking. For everybody.

[Tellurian]

29. All the $1M dollar crowd have to do is..

make a hefty Charitable donation and they are in the clear.

thanks for the input, RIF.. :hi:

[beth9999]

54. Are you saying...

... that those who earn $250K per year are Middle Class? Or am I misunderstanding you?

[IA_Seth]

63. no kidding, i'd LOVE to be middle class I guess. N/T

[Megahurtz]

60. Yeah, they're stealing from the poor too.

All money is scooped up from the bottom and goes to the top. It's pretty sick.

[Bassic]

66. 250 000$ is middle class?

Wow. I thought I was middle class.

[Megahurtz]

70. Oh those poor, poor, 250,000.00 per year wage earners!!!

I feel so sorry for them! :sarcasm:

[Lance_Boyle]

7. Why not phone up Robin Hood?

;-)

[MrPrax]

32. Or buy a mask?

“V” Makes A Mark In DC


On November 6, 2006, a lone man in a “V” mask and clothing visited security checkpoints at the White House, the main Treasury Building, the Department of Justice and the Capitol, to deliver a letter and the Petitions for Redress. A short videotape of the encounters has made its way around the Internet, including links from sites such as MySpace.com.

The letter informed the leaders of the Executive and Legislative branches of the federal government that up to 100 people in “V” masks and clothing would gather in silent vigil at those locations on November 14th to await a response to the Petitions for Redress.

True to his word, at 11:00 A.M. on Tuesday, November 14, 2006, nearly 100 men and women in “V” masks and clothing could be seen walking along different streets in downtown Washington, DC, all heading to Lafayette Park across Pennsylvania Avenue from the White House.

links to protest and pictures

[IntravenousDemilo]

9. What's referred to as "redistribution of wealth" should be more properly called

"reredistribution of wealth", as the wealth was created by labour and "redistributed" amongst thieving, capitalist robber-barons who'd like to yank us back to the 19th century. Reredistribution sets things right again.

[SharonAnn]

41. I think "Earned Distribution of Wealth" or "Fair Distribution of Wealth"

And a pet peeve of mine is when high income people are described as "earning $30 million a year" or some such absurd number. They may get PAID that much but I don't think anyone EARNS that much. What's happening is that those who do the work are getting underpaid and the difference is going to the person who is overpaid.

Think about it. You could have all the wealth in the world but until somebody does some work, you'll starve to death. Either you have to do the work or you have to hire somebody to do some work.

So, nothing happens until people perform work. No wealth is created until people perform work.

[slackmaster]

10. It's a very silly idea if you think about it

What is some poor family in the middle of sub-Saharan Africa going to do with, say, a refrigerator or washing machine? There's no fucking place to plug them in!

More seriously put, a lot of that personal wealth consists of discretionary items that are not needed for survival, e.g. computers, jewelry, artwork; or absurdly costly versions of basic necessities like clothing, transportation, and shelter.

[iverglas]

15. actually

... a lot of that personal wealth consists of power. It consists of ownership of those old means of production. We really are not talking just about wealth that consists of consumer or durable goods when we get into that upper 1%, you know.

What is some poor family in the middle of sub-Saharan Africa going to do with a little wealth? Oh, get health care and education for its children, maybe. An extra item or two of livestock; an opportunity to get out from under the multinational to which it is beholden for its seed grains, or the local usurious supplier to which it is beholden for the materials it uses to make the products it earns a subsistence income from. It's really quite amazing what a few dollars can do in the right places.

[Joe Chi Minh]

24. Without it, nothing makes sense, moral or practical. Nothing CAN make sense.

[Zensea]

2. This is any household with income more than $44,000

According to this --

http://www.globalrichlist.com/index.php

That's over half the households in the United States.

[slackmaster]

8. It says I am the 49,322,169th richest person in the world

In the top 0.82%.

Funny, I don't feel rich.

[Zensea]

11. I think that is their point ...

... that although we may not feel rich, that compared to the rest of the world we aren't doing bad.
Also if you are in the top 0.82% of the world, that means you are roughly in the top 25% in the U.S. I believe (I plugged in the figure of what income generates the result of .82%.) and that income level puts you up there as I am reading it according to this ...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States

[endarkenment]

14. I'm guessing you have never been to the third world.

you may not feel rich but if you have clean running water, a toilet, electricity that works most of the time, and enough money not to be on the edge of starvation, you are a very wealthy man.

[slackmaster]

18. The closest I've been to the Third World is the interior of Mexico

They have no shortage of food, but sanitation is iffy and electricity unreliable.

[AnneD]

22. I'll never forget my trip to India,

and neither will my teen aged daughter. I never hear the gimmes from her and neither of us complain about how bad a toilet is. We appreciate our clean water, toilets, and hot showers. We have an obscene amount of food to eat and a clean, dry place to sleep. We saw many that did not have even those small comforts.

Those that came before us made this possible. They realized how important mundane things like infrastructure, education, and public health were to the common welfare were. This is one of the things that pisses me off about this 'make government smaller and more efficient' 'starve the beast' crap that floats around in the GOP circles. This social darwinism drags everyone down. I see us descending here in the USA because of all this selfishness. Like I told a wealthy man in India..."OK, your wealthy, but you still live in India. I would rather live in poverty in the US than in wealth in India". My remarks were not well received, because he knew what I said was the truth.

[Fovea]

42. i understand

4 blocks from me, homeless sleep in storage trailers.

[Zavulon]

57. Man, you are one rich mo-fo, bro.

I'm a mere 49,865,767th on the list.

[GOPBasher]

25. I'm not getting that to work. n/t

[GOPBasher]

26. nevermind. n/t

[superconnected]

3. What's really interesting is the link off this article

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/5369460.stm

Billionaires rule US richest list
Microsoft boss Bill Gates kept top spot for a 13th consecutive year with investment guru-turned-philanthropist Warren Buffett in second place.

Casino and hotel owner Sheldon Adelson has leapt from 15th to third ranking.

The rich list as a whole is worth $1.25 trillion, compared with $1.13 trillion a year ago, Forbes said.

Four of the top 10 came from the Wal-Mart owning Walton family.
.
.
.

Mr Adelson's surge in fortune comes largely from a decision to open a casino in Macau, a pennisula off south-eastern China renowned for its gambling.

Forbes estimates that Mr Adelson has been earning about $1m an hour for the past two years.

-------------
Gee wasn't Macau that island abramof was investing in. Interesting a Casino owner suddenly jumps from 15th to 3rd richest man in the world, by opening a casino on that very island. Wasn't abramof extorting US indian casino owners for some plan he had on Macau and providing 3rd world sweatshop workers there? - nope, wrong island.

[superconnected]

6. Not sure

Abramoff was buying the suncruz casinos - casinos on a boat that when nowhere.

He frauded by doing a fake wiring of funds to indicate he had enough money for the casino.

I can't link him to macau yet

[Zan_of_Texas]

28. Abramoff had dealings in the Mariana islands. Meanwhile...

Wrong island.

As for wealth disparity, watch Rolling Stone in about a week -- they will have a good article by Paul Krugman on this very subject.

from The Great Wealth Transfer
by Paul Krugman

...According to the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics, the hourly wage of the average American non-supervisory worker is actually lower, adjusted for inflation, than it was in 1970. Meanwhile, CEO pay has soared – from less than thirty times the average wage to almost 300 times the typical worker’s pay.

The widening gulf between workers and executives is part of a stunning increase in inequality throughout the U.S. economy during the past thirty years. To get a sense of just how dramatic that shift has been, imagine a line of 1,000 people who represent the entire population of America. They are standing in ascending order of income, with the poorest person on the left and the richest person on the right. And their height is proportional to their income – the richer they are, the taller they are.

Start with 1973. If you assume that a height of six feet represents the average income in that year, the person on the far left side of the line – representing those Americans living in extreme poverty – is only sixteen inches tall. By the time you get to the guy at the extreme right, he towers over the line at more than 113 feet.

Now take 2005. The average height has grown from six feet to eight feet, reflecting the modest growth in average incomes over the past generation. And the poorest people on the left side of the line have grown at about the same rate as those near the middle – the gap between the middle class and the poor, in other words, hasn’t changed. But people to the right must have been taking some kind of extreme steroids: The guy at the end of the line is now 560 feet tall, almost five times taller than his 1973 counterpart.

[libodem]

5. That's why those conservative money managers like to say

that the top 5% pay half of all the taxes and we are supposed to feel sorry for them and give them tax breaks. YUCK This week the guy was saying a soft dollar is actually good for the economy. Blarney! This type of thinking needs to be turned around in the mind of the voting public.

[wageslave71]

64. That is exactly why...

conservative mouthpieces spout off these statistics and expect the general population to feel pity for the wealthy elite. Rush's website has some spun numbers on its homepage (they've been there at least 2 or 3 years), but when I see shit like that, it tells me that top X% is very wealthy. Rush spins it to seem as if the wealthy are being robbed. What a joke!

[David Zephyr]

13. It's because they worked hard and earned every single penny of it.

Why, that's the invisible hand of capitalism at work, don't you know?

People that are less fortunate can only blame themselves because they obviously did not work as hard as this 2% of our population.

:sarcasm:

[YankeyMCC]

17. This is really not just money

These same people use much more than their "fair share" of the earth, 3 to 5 or even more for the very very monetarily wealthy times their fair share, via all this monetary wealth. So it isn't just that they 'own' most of the money but that they are literally stealing earth's resources from the less wealthy.

[Bullshot]

20. All these RW talk shows piss and moan because the richest 2% pay disproportionately high taxes.

They make a disproportionate share of the income, they should pay a like proportion in taxes.

Sometimes I think these clowns think the richest 2% should only pay 2% of the taxes the way they bitch and moan.

[lovuian]

21. Economics 101 Depression

is coming
Thanks to Hoover Bush

[Trillo]

27. What seems amazing to me is how income distribution is exponential.

No matter where in the curve one looks, this structure of geometric or multiplicative curve seems repeated, almost like something highly designed and carefully groomed at the level of each person and which correlates to a data point of income.

[rman]

46. Should not really be a surprise;

the more power and money one has, the easier is becomes to get still more of both. That is, in a system that has insufficient safeguards against such unlimited aggregation of wealth and power - as is the system that we have. It is also known as "the winner takes all".

[alfredo]

30. Read the Nov 28th 2006 issue of Rollingstone.

It will have Snoop Dogg on the cover.

"How the Super-Rich are Screwing America" By Paul Krugman

[Luna_C_06]

33. Going off topic here but.....

At home with America's most lovable pimp??? WTF? Do those people not even know what a pimp really is?

[alfredo]

39. the meaning has evolved since "Super Fly."

[sarcasmo]

31. And they do not pay into the Social Security system.

We have a broken society, and it's time for a fix. Pitch forks and torches get them suckers ready.
Kick and Nom.

[rateyes]

34. The wealthiest 3 PERSONS in the world

have more assets than the combined GDP of the 48 least developed NATIONS!

[davekriss]

35. EAT THE RICH

'nuff said. And I mean the 0.5% rich, not the run of the mill 2 precenter.
:evilgrin:

[Bassic]

67. There's only onw thing that they're good for

I always liked that song, but always found it ironic that it is sung by a band who are certainly not poor :D Their hearts are in the right place, anyway.

[Jcrowley]

36. The Super Rich

The super rich, the top 1% who earn the lion's share of the nation's income, go uncounted in most income-distribution reports. Even those who study the question sometimes overlook the wealthiest among us. For instance, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, relying on the latest U.S. Census Bureau data, released a report in December 1997 showing that in the last two decades, "incomes of the richest fifth increased by 30% or nearly $27,000 after adjusting for inflation." The average income of the top 20% was $117,500, or almost 13 times larger than the $9,250 average income of the poorest 20%.

But where are the super rich? An average of $117,500 is an upper-middle income, not at all representative of a rich cohort, let alone a super-rich one. Many such reports about income distribution are based on U.S. Census Bureau surveys that regularly leave Big Money out of the picture. A few phone calls to the Census Bureau in Washington D.C. revealed that for years the Bureau never interviewed anyone who had an income higher than $300,000. Or, if interviewed, they were never recorded as above the "reportable upper limit" of $300,000, the top figure allowed by the bureau's computer program. In 1994, the bureau lifted the upper limit to $1 million. This still excludes the richest1%, the hundreds of billionaires and thousands of multi­p;millionaires who make many times more than $1 million a year. The super rich simply have been computerized out of the Census Bureau's picture.

When asked why this procedure was used, an official said that the Census Bureaus computers could not handle higher amounts. A most improbable excuse, since once the bureau decided to raise the upper limit from $300,000 to $1 million, it did so without any difficulty, and it could do so again. Another reason the official gave was "confidentiality." Given place coordinates, someone with a very high income might be identified. Furthermore, he said, high-income respondents usually understate their investment returns by about 40% to 50%. Finally, the official argued that since the super rich are so few, they are not likely to show up in a national sample. And since they are so few, including them would skew the sample, wouldn't it?

But by designating the (decapitated) top 20% of the entire nation as the "richest" quintile, the Census Bureau is including millions of people who make as little as $70,000. If you make over $100,000, you are in the top 4%. Now $100,000 is a tidy sum indeed, but it's not super rich--as in Mellon, Morgan or Murdoch. The difference between Michael Eisner, the Disney CEO who pocketed $565 million in 1996, and the individuals who average $9,250 is not 13 to one--the reported spread between highest and lowest quintiles--but over 61,000 to one.

http://sonic.net/~doretk/Issues/99-03%20SPR/thesuperrich.html

[uberllama42]

37. I think our daily life in this country is criminal

We have a moral responsibility to do something, no matter how small, to mitigate the crushing poverty and abject privation of our fellow human beings every single day. Most people, myself included, can't claim that they do so. We wouldn't all have to go out and sell our cars and live in cabins off of beans we farmed ourselves like Thoreau did (or claimed to do). All it would take from common people in America, i.e. the ridiculously but not obscenely wealthy, is a small contribution every day to make a massive difference.

A lot of us know this and just ignore it. How can we claim to care for other people when we refuse to do anything about such poverty?

[area51]

43. Welcome to DU, uberllama42. (n/t)

[One_Life_To_Give]

69. Actually US Charitable Contributions are fair

For 2003 Individuals contributed $179.36 Billion
Which averages out to about $600 per person.

Edit to Add: Welcome to DU :applause:

[BadGimp]

38. MISSIOIN ACCOMPLISHED

[Blue_Tires]

40. sad, but this should surprise no one

[mhatrw]

44. How much do the richest 0.1% own?

Enquiring minds want to know.

[moondust]

45. Bad for consumer capitalism.

Think of all the microwaves and bicycles and computers and homes and everything else that would be bought--creating all kinds of jobs--if all that money was spread evenly rather than piled up in the bank accounts of a few greedy manipulators.

[rman]

47. I've heard significantly lower number of people owns half the wealth on earth:

literally no more than the top couple of hundred richest individuals.

Another interesting number here is that half the global population lives on less than $2 a day.
A significant number of those have never even seen money, and a significant number of them is in the process of starving to death either slowly or quickly.

[uberllama42]

48. There's a difference

between "owning" wealth and "controlling" it. The hyper-rich have might have their names on 25% of everything in the world, but as Jim Hightower pointed out, a billionaire has a lot more power and influence than a million people with a thousand dollars each. There are plenty of ways of controlling how wealth moves without ever actually owning it. The actions of Gates, Buffet, et. al. have more impact than the aggregate economic activity of the bottom third of the country, even though they own about the same number of dollars.

[rman]

52. fair point,

Indeed, iirc the term regarding that number is "control", not "own". However, it can be argued that control is the ultimate ownership. What is ownership if it does not imply control?

[uberllama42]

56. Right

What I was trying to say is that even the obscenely large portion of the wealth owned by the top 2% is misleading because it does not take into account the greater influence these people have. The top half-percent doesn't need to legally own half of the world's wealth, because they have control over it through other means. The whole ownership-control thing is merely semantic.

[erpowers]

49. Your Quote

Where did you quote about Bush come from ("As far as Bush, if you cannot follow the money follow the blood"). Who said it and where did you find it? Is it your quote?

[superconnected]

53. It is my quote.

[DrunkenMaster]

50. They MUST deserve it!

Right? America is the riches nation on earth because we are blessed by God: so too are these fine people.

The poor are poor because of a lack of character and a aggregation of sin. The wealthy are wealthy because God smiles upon the righteous.

[The2ndWheel]

51. Wow, that's shocking

Who knew that a system set up to do that would do that?

[beth9999]

55. I still think that we need...

... a salary cap.

Seriously, does anyone *really* need more than $150K per year? I think that after that, we should apply a 100% tax rate. That will help the poor in the country and not really hurt the rich, since they don't really need it to live anyway.

(Note: I just picked 150K because it sounded right. I'm not married to that number. Feel free to move it up or down as necessary.)

[superconnected]

59. Actually it's a profit cap we need.

Specifically on oil, credit cards, loan institutions, insurance companies and colleges. Right now the cable companies have a cap on them and it's not hurting free enterprise for them. They still compete against each other.(I work for one.)

Credit card debt didn't get so bad until the republicans in congress removed their profit cap. Now some are at 45% per year. I can't remember the dates off the top of my head anymore. The cap was institued in the late seventies by a dem senator, and the dems, including the kennedys, fought for the cap not to be removed. I believe the cap was removed in the late '80's.

By the way, removing the profit cap is why companies in the 90's started to get richer than most countries. Before that it was unheard of. It's also most likely why politics is so corrupt. It used to be the philip morris' that ran politics. He's small potatos to any lending companies - specifically banks who own the credit cards(they lease the names visa and mastercard).

[UrbScotty]

58. No surprise (nt)

[SoCalDem]

61. Most people don;t understand the implications of this

and have been brainwashed for decades.

Put into "common" terms, they "get it"

Base it on $100.

two people each get $25.00
98 people each get $0.51

Okay with that??

Most would say NO..

percentages are misleading too ..if someone uses a street with 3 houses on it and one guy's a millionaire, and the other two are unemployed, the "average" household income of that street is still $333K per household..

[One_Life_To_Give]

62. Subjective measures

An empty acre of land in the US could put you in the top 2%. While 100 acres in a third world country might leave you in the bottom 50%.

[lateo]

65. Yeah but...

They pay all the taxes!

[lonestarnot]

68. Over half is way over half, like 68% now! I'd say that's OVER HALF!

[Initech]

71. TAX. THE. RICH.

It sucks that we have a government that favors the extremely wealthy to the point where they pay no taxes. If we do the unthinkable and tax these fuckers, then we might actually solve all our country's problems at once.

[beth9999]

73. I agree. In fact...

... I think that we should have a 100% tax over a certain level of income. Figure out the maximum that a person could possibly need over the course of a year (150k? 200K? 250K? or whatever...) and then tax everything over that 100%.

[Strawman]

72. That link is a nice reminder during this season of excess

Today I received a thank you card from a sponsored child. We put in some extra money during Holidays and birthdays. One of our sponsored children used the money we gave toward bricks for her home.

We're so fucking spoiled here in America and I'm as guilty as anyone. It's hard enough to get an American kid to send a thank you card for any gift, and those are gifts for pure fun. This girl sent me a handwritten thank you note for buying 381 bricks for her family's home that were purchased with the extra $25 we put in our normal monthly donation last month. It really puts things in perspective. How would an average American kid react to getting 381 bricks for their birthday or Christmas? They'd probably throw a tantrum because they didn't get Playstation 3. And I know I probably would have done the same thing when I was a kid. You don't appreciate things like bricks or indoor plumbing. It's an understatement to say stuff like that is taken for granted by nearly everyone in this country with the exception of the homeless and extreme poor.

[NotGivingUp]

75. i'm real tired of the greedy, sicko 1% accumulating wealth

beyond any usefulness...and that wealth is STOLEN from the rest of us. time to put an end to it.