World's Eight Richest People Have Same Wealth as Poorest 50%

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World's Eight Richest People Have Same Wealth as Poorest 50%

Larry Elliott  Economics Editor

Sunday 15 January 2017 19.01 EST
A new report by Oxfam warns of the growing and dangerous concentration of wealth

The world’s eight richest billionaires control the same wealth between them as the poorest half of the globe’s population, according to a charity warning of an ever-increasing and dangerous concentration of wealth.

In a report  published to coincide with the start of the week-long World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Oxfam  said it was “beyond grotesque” that a handful of rich men headed by the Microsoft founder Bill Gates are worth $426bn (£350bn), equivalent to the wealth of 3.6 billion people.

The development charity called for a new economic model to reverse an inequality trend that it said helped to explain Brexit and Donald Trump’s victory in the US presidential election.

Oxfam  blamed rising inequality on aggressive wage restraint, tax dodging and the squeezing of producers by companies, adding that businesses were too focused on delivering ever-higher returns to wealthy owners and top executives.

The World Economic Forum (WEF) said last week that rising inequality and social polarisation  posed two of the biggest risks to the global economy in 2017 and could result in the rolling back of globalisation.

Oxfam said the world’s poorest 50% owned the same in assets as the $426bn owned by a group headed by Gates, Amancio Ortega, the founder of the Spanish fashion chain Zara, and Warren Buffett, the renowned investor and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway.

The others are Carlos Slim Helú: the Mexican telecoms tycoon and owner of conglomerate Grupo Carso; Jeff Bezos: the founder of Amazon; Mark Zuckerberg: the founder of Facebook; Larry Ellison, chief executive of US tech firm Oracle; and Michael Bloomberg; a former mayor of New York and founder and owner of the Bloomberg news and financial information service.

Last year, Oxfam said the world’s 62 richest billionaires were as wealthy as half the world’s population. However, the number has dropped to eight in 2017 because new information shows that poverty in China and India is worse than previously thought, making the bottom 50% even worse off and widening the gap between rich and poor.

With members of the forum due to arrive on Monday in Switzerland, where guests will range from the Chinese president Xi Jinping, to pop star Shakira, the WEF released its own inclusive growth and development report in which it said median income had fallen by an average of 2.4% between 2008 and 2013 across 26 advanced nations.

Norway, Luxembourg, Switzerland, Iceland and Denmark filled the top five places in the WEF’s inclusive development index, with Britain 21st and the US 23rd. The body that organises the Davos  event said rising inequality was not an “iron law of capitalism”, but a matter of making the right policy choices.

The WEF report found that 51% of the 103 countries for which data was available saw their inclusive development index scores decline over the past five years, “attesting to the legitimacy of public concern and the challenge facing policymakers regarding the difficulty of translating economic growth into broad social progress”.

Basing its research on the Forbes rich list and data provided by investment bank Credit Suisse, Oxfam said.

the vast majority of people in the bottom half of the world’s population were facing a daily struggle to survive, with 70% of them living in low-income countries. 

It was four years since the WEF had first identified inequality as a threat to social stability, but that the gap between rich and poor has continued to widen, Oxfam added.

“From Brexit to the success of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, a worrying rise in racism and the widespread disillusionment with mainstream politics, there are increasing signs that more and more people in rich countries are no longer willing to tolerate the status quo,” the report said.

The charity said new information had shown that poor people in China and India owned even fewer assets than previously thought, making the wealth gap more pronounced than it thought a year ago, when it announced that 62 billionaires  owned the same wealth as the poorest half of the global population.

Mark Goldring, chief executive of Oxfam GB, said:  “This year’s snapshot of inequality is clearer, more accurate and more shocking than ever before. It is beyond grotesque that a group of men who could easily fit in a single golf buggy own more than the poorest half of humanity.

“While one in nine people on the planet will go to bed hungry tonight, a small handful of billionaires have so much wealth they would need several lifetimes to spend it. The fact that a super-rich elite are able to prosper at the expense of the rest of us at home and overseas shows how warped our economy has become.”

Mark Littlewood, director general at the Institute of Economic Affairs thinktank, said: “Once again Oxfam have come out with a report that demonises capitalism, conveniently skimming over the fact that free markets have helped over 100 million people rise out of poverty in the last year alone.”

The Oxfam report added that since 2015 the richest 1% has owned more wealth than the rest of the planet. It said that over the next 20 years, 500 people will hand over $2.1tn to their heirs – a sum larger than the annual GDP of India, a country with 1.3 billion people. Between 1988 and 2011 the incomes of the poorest 10% increased by just $65, while the incomes of the richest 1% grew by $11,800 – 182 times as much.

Oxfam called for fundamental change to ensure that economies worked for everyone, not just “a privileged few”. 

https://www.theguardian.com/global-...alth-as-poorest-50?CMP=twt_a-world_b-gdnworld
 
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If those losers in the poorest 50% "work hard enough" though, then they can all become among the eight richest people of the world.

That is the beauty of capitalism.
 
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trump is gonna make us all rich, if he runs our nation like he does his businesses we will all prosper.

thats what he wants, the GOP are for the little guys.

#MAGA
 
 
If those losers in the poorest 50% "work hard enough" though, then they can all become among the eight richest people of the world.

That is the beauty of capitalism.
But we don't live in a capitalist country.

Honestly getting sick of people throwing that around as truth. 
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If those losers in the poorest 50% "work hard enough" though, then they can all become among the eight richest people of the world.

That is the beauty of capitalism.


Those poor losers... Being born into poverty and what not

Brtter pull themselves up by the boot straps

trump is gonna make us all rich, if he runs our nation like he does his businesses we will all prosper.

thats what he wants, the GOP are for the little guys.

#MAGA

Obama sucks

Bill O'Reilly tells it like it is

These damn immigrants are taking over the country

#mypresident
 
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A major part of this issue is that the general public is ok with this

They not only accept this way of life but also think it's fair. It would take baby steps for people to care about the poorest 50%. If they're ok with how little money they themselves make compared to the wealthiest people, then they sure as hell won't care about a comparison involving a group that includes poor people in third world countries.

A big thing that influences my thinking when it comes to this topic is the Marx related ideas of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. The current thesis has people all ****** up in the head and believing in ideas that hurt themselves and benefit the filthy rich. Society has been like this forever though.

And one last thing sort of related but to add is that most people will say that nobody can make too much money, but when you can start buying out politicians on a federal level and influence policy-making which ruins the fabric of our country, isn't that having too much money?
 
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And one last thing sort of related but to add is that most people will say that nobody can make too much money, but when you can start buying out politicians on a federal level and influence policy-making which ruins the fabric of our country, isn't that having too much money?
 
Well if those people in the poorest 50% simply pulled themselves up by da bootstraps there wouldn't be a problem

/sarcasm
 
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There will always be inequality in the world, but these levels are dangerous, especially to an economy.
 
Nothing new. It's always been ridiculous :smh:

Also if you make ~34k / year, you are in the top 1% of the world.

Half of the 1% lives in the US.
 
 
The full report...Some of the additional statistics include (via Reddit):

  • Over the next 20 years, 500 people will hand over $2.1 trillion to their heirs – a sum larger than the GDP of India, a country of 1.3 billion people

  • The incomes of the poorest 10% of people increased by less than $3 a year between 1988 and 2011, while the incomes of the richest 1% increased 182 times as much.

  • one in nine people still go to bed hungry. Had growth been pro- poor between 1990 and 2010, 700 million more people, most of them women, would not be living in poverty today.

  • three-quarters of extreme poverty could in fact be eliminated now using existing resources, by increasing taxation and cutting down on military and other regressive spending.

  • over the last 25 years, the top 1% have gained more income than the bottom 50% put together.

  • Big businesses did well in 2015/16: profits are high and the world‟s 10 biggest corporations together have revenue greater than that of the government revenue of 180 countries combined.

  • In the 1980s, cocoa farmers received 18% of the value of a chocolate bar – today they get just 6%.

  • The International Labour Organization estimates that 21 million people are forced labourers, generating an estimated $150bn in profits each year.

  • The world‟s largest garment companies have all been linked to cotton-spinning mills in India, which routinely use the forced labour of girls.

  • Apple allegedly paid 0.005% of tax on its European profits in 2014.

  • Kenya is losing $1.1bn every year in tax exemptions for corporations, nearly twice its budget for health – this in a country where women have a 1 in 40 chance of dying childbirth.

  • In the UK, 10% of profits were returned to shareholders in 1970; this figure is now 70%.

  • Thirty years ago, pension funds owned 30% of shares in the UK; now they own only 3%.

  • The world‟s third richest man, Carlos Slim, controls approximately 70% of all mobile phone services and 65% of fixed lines in Mexico, costing 2% of GDP.

  • The 1,810 billionaires on the 2016 Forbes list, 89% of whom are men, own $6.5 trillion – as much wealth as the bottom 70% of humanity.

  • one-third of the world‟s billionaire wealth is derived from inherited wealth, while 43% can be linked to cronyism.

  • the wealth held by the super- rich since 2009 has increased by an average of 11% per year. If billionaires continue to secure these returns, we could see the world‟s first trillionaire in 25 years.

  • The fortune of Bill Gates has risen 50% or $25bn since he left Microsoft in 2006, despite his commendable efforts to give much of it away.

  • Countries compete to attract the super-rich, selling their sovereignty. For an investment of at least £2m, you can buy the right to live, work and buy property in the UK and benefit from generous tax breaks. In Malta, a major tax haven, you can buy full citizenship for $650,000.

  • $7.6 trillion of wealth is hidden offshore.

  • Africa alone loses $14bn in tax revenues due to the super-rich using tax havens – Oxfam has calculated this would be enough to pay for the healthcare that could save the lives of four million children and to employ enough teachers to get every African child into school.

  • In the US, the top rate of income tax was 70% as recently as 1980; it is now 40%.43 In the developing world, taxation on the rich is lower still: Oxfam‟s research shows that the average top rate is 30% on incomes, and the majority is never collected.   
 
Nothing new. It's always been ridiculous
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Also if you make ~34k / year, you are in the top 1% of the world.

Half of the 1% lives in the US.
I still don't understand how every living sole on this earth doesn't have reliable food, water, and shelter 
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Another issue is that our graduated income tax stops increasing at about 450k a year for joint filers. As if a family making 480k should be grouped with billionaires. But it's advantageous to the billionaire class because it psychologically works on the hundred thousandaires that are at or near the top bracket to side with the billionaire group in struggles between classes. It essentially gives the elite class tax breaks they shouldn't have with a truly graduated income tax, and gives them unknowing sleeper operatives amongst us that spew and spread their rhetoric and have it permeate the mindset of the masses.
 
Nothing new. It's always been ridiculous :smh:


Also if you make ~34k / year, you are in the top 1% of the world.


Half of the 1% lives in the US.


I still don't understand how every living sole on this earth doesn't have reliable food, water, and shelter :smh:

Same.

We have the resources, the allocation is just not right.
 
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