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Common Dreams reports
The world's richest 1 percent now own more wealth than [the remaining] 99 percent combined. This finding comes from Credit Suisse's Global Wealth Report for 2015, [redirects to a PDF] released last week. Last year, Credit Suisse found the richest 1 percent of adults owned 48 percent of global wealth. According to the new report, the [richest] 1 percent now hold 50.4 percent of all the world's household wealth.
Credit Suisse's findings are in line with Oxfam's prediction that global wealth inequality is only becoming greater. Last January, we predicted that the richest 1 percent would capture more than half of all household wealth by 2016. It looks like our prediction was right, but that we were too conservative, since it has happened a year early. Alas, our forecast was confirmed, but it's nothing to celebrate.
When you look at the very top of the global wealth pyramid, the situation is much more alarming. When we first calculated in January 2014, the 85 richest individuals own more wealth than the poorest half of the planet. This trend has also worsened since that time. Last January, it was down to 80 people.
The implications of rising extreme wealth inequality are greatly worrying. The highly unbalanced concentration of economic resources in the hands of fewer and fewer people impacts social stability within countries and threatens security on a global scale. It makes poverty reduction harder, threatens political inclusion, and compounds other inequalities.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by linkdude64 on Sunday October 25 2015, @07:33AM
Fear, the ultimate and illogical motivator of all greed and power-grabbing, is a bestial thing. Acting for the benefit of others is a very human thing. For example: Astronauts risk life and limb in the pursuit of knowledge, working to overcome their own fears, for a greater purpose, on a regular basis. So I think you are wrong. The only solution to greed is to BE human, and NOT be an animal motivated only by selfish fear.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Mr Big in the Pants on Sunday October 25 2015, @07:38AM
This is a lie hollywood tells you to make you feel better.
Look around. What you describe is the exception.
I am talking averages here, not outliers.
I am being a realist here, not a delusional optimist...
(Score: 4, Insightful) by linkdude64 on Sunday October 25 2015, @08:40AM
I formulated my delusional comment around your delusional comment. Now you have moved from the delusional stance of "This is what humans are" to the more reasonable stance of "This is what *many* humans are," a big step. So the real question here is not, "How do we stop being human?" It's "Where did those outliers come from, and how do we work to improve human behavior?" I have an idea: Books. No, ISIS doesn't want to read books and is not curious to learn, but I would wager that every child is curious and not inherently biased. They need books. Hollywood sells hope, but Hollywood did not invent hope. Hollywood did not invent charity, Hollywood did not invent knowledge, nor generosity, people did.
(Score: 2) by Mr Big in the Pants on Sunday October 25 2015, @07:29PM
Nope.
When describing populations that is exactly how you proceed.
Your method is called cherry picking.
The current and past state of the world agrees with me.
QED on my point.
I completely agree with your idealistic goal for humanity (despite what you may think I am an idealist at heart) but that is an asperational discussion about transforming default human nature into something other than that.
In other words become something other than human...the thing we currently are.
Again. QED.
(Score: 1) by linkdude64 on Monday October 26 2015, @02:16AM
Citing the objective existence of generosity to disprove a black and white statement is cherry picking? I think our operational definition of the word "Human" is what's creating the miscommunication here, and we can't be referring to biology alone, as we are biologically geared to be social creatures. So, claiming to understand with certainty, the "Default" behavior of human nature is a very intriguing thing to me, so please do go on, Euthyphro.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mmcmonster on Sunday October 25 2015, @03:05PM
Let me look at the people around me. They all make $100k/year. I would guess that most make $50k/year.
They all donate to the local food drives and when someone is properly sick (cancer, broken bones, etc.) they make sure they have a little extra money or whatever support they need to get by.
That is being human.
I don't begrudge the hard working who manages to make enough to retire early. The 'millionaire next door'. We all work hard to be that person. In fact, I'm kinda there already. Working to have a better retirement and secure my children's education and well being.
The multi-billionaires are different. The drive that makes the mega-billionaire makes them less human as well.
At some point it's not only too much, but it's too much by orders of magnitude.
(Score: 2) by Mr Big in the Pants on Sunday October 25 2015, @07:27PM
You would be wrong. While the AVERAGE wage is 50k, the MEDIAN wage (the one that counts) is $27k. For those that struggle with stats that means half of the US makes that or less...while the average just means the total money/number of people: a meaningless figure in this discussion.
This does not change the point - actually the difference brings it home. The wealthy sit at the top insulated from reality while the rest just have to put up with it,
In a 1st world country you tend to be able to put your head up your arse about it because the water level is so high that even the meager amount that trickles down for the middle class is enough to pay the food bill++. But that is more to do with technology.
Any time that water level drops, say due to disaster, you will quickly see how much like a a 3rd world country your economic system is. (e.g briefly during Katrina)
(Score: 2) by mmcmonster on Sunday October 25 2015, @08:09PM
I do agree that the mean income in the US sucks quite badly. The only reason the standard of living in the US hasn't fallen significantly in the last 40 years is that in most couples now both the husband and wife work full time.
Now, couple that with the higher incidence of divorce compared to 40 years ago, and you can see that the country is in for a world of hurt. It would explain the communal living situations that so many people in their 20s and 30s are getting into. Having roommates in their 30s, getting divorced but still living under the same roof for convenience/cost issues, moving back in with their parents making multi-generational households.
Frankly the only out I see is taxing the super-rich more and using the money to give a baseline income for everyone.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 25 2015, @10:37PM
> Any time that water level drops, say due to disaster, you will quickly see how much like a a 3rd world country your economic system is. (e.g briefly during Katrina)
Katrina is the perfect example. All the reporting on the news about mobs, looting and murders was 99% bullshit. [ajrarchive.org] The reality of Katrina was regular people coming together to selflessly help regular people to get through a disaster. Turns out that's what happens in practically every disaster - you might remember all the people rushing to the twin towers on 9/11.
When your own example disprove your theories, its time to dig a little deeper.
(Score: 2) by Mr Big in the Pants on Monday October 26 2015, @05:10AM
But what was your govt and police response? What did those in power do?
How many people died when they did not need to? What was the rebuild like?
And 911 was an international disaster that was used to the fullest to promote even more evil in the middle east.
Not sure why that disproves anything...
(Score: 3, Insightful) by hash14 on Sunday October 25 2015, @02:13PM
I think your average humans are normal people.
I think the problem is that the ones who grab power are inherently evil. Some are evil before they acquire that power, others are simply corrupted by it once they have it. And bear in mind that wealth is power (or at least one form of it).
The reason they win is because humans simply aren't good at working together on the scales that we need to in order take out these powerful figures. We don't vote for sensible laws and policies, we don't educate each other very well (or think independently), and we sure as hell don't assemble in masses that are sufficient to take that power back.
So that's why a few evil people will always win out over a community of relatively good people. We wait until it's too late and then it's all gone to hell.
(Score: 2) by Murdoc on Monday October 26 2015, @01:34AM
That's a bit too cynical I think, but I can see how it is easy to come to that conclusion. The fact is that our largest and most advanced societies are much better than most of the ones in history, the kingdoms and dictatorships and empires. We have more freedoms, and a greater standard of living than ever before. It's not just because of technology, but also because of social support. I think that we are capable of working together on these large scales. The problems we are encountering today are not due to inherent human traits, it's the economic system we use: it rewards bad behaviour with wealth and, as you say, that grants power. We have laws to try and prevent and catch crime, but that only catches the criminals that aren't good enough. It's like how antibiotics "create" better diseases; if you don't wipe it out the first time, those that survive create more. Except in the case of criminals they don't necessarily make more criminals, just more wealth so that they become stronger and better able to commit crimes. Become wealthy and powerful enough, and you can influence the laws and the law-enforcement to make you even harder to stop. It's the system's fault, not human nature. The fact that so many humans still manage to find the time and resources to do good things despite being penalized for it shows us what human nature is really about. What we need is a new form of economics that rewards good behaviour instead of bad behaviour. Then people will adjust to that and things will be much better.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Murdoc on Monday October 26 2015, @01:25AM
You are so right here. Human beings are capable of greater levels of cooperation and charity than any other animal. Part of that is due to our intelligence, but just being smart doesn't mean that you'll cooperate well. We could all be very cunning in our backstabbing each other, and yet we have created large nations and even groups of nations that are capable of providing aid to other groups and nations. No other animal does this. Sure, we have lots of bad behaviour going on, but that's because we are continuing to use an economic system that rewards bad behaviour. Crime pays, as long as you can get away with it. The law just catches the criminals that aren't good enough, so the ones that are get rewarded with wealth and power. With enough wealth and power you can manipulate the laws and law-enforcement to make you even harder to catch (do CEOs or corporations go to jail?). If we could use a different system that didn't reward bad behaviour, and rewarded good behaviour instead, humans would adjust to that, and our natural abilities to be "good" would flourish.
In fact, the fact that we live in such system that rewards bad behaviour and penalizes good behaviour (volunteers and those that give to charity lose wealth and therefore power as well), and many people still manage to be good (look at all the volunteers and those that give to charity; heck, even open source programmers are a great example of this), is a testament to the very "human" quality we have to try to be good. And there is good reason for that: Being good creates better societies, which in turn give a better standard of living. Do you think we'd have charity and social programs if we were living in a dictatorship?