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posted by janrinok on Sunday October 25 2015, @05:53AM   Printer-friendly
from the return-of-feudalism dept.

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.


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  • (Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday October 25 2015, @08:35AM

    by frojack (1554) on Sunday October 25 2015, @08:35AM (#254283) Journal

    There is only so much wealth in the world, and even Warren Buffet can't spend it all.
    So he doesn't try to spend it. Instead he invests it. He buys and builds and generally spends his money by lining other people's pockets with it.

    Are we really hurt by that?

    I get the impression most people think of Scrooge McDuck, wallowing in his vaults of money when they think of rich people.
    Yet most of that money and wealth is used to employ people. Wealth does not gather moss.

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  • (Score: 1) by anubi on Sunday October 25 2015, @10:43AM

    by anubi (2828) on Sunday October 25 2015, @10:43AM (#254301) Journal

    Good post, Frojack. I guess if everyone had the same amount of money, we would all be poor - because none of us would have the necessary excess of capital required to do extraordinary things.

    Several weeks ago, I had posted a link to an old 1936 industrialist promotional movie of a Chevrolet production line. [youtube.com].

    For this to be, someone had to have an awful lot of money.

    What I do ask of my Government is create tax law to encourage using one's wealth to do stuff like this. Creating jobs for thousands of us. Someone has to have both the ability and the means to do stuff like this.

    Like you say, take away their money and their ability to do stuff like this has been destroyed.

    Then all of us can sit home unproductively instead of being collectively organized to take advantage of the economies of scale.

    Maybe income inequality is not such a bad thing. Even though I am not in the one percenter camp. I guess its whether the haves use their resources to build palaces for themselves or factories which inevitably produce goods for us all. I have to leave it to tax law to discourage one and encourage the latter.

    Personally, I would hate to see enraged rioters burn down a factory making washing machines... but if some rich guy is just slumlording, building himself a mansion in the hills from the misery of his minions, I would not lift a finger to stop the enraged minions from doing as they will if the slumlord loses control over them. Worse, I'd cheer them on and contribute what I could to their cause.

    --
    "Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
    • (Score: 2) by frojack on Sunday October 25 2015, @05:49PM

      by frojack (1554) on Sunday October 25 2015, @05:49PM (#254382) Journal

      Personally, I would hate to see enraged rioters burn down a factory making washing machines... but if some rich guy is just slumlording, building himself a mansion in the hills from the misery of his minions, I would not lift a finger to stop the enraged minions

      And I don't deny there are some of these. But even their mansions are built by others.
      Its hard to be rich and not spend money.

      Some people I suppose just buy and sell Stock, which, unless you are buying IPO issues, is not that productive for society as a whole. It does free up someone else's money, but there is a lot of money tied up in revolving investments that don't generate a lot of new production.

      Much as we seem to bemoan the Venture Capitalist, they are the ones plowing money directly back into society.

      --
      No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
      • (Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 25 2015, @09:39PM

        by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 25 2015, @09:39PM (#254444)

        In another recent thread, you were speaking as if Capitalism is the -only- economic system to have ever existed.
        You're still at it.

        For [a factory] to [exist], someone had to have an awful lot of money

        ...or a bunch of somebodies (workers) could have pooled their resources and created their own workplace.

        ask [...] my Government [to] create tax law to encourage using one's wealth to do stuff like this

        Gov't gutting the tax base in favor of a tiny number of rich guys is abandoning THE MAJORITY.
        It's a race to the bottom.
        Govt's job is to organize efforts to do the most good for the greatest number of people.
        If you're not going to do your fucking jobs and you instead fob that off on some distant exploiter of local labor and local resources, why do we need YOU?

        Someone has to have both the ability and the means to do stuff like this

        ...like The Workers who actually get those jobs done??

        In a properly-operating system, the city|state gov't would function in the interest of The Working Class (y'know, THE MAJORITY) and would make sure that those jobs / that infrastructure exist for the empowerment of the region.
        That gov't would accomplish that goal by working directly with The Workers (instead of with some absentee landlord who doesn't give a shit about what happens to the region 5 years from now when he takes another sweetheart deal from another gov't and moves the factory there).

        enraged rioters burn down a factory

        ...or, instead of allowing the elites to do things that disempower The Working Class, the Government of The People actually works for The People.
        When the elites say "We're moving to China", the city|state gov't says "Fine--but the factory stays here. We're buying it under Eminent Domain and keeping our citizens employed and our tax base healthy."

        whether the haves use their resources to build palaces for themselves or factories

        ...except that they don't do either these days.

        Housing? They buy each other's EXISTING stuff at ever-inflated prices--pumping up prices in the broader real estate market with each turnover.

        Those dollars may as well be chalk marks on the wall (or rubber penis extensions for the insecure little boys who obviously need those).

        Apphole has $200B in excess cash.
        How are they investing it? They aren't.
        "Job creators"? Pffff.
        So, what are they doing with all that spare cash?
        They're buying back stock to further pump up the price of their stock for benefit of their majority stockholders (1 Percenters).

        It's all completely artificial.
        Even if you're comfortable with Capitalism as a concept, the current paradigm is NOT a healthy way to do it.

        -- gewg_

  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 25 2015, @09:09PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Sunday October 25 2015, @09:09PM (#254432)

    Except what you realize that they severely underpay people, bribe governments to give them unprecedented amounts of people (think TPP, the corporate supremacy treaty), and do many other nasty things to get where they are. But of course, all of this is nullified when they throw some pennies at those they employ, right? "Trickle-down" economics is pure bullshit; the only thing that trickles down is urine and contempt.