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World's Top 26 Billionaires Now Own as Much as the Poorest 3.8 Billion

posted by takyon on Tuesday January 22 2019, @10:32AM   
from the self-made-trillionaire dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

Global wealth inequality widened last year as billionaires increased their fortunes by $2.5 billion per day, anti-poverty campaigner Oxfam said in a new report.

While the poorest half of humanity saw their wealth dwindle by 11%, billionaires' riches increased by 12%. The mega-wealthy have also become a more concentrated bunch. Last year, the top 26 wealthiest people owned $1.4 trillion, or as much as the 3.8 billion poorest people. The year before, it was the top 43 people.

[...] To address many of these ills, Oxfam advocated raising taxes. It estimated that a 1% wealth tax would be enough to educate 262 million out of school children and to save 3.3 million lives. As of 2015 returns, Oxfam says that only four cents in every tax dollar collected globally came from tariffs on wealth, such as inheritance or property. The report also claims that the rich are hiding $7.6 trillion in offshore accounts

Previously: Only 1% of World's Population Grabbed 82% of all 2017 Wealth

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Original Submission

• Raising taxes? Raising taxes? (Score: 4, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 22 2019, @01:23PM (4 children)

  by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 22 2019, @01:23PM (#790058)

  Raising taxes will make no difference, this "wealth" is literally printed from thin air. Until people start grasping the consequences of this (a group of insiders gets first dibs on all new money and they use this to control governments), this will continue.

  Innane attempts to solve it by raising taxes just makes me laugh. Yea, dont let the rich people have the money, give it to the governments they control instead... great idea guys.

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• Re:Raising taxes? Re:Raising taxes? (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 22 2019, @07:23PM (3 children)

  by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 22 2019, @07:23PM (#790227)

  Libertardian click bait. Increase taxes on the wealthy and decrease taxes for everyone else. If there is a surplus of taxes we can then start paying off the national debt and/or funding more social programs such as universal healthcare and education.

  Too easy though, lets make up some bullshit about "trickle down" or "job creators deserve whatever they want".

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  • Re:Raising taxes? (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 22 2019, @07:32PM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 22 2019, @07:32PM (#790237)

    You will see. Even 100% taxes on everyone is not enough. Money needs to be printed, given to a group of insiders first, and they will hold the power. Taxes don't change the equation at all.

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  • Re:Raising taxes? Re:Raising taxes? (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 22 2019, @10:28PM (1 child)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 22 2019, @10:28PM (#790329)

    You underestimate the power of the baking cabal. Forgot the trillions given away as a reward for crashing markets in 2008 already?

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    • Re:Raising taxes? (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 23 2019, @04:13AM

      by khallow (3766) on Wednesday January 23 2019, @04:13AM (#790455) Journal

      To be fair 2008 was a long time ago, at least a couple of years maybe three. Who remembers that far back?

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