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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   Printer-friendly
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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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by Thexalon on Tuesday January 22 2019, @03:26PM (2 children)

    by Thexalon (636) on Tuesday January 22 2019, @03:26PM (#790091)

    For what it's worth, both BillG and Warren Buffett have been pretty clear that their kids are only getting enough to live comfortably, maybe a few million each, and are determined to give away the rest.

    I think it's possible to be not a complete jerk and be super-rich. But the path to doing that involves ruthlessly giving away a lot of your riches. It's one of those ideas that Jesus guy was about (see Matthew 19:16-24, Mark 10:17-25, Luke 18:18-25), which for some reason the prosperity gospel types tend to not emphasize. And other religions have similar ideas too, it's not just Christians.

    --
    The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by linkdude64 on Tuesday January 22 2019, @06:46PM

    by linkdude64 (5482) on Tuesday January 22 2019, @06:46PM (#790199)

    Notice that the giving pledge is not a Chinese invention, and I seriously doubt many top-profile chinese billionaires will be doing anything of the sort

  • (Score: 2) by Nuke on Wednesday January 23 2019, @10:24AM

    by Nuke (3162) on Wednesday January 23 2019, @10:24AM (#790552)

    Gates remains a complete jerk whatever he does wiith his money.