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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
(Score: 4, Interesting) by khallow on Tuesday January 22 2019, @05:23PM (6 children)
In other words, there were more billionaires than before - congrats guys - and some people, probably young adults in the developed world, borrowed more money than last year. The actual poorest people in the world probably, yet again, saw a large improvement in their income of one or two percent as they have for the past 30-50 years.
The stats get progressively more and more stupid and dishonest each year they're repeated. I think we'll all see the flaw with these sorts of statistics when the 50% poorest people have as much wealth as a large negative number of billionaires. Last I heard, a person without a penny to their name owned more that the "poorest" 30% of humanity. This percentage has apparently gone up.
Once again, using "wealth inequality" as a metric is profoundly stupid because:
Oxfam has been aware of the problems with the measure they use for wealth inequality and uses it anyway. At this point, there is an obvious better measure of wealth inequality - income inequality. It doesn't accurately measure the wealthiest who don't have wealth generated by income, but for the vast majority of humanity, it's much more accurate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 22 2019, @09:52PM (2 children)
https://www.theguardian.com/news/2019/jan/22/the-new-elites-phoney-crusade-to-save-the-world-without-changing-anything [theguardian.com]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 23 2019, @02:02AM (1 child)
Anand Giridharadas has a book that needs selling. Please buy.
As to his argument, sure, the world isn't perfect, but it's interesting how he exaggerates the imperfection. For a topical example,
There's no mention that Oxfam's measure of wealth inequality is nonsense, is there? Or that the number of billionaires (a huge reason for the wealth increase by itself) increased by 13% from 1949 to 2208 [wikipedia.org]. Or that the real bottom half of humanity continues to get better as it has since around 1970? But the "voting public" has grown more recentful and suspicious as a result.
In reality, with real facts [soylentnews.org], the people of the world are doing the best they have ever done, no matter how many centuries you choose to go back.
There's plenty more bull where that came from. He decries how low return on investment that health care, research, education, etc has become without mentioning that it's still great health care, research, etc. Wealth inequality or vague "social arrangements" aren't responsible for the entropy of societal systems.
The modern doomsayers of our time can't sell books, if people don't believe the sky is falling. But you can help. Just be a complete, gullible mark, swallow every lie they dish out, and make sure you enter the credit card # right when you buy that scary book that's going to tell you how everything is some rich dude's fault, except for the modern, shiny, generous societies that resulted.
Want to make global wealth inequality smaller for reals rather than merely complain about it for tax purposes? First, measure it accurately with future income and public safety nets included. That right there will show a remarkable improvement in wealth inequality. Continuing the good work, increase global economic immigration, reduce or eliminate professional licensing requirements, (following the little bit of not terrible advice of the main story) a revenue neutral, zero loophole 1% wealth tax (turn it into a UBI) - otherwise outright ignoring the rich, global women suffrage, and eliminating a great deal of global corruption, protectionism, and counterproductive regulatory policies (particularly in the developed world where most of the wealth lies).
Also be aware that wealth inequality is here to stay - that's a big part of why it's such a great target for concern trollers like Oxfam and Giridharadas in the first place. People never will be equally interested, competent, and lucky at accumulating wealth. It's a perceive problem that will stay a perceived problem no matter what is done. Please also be aware that rich people aren't the only ones who aren't winners in a lessened global wealth inequality situation. So are those living in the developed world.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 23 2019, @04:02AM
Oops. Miscalculated that. Still an 8% increase in population combined with inflation probably explains most of the 12% increase in alleged wealth of billionaires.
(Score: 1) by Tokolosh on Wednesday January 23 2019, @03:28AM (1 child)
"While the poorest half of humanity saw their wealth dwindle by 11%, billionaires' riches increased by 12%."
I find this very hard to believe. All the information points to poorer people having more wealth and a better standard of living. I'll concede that their proportion of wealth may have declined, but in absolute terms they are better off.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 23 2019, @03:58AM
What's going on in the first part is that developed world people with net debt are collecting underneath the poorest people in the world. By the perversely screwy measure of wealth inequality that Oxfam uses, if you're a beggar in Somalia, you're worth $40k more than a recent US college grad with a new $50k a year job at a top 100 firm and $40k in student loans with no present assets to speak of. That college grad can continue to be the "poorer" person as they borrow to buy a house, and maybe pay off some credit cards they grew too loose with, all the while enjoying a vastly better standard of living than the "wealthier" Somalian beggar.
Now suppose that developed world underhang happens to borrow more money this year than they did last year? Now your "poorest 50%" are suddenly significantly lower net asset than before due to the increase in debt.
If we had treated income as part of wealth rather than stupidly ignoring it, then the college grad would have a lot of wealth in the form of future income - so a more accurate balance sheet might have $700k in present value of future income versus $40k in debt - all inflation adjusted, resulting in a net wealth of $660k. The Somalia beggar might have a annual income of $100, and thus, a net wealth of perhaps $1400 using the same multiplier, career span, etc.
Moving on to the billionaire side, the killer observation is that there was a substantial increase in the number of billionaires from last year, from 2043 to 2208 [wikipedia.org] (I was in error the last time I reported this number). It's an 8% increase in the number of people who are billionaires. There probably is some natural increase in the wealth of these billionaires, but the Oxfam report blows off both the increase in population and inflation.
(Score: 2) by choose another one on Wednesday January 23 2019, @07:33AM
Yep.
Another flaw is that apparently they convert everything to $ (USD) before comparing, making the whole lot subject to exchange rate variations.
I really don't get how they have found billionaires wealth went up by 12% last year though - most of most billionaires' wealth is paper in shares, which went _down_ by way more than that last year, weird. Maybe they only count it when the rich gain money and forget to count it when they lose?