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

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: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 22 2019, @09:38PM (6 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 22 2019, @09:38PM (#790305)

    Then there's heroic health care theater in the last year of life. That's the death cult stuff, I imagine.

    And I imagine that you are going to feel quite differently about that "health care theater" when it comes down to your last year of life. Just sayin'.

  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 23 2019, @12:15AM (5 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 23 2019, @12:15AM (#790382) Journal

    And I imagine that you are going to feel quite differently about that "health care theater" when it comes down to your last year of life. Just sayin'.

    It's still health care theater no matter how many death bed confessions there are.

    • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 23 2019, @02:31AM (4 children)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday January 23 2019, @02:31AM (#790422)

      I'm just saying that you may feel quite differently about it when it is your life on the line.

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 23 2019, @03:28AM (2 children)

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 23 2019, @03:28AM (#790442) Journal
        Still doesn't mean that much. Things like pain management and assisted end of life hygiene, would have to go through the theater. And as long as my assets are protected (say by giving them away to family and friends and then going on some single payer system like Medicaid), there's not much downside aside from a few months of life give or take.

        Plus, by the time I reach my end of life, I might not be given the choice to avoid health care theater. Because only a mentally incompetent person who wasn't legally capable of making health care decisions would ever want to avoid extremely costly, painful, and ineffective medical care, right?
        • (Score: 3, Interesting) by aristarchus on Wednesday January 23 2019, @07:16AM (1 child)

          by aristarchus (2645) on Wednesday January 23 2019, @07:16AM (#790494) Journal

          And as long as my assets are protected

          You are going to die, khallow. Nothing of you will remain. Your "assets", as you so fondly name them, will be the assets of no one, or in other words, not assets at all. Now you can try to prolong your miserable and quotidian existence by establishing an "estate", a legal fiction. But this will soon be torn apart by what ever alleged "heirs" you leave, and if not them, the Mighty Buzzard Lawyers that feed off such carcasses as you yourself will leave.

          So get over it, khallow. You will leave nothing. The earth owns you and will reclaim your body, and humanity will, if it does at all, only remember you as a quasi-libertarian troll on TMB's blog. You will leave nothing, having accomplished nothing. And time will go on. You already are not competent to make care decisions. Only market decisions. How much for your liver, then?

          • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 23 2019, @03:19PM

            by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 23 2019, @03:19PM (#790620) Journal

            Your "assets", as you so fondly name them, will be the assets of no one, or in other words, not assets at all.

            And yet I described how that wasn't true. I'm not looking for permanence in such things.

            Now you can try to prolong your miserable and quotidian existence by establishing an "estate", a legal fiction.

            Which can have the interesting side effect of helping people I like.

            But this will soon be torn apart by what ever alleged "heirs" you leave

            As would be their right.

      • (Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday January 23 2019, @04:37AM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Wednesday January 23 2019, @04:37AM (#790463) Journal
        And this creepy insistence that I'll feel differently when I'm the one dying? That's traditional death cult stuff. But I suppose I might feel differently when I meet the great Ra, Who Shines Forth from the Horizon Every Day, on his Sun Boat while inconveniently missing a few body parts. Because I was too cheap to get the good embalming.