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

posted by martyb on Saturday January 27 2018, @12:43PM   Printer-friendly
from the I-got-mine!-And-Yours.-And-Yours.-Annnnnd-yours,-too. dept.

canopic jug writes:

The 1% grabbed 82% of all wealth created in 2017

More than $8 of every $10 of wealth created last year went to the richest 1%.

That's according to a new report from Oxfam International, which estimates that the bottom 50% of the world's population saw no increase in wealth.

Oxfam says the trend shows that the global economy is skewed in favor of the rich, rewarding wealth instead of work.

"The billionaire boom is not a sign of a thriving economy but a symptom of a failing economic system," said Winnie Byanyima, executive director of Oxfam International.

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  • (Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @06:33PM (3 children)

    by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @06:33PM (#629024)

    Keep selling yourself that lie. Raising taxes primarily on the super wealthy and a little on everyone else to pay for universal healthcare is really quite different from your reactionary screeching about kicking you to the curb and stealing your hard earned numerical counters. The simple fact is you refuse to acknowledge what is wrong with the world because you have been able to make it work for you, and no not everyone is simply lacking your work ethic. It is just that not everyone is able to start a successful business for themselves. Not only does a business usually require massive capital to start (from a poor person's POV) but it also needs to worry about a small concept called "market saturation."

    Meh, I just realized I'm wasting my words, you've seen all this info before and still fall back to your child like screeching of MINE MINE MINE!

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  • (Score: 2, Informative) by khallow on Saturday January 27 2018, @06:53PM (2 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Saturday January 27 2018, @06:53PM (#629034) Journal

    Meh, I just realized I'm wasting my words, you've seen all this info before and still fall back to your child like screeching of MINE MINE MINE!

    You're projecting an awful lot for someone who claims to see the truth. And words like "info" have meaning. Info != opinion.

    The simple fact is you refuse to acknowledge what is wrong with the world because you have been able to make it work for you, and no not everyone is simply lacking your work ethic. It is just that not everyone is able to start a successful business for themselves. Not only does a business usually require massive capital to start (from a poor person's POV) but it also needs to worry about a small concept called "market saturation."

    Nobody said starting a business would be trivial. Not even TMB. It's this sort of clueless, fallacy-ridden argument that annoys me. Moving on, sure, not everyone lacks work ethic. There's also recreational drugs, financial incompetence, anti-wealth beliefs, or deliberate action to qualify for government benefits. Assuming everyone who is poor got that way due to bad luck is deluding themselves. My view is that people with actual bad luck do make up a portion of the poor, but not enough to throw the statistics a great deal.

    • (Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @07:38PM (1 child)

      by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @07:38PM (#629065)

      Reality strongly disagrees with you and it just so happens that the majority of people are on the shit-end of the stick. You are blowing a bunch of hot air into a blizzard of cold hard facts you evil little thing.

      • (Score: 2, Interesting) by khallow on Sunday January 28 2018, @03:56AM

        by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday January 28 2018, @03:56AM (#629317) Journal

        Reality strongly disagrees with you

        Funny how no one ever comes up with a bit of this reality. I've been corrected a large number of times just this month and not a one mentions any sort of real world evidence, much less a "blizzard" of cold hard facts. Here's an example [cleveland.com] of a cold, hard fact people tend to ignore:

        It seems difficult to believe: The lucky winners, possibly three, of Wednesday's $1.5 billion Powerball jackpot will probably go bankrupt within five years.

        In fact, about 70 percent of people who win a lottery or get a big windfall actually end up broke in a few years, according to the National Endowment for Financial Education.

        So people who should have the advantages now that they have large amounts of money, still flame out at a far higher rate than normal for those ranges of wealth. The story goes on to discuss why:

        The biggest problem, several finance advisers agreed, is that lottery winners give away too much money to family and friends.

        "Once family and friends learn of the windfall, they have expectations of what they should be entitled to, and many of these expectations are not rational," said Charles Conrad, senior financial planner with Szarka Financial in North Olmsted. "It can be very difficult to say no."

        The easy solution would be to rely on a third party to act as a gatekeeper, Conrad said, but many lottery winners don't turn to anyone to intercept the flood of requests from all of those "close" friends and relatives. The same thing often applies to professional athletes who get huge contracts, he said.

        In other words, the culture of the lottery winners turns toxic and they aren't prepared to deal with it. There is this constant vapid assuring that the rich have all kinds of advantages that normal people don't have. That blame mostly falls on other parties for the poverty of the poor. Yet we see here the other side of the coin. Lottery winners (and similar large windfall people) are rich and lucky. But that doesn't help them stay rich and lucky. Perhaps we should think of why that happens rather than lecturing me on what some imaginary "reality" thinks.