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posted by
martyb
on Saturday January 27 2018, @12:43PM
from the I-got-mine!-And-Yours.-And-Yours.-Annnnnd-yours,-too. dept.
from the I-got-mine!-And-Yours.-And-Yours.-Annnnnd-yours,-too. dept.
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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Only 1% of World's Population Grabbed 82% of all 2017 Wealth
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There is nothing wrong with Southern California that a rise in the
ocean level wouldn't cure.
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(Score: 5, Insightful) by RedBear on Saturday January 27 2018, @06:02PM (4 children)
I often wonder if there is a point where a worshipper of unregulated capitalism will finally acknowledge that it is an unhealthy, self-destructive economic system. If one of these days it is reported that ten ultra-wealthy individuals control 99.99999% of all the world's wealth, will that finally be enough to get people to see that an unregulated capitalist system is incompatible with a functional, free human civilization? Every year the system gets more and more skewed toward people already who have so much money they literally have no idea what to do with it, and could never spend it all in their lifetime. Yet the faith that rudderless profit-maximizing capitalism is the ultimate economic system never seems to waver. No matter how many times a capitalist economy is allowed to run amuck and destroy itself, it's never capitalism's fault.
Whenever we have this conversation it's extraordinarily idiotic. It mostly comes down to people getting their panties in a twist and screaming that communism is evil, and that everything besides chaotically unfettered capitalism equals "communism". That is the overly simplistic viewpoint of a child. Nobody wants to destroy capitalism. Nobody wants the rich people to stop being the richest people in existence. In fact, nobody really cares that rich people are rich. What we want is for capitalism to be regulated so that it stays healthy and is more compatible with humanity, with human beings getting treated as something other than robots to be abused and discarded.
Imagine one of those big fancy courtyard water fountains. You put water in the pool at the bottom, turn on the pump, and water sprays out the top, in an endless loop. Sometimes the pool is full, sometimes the water goes down from evaporation or a leak, but generally the cycle just goes on and on. But the way we are implementing capitalism, it's like a bunch of selfish jerks are diverting most of the water spraying out the top of the fountain into a separate tank. They pour a little bit back in the pool now and then, but most of it just sits there in the separate tank, stagnating. And then we wonder why periodically the fountain starts to struggle and fail to pump water.
The wealthy aren't job creators, they are wealth hoarders. Small businesses are job creators. The wealthy are literally just siphoning off wealth from everyone below them in the capitalist hierarchy and amassing huge personal fortunes. They invest some of it, sure, to make themselves even more money. But most just sits idly in banks not doing a damn thing to help the economy grow and continue functioning.
Here's the funniest part. Those same rich people would still be the richest people on Earth even if they were siphoning off a much smaller percentage of global wealth, and reinvesting or redistributing much more of what they are currently hoarding. Not only would all of us lower classes be so much better off because there would be more capital to work with, but the wealthy themselves would be healthier and happier, and safer, and still ridiculously wealthy. There are a number of wealthy people who understand this, and they advocate for higher taxation of the highest income brackets. Rising income inequality is bad for rich people too. The only thing they get out of it is money, and every other measure of life is negatively affected for rich as well as poor.
Acknowledging that capitalism needs regulation to be stable is not about hating capitalism itself. It's about acknowledging that capitalism plus natural human greed and capitalistic competition leads to an unhealthy consolidation of too many resources in too few hands, and such systems tend to collapse spectacularly. The alternative is not totalitarian forced communism but capitalism with some relief valves built in that keep resource consolidation from getting completely out of hand. There is a reason Congress finally passed the Sherman Antitrust Act, and a reason that we don't speak of the Gilded Age as a happy or stable historical period.
How is this such a difficult concept? Why is this such a terrifying concept? How is it possible to think that allowing a single human being to "own" our entire planet could ever be beneficial for humanity or the economy? Why should any sane person want that to occur? We aren't there yet, but that is the end point of the path we are traveling. Eight wealthy individuals now hold 50% of the wealth of our entire nation. That's not a good thing or a healthy thing. That's nuts.
¯\_ʕ◔.◔ʔ_/¯ LOL. I dunno. I'm just a bear.
... Peace out. Got bear stuff to do. 彡ʕ⌐■.■ʔ
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday January 27 2018, @11:56PM (2 children)
Because duh, I might be one of those 1% one day and if not, Jesus will reward me after I die for being poor.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @03:05AM (1 child)
Actually, it's consumers that are the job creators.
That empty space on the shelf after you've picked up something and taken it to the checkout counter represents a need for a worker to make another widget to fill that space.
When the Capitalist exploiters won't pay a living wage to their employees, The Workers don't have money to buy that widget, there's no need for another widget to be produced, and the consumption feedback loop breaks down.
That's called an economic downturn.
Keep it up and you have a depression.
Oh, and Henry Ford had this stuff figured out over a century ago.
The latest batch of "geniuses" are oblivious WRT the wisdom of George Santayana and they refuse to learn from the past.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday January 28 2018, @10:11PM
That's silly. Do you think people were crying out for light bulbs, auto-mobiles or washing machines before these things were commercialized? You may as well say it's the advertiser that is the job creator for convincing the consumer to purchase items they do not need.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by acid andy on Sunday January 28 2018, @04:42PM
This right here is the best post in the whole thread. Shame the Scaley-Footèd One probably missed it.
Master of the science of the art of the science of art.