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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: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 29 2019, @11:48PM (5 children)

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Tuesday January 29 2019, @11:48PM (#793832) Journal
    It's a cool story, bro, but there's nothing there to understand. It's a standard blame displacement game. Since the Second World War, there were a few decades for the UK when you got everything you asked for. That so happened to have the unintended consequences of the creation of a successful conservative movement in the 1980s. There's been a similar replay of those circumstances with the EU/Brexit mess.

    Bottom line is that you obsess over and over again with "health care" rather than a viable society to provide that health care or even good consequences to that health care. That indicates to me a severe myopia which probably filters your entire world view. That doesn't mean that I believe the Brexit movement is firing on all cylinders. But this didn't happen in a vacuum. There are real problems you are ignoring here.

  • (Score: 2) by turgid on Thursday January 31 2019, @05:47PM (4 children)

    by turgid (4318) on Thursday January 31 2019, @05:47PM (#794612) Journal

    How very patronising.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday February 01 2019, @04:00AM

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday February 01 2019, @04:00AM (#794865) Journal
      And yet, we can look at history, such as the evolution of the UK from a dying empire prior to the Second World War to the present day. There's a lot to be patronized about.

    • (Score: 1) by khallow on Friday February 01 2019, @04:28AM (2 children)

      by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Friday February 01 2019, @04:28AM (#794870) Journal
      I might add here that I don't have a lot of patience for people who get what they want... and then blame deflect about it afterward. You have your sexy universal health care and you have the society that goes along with that. Well, turns out that there's more important things to have in a society than affordable health theater for the masses.