Middle class screwed: Richest 1 Percent To Own More Than Half Of The World's Wealth By 2016, | By Jade Walker The rich keep getting richer, and by next year, just a handful of the...

Glaucon

Richest 1 Percent To Own More Than Half Of The World's Wealth By 2016,
| By Jade Walker

The rich keep getting richer, and by next year, just a handful of the upper-class will have accumulated more than half of the world's wealth.
A new report released on Monday by Oxfam warns that this deepening global ine******y is unlike anything seen in recent years.
Using research from Credit Suisse and Forbes' annual billionaires list, the anti-poverty charity was able to determine that the richest 1 percent of the world's population currently controls 48 percent of the world's total wealth.
If trends continue, Oxfam predicts that the most-affluent will possess more wealth than the remaining 99 percent by 2016, The New York Times reported.
Drill down the numbers even more and you'll learn that the 80 wealthiest people in the world possess $1.9 trillion, which is almost the same amount shared by some 3.5 billion people at the bottom half of the world's income scale.
Thirty-five of the lucky 80 were Americans with a combined wealth of $941 billion. Germany and Russia shared second place, with seven uber-rich individuals apiece.
Not surprisingly, the richest were titans in the finance, health care, insurance, retail, tech and extractives (oil, gas) industries, and they paid fortunes to lobbyists to maintain or increase their riches. Seventy of the world's wealthiest were men. And 11 members of the elite 80 simply inherited their wealth.
"Do we really want to live in a world where the 1 percent own more than the rest of us combined?" Oxfam executive director Winnie Byanyima said in a letter. "The scale of global ine******y is quite simply staggering and despite the issues shooting up the global agenda, the gap between the richest and the rest is widening fast."
This week, more than 2,500 of the world's rich and powerful will fly to Switzerland on hundreds of private jets to attend the World Economic Forum. There they will chat about the financial markets and economic trends while eating the finest food and staying in Davos' five-star hotels.
Oxfam will also be in Davos, urging the wealthy and powerful to tackle the rising ine******y situation. The charity hopes to encourage world and business leaders to improve public services, introduce living wages, end the g****r pay gap and crack down on tax-dodging corporations, Reuters reported.
In the meantime, more than 1 billion people on this planet continue to live on less than $1.25 a day

JMHO Loc: Utah

Glaucon wrote:

Richest 1 Percent To Own More Than Half Of The World's Wealth By 2016,
| By Jade Walker

The rich keep getting richer, and by next year, just a handful of the upper-class will have accumulated more than half of the world's wealth.
A new report released on Monday by Oxfam warns that this deepening global ine******y is unlike anything seen in recent years.
Using research from Credit Suisse and Forbes' annual billionaires list, the anti-poverty charity was able to determine that the richest 1 percent of the world's population currently controls 48 percent of the world's total wealth.
If trends continue, Oxfam predicts that the most-affluent will possess more wealth than the remaining 99 percent by 2016, The New York Times reported.
Drill down the numbers even more and you'll learn that the 80 wealthiest people in the world possess $1.9 trillion, which is almost the same amount shared by some 3.5 billion people at the bottom half of the world's income scale.
Thirty-five of the lucky 80 were Americans with a combined wealth of $941 billion. Germany and Russia shared second place, with seven uber-rich individuals apiece.
Not surprisingly, the richest were titans in the finance, health care, insurance, retail, tech and extractives (oil, gas) industries, and they paid fortunes to lobbyists to maintain or increase their riches. Seventy of the world's wealthiest were men. And 11 members of the elite 80 simply inherited their wealth.
"Do we really want to live in a world where the 1 percent own more than the rest of us combined?" Oxfam executive director Winnie Byanyima said in a letter. "The scale of global ine******y is quite simply staggering and despite the issues shooting up the global agenda, the gap between the richest and the rest is widening fast."
This week, more than 2,500 of the world's rich and powerful will fly to Switzerland on hundreds of private jets to attend the World Economic Forum. There they will chat about the financial markets and economic trends while eating the finest food and staying in Davos' five-star hotels.
Oxfam will also be in Davos, urging the wealthy and powerful to tackle the rising ine******y situation. The charity hopes to encourage world and business leaders to improve public services, introduce living wages, end the g****r pay gap and crack down on tax-dodging corporations, Reuters reported.
In the meantime, more than 1 billion people on this planet continue to live on less than $1.25 a day

Richest 1 Percent To Own More Than Half Of The Wor... (show quote)

And, where exactly is this money being held?

They're being held in businesses. Businesses, that, you know, employ thousands of people. Businesses, such as insurance, that enable other businesses to function. Businesses that produce products and services that millions of people want or need.

Did these richest of the rich forcibly take money from others? Were people forced to hand over their money? I don't think so. I think people handed over their money voluntarily, and were even eager to do so, to get goods and services.

Where it becomes involuntary is when governments do it, through taxation and deficit spending. People can choose to buy or not to buy products from a company, but they can't choose whether or not to pay taxes. A rich person spending money can't impoverish people, but government spending can and does impoverish people.

Look at Greece. The government spent much more money than it had, and the economy has basically collapsed. And the rest of Europe isn't far behind. Too much government spending has created record joblessness and poverty.

Spending by rich people and large companies, on the other hand, can increase both the concentration of wealth and the amount of it in everyone's hands. Let's say a rich person puts up the money to open a restaurant. He puts up the money and hires 10 employees. If fantastically successful, he may keep 3 out of every ten dollars and pay the rest as salary to the ten employees and suppliers. He keeps a disproportionate share of the profits, and he gets richer faster, relative to his employees, and yet his employees are also getting richer. They may not get as rich as fast as their employer does, but they are getting richer, and without him, they wouldn't get any money at all.

That's why concentration of wealth is not incompatible with increasing wealth levels for everyone. All that money that's being plowed into finance and insurance and health care is stimulating the economy.

Government spending, on the other hand, has a much lower multiplier effect than private spending, because much of government spending is simply redistribution that produces nothing, or pays for the salaries of bureaucrats, who also produce nothing.

So asking about concentration of wealth is the wrong question. The right question is whether the bottom 50% is getting more money than it had before, irrespective of its comparison to the top 1%. And if it's not, is it due to government policies? You won't see any of these questions addressed in the Oxfam/NYT class struggle agitprop press release, though.

bylm1-Bernie

JMHO wrote:

And, where exactly is this money being held?

They're being held in businesses. Businesses, that, you know, employ thousands of people. Businesses, such as insurance, that enable other businesses to function. Businesses that produce products and services that millions of people want or need.

Did these richest of the rich forcibly take money from others? Were people forced to hand over their money? I don't think so. I think people handed over their money voluntarily, and were even eager to do so, to get goods and services.

Where it becomes involuntary is when governments do it, through taxation and deficit spending. People can choose to buy or not to buy products from a company, but they can't choose whether or not to pay taxes. A rich person spending money can't impoverish people, but government spending can and does impoverish people.

Look at Greece. The government spent much more money than it had, and the economy has basically collapsed. And the rest of Europe isn't far behind. Too much government spending has created record joblessness and poverty.

Spending by rich people and large companies, on the other hand, can increase both the concentration of wealth and the amount of it in everyone's hands. Let's say a rich person puts up the money to open a restaurant. He puts up the money and hires 10 employees. If fantastically successful, he may keep 3 out of every ten dollars and pay the rest as salary to the ten employees and suppliers. He keeps a disproportionate share of the profits, and he gets richer faster, relative to his employees, and yet his employees are also getting richer. They may not get as rich as fast as their employer does, but they are getting richer, and without him, they wouldn't get any money at all.

That's why concentration of wealth is not incompatible with increasing wealth levels for everyone. All that money that's being plowed into finance and insurance and health care is stimulating the economy.

Government spending, on the other hand, has a much lower multiplier effect than private spending, because much of government spending is simply redistribution that produces nothing, or pays for the salaries of bureaucrats, who also produce nothing.

So asking about concentration of wealth is the wrong question. The right question is whether the bottom 50% is getting more money than it had before, irrespective of its comparison to the top 1%. And if it's not, is it due to government policies? You won't see any of these questions addressed in the Oxfam/NYT class struggle agitprop press release, though.

And, where exactly is this money being held? br b... (show quote)

Great post!!!!!!

:thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup: :thumbup:

Glaucon

JMHO wrote:

And, where exactly is this money being held?

They're being held in businesses. Businesses, that, you know, employ thousands of people. Businesses, such as insurance, that enable other businesses to function. Businesses that produce products and services that millions of people want or need.

Did these richest of the rich forcibly take money from others? Were people forced to hand over their money? I don't think so. I think people handed over their money voluntarily, and were even eager to do so, to get goods and services.

Where it becomes involuntary is when governments do it, through taxation and deficit spending. People can choose to buy or not to buy products from a company, but they can't choose whether or not to pay taxes. A rich person spending money can't impoverish people, but government spending can and does impoverish people.

Look at Greece. The government spent much more money than it had, and the economy has basically collapsed. And the rest of Europe isn't far behind. Too much government spending has created record joblessness and poverty.

Spending by rich people and large companies, on the other hand, can increase both the concentration of wealth and the amount of it in everyone's hands. Let's say a rich person puts up the money to open a restaurant. He puts up the money and hires 10 employees. If fantastically successful, he may keep 3 out of every ten dollars and pay the rest as salary to the ten employees and suppliers. He keeps a disproportionate share of the profits, and he gets richer faster, relative to his employees, and yet his employees are also getting richer. They may not get as rich as fast as their employer does, but they are getting richer, and without him, they wouldn't get any money at all.

That's why concentration of wealth is not incompatible with increasing wealth levels for everyone. All that money that's being plowed into finance and insurance and health care is stimulating the economy.

Government spending, on the other hand, has a much lower multiplier effect than private spending, because much of government spending is simply redistribution that produces nothing, or pays for the salaries of bureaucrats, who also produce nothing.

So asking about concentration of wealth is the wrong question. The right question is whether the bottom 50% is getting more money than it had before, irrespective of its comparison to the top 1%. And if it's not, is it due to government policies? You won't see any of these questions addressed in the Oxfam/NYT class struggle agitprop press release, though.

And, where exactly is this money being held? br b... (show quote)

StaleM8 Loc: USA

Remember, you didn't make that yourself. lol

EconomistDon

JMHO wrote:

And, where exactly is this money being held?

They're being held in businesses. Businesses, that, you know, employ thousands of people. Businesses, such as insurance, that enable other businesses to function. Businesses that produce products and services that millions of people want or need.

Did these richest of the rich forcibly take money from others? Were people forced to hand over their money? I don't think so. I think people handed over their money voluntarily, and were even eager to do so, to get goods and services.

Where it becomes involuntary is when governments do it, through taxation and deficit spending. People can choose to buy or not to buy products from a company, but they can't choose whether or not to pay taxes. A rich person spending money can't impoverish people, but government spending can and does impoverish people.

Look at Greece. The government spent much more money than it had, and the economy has basically collapsed. And the rest of Europe isn't far behind. Too much government spending has created record joblessness and poverty.

Spending by rich people and large companies, on the other hand, can increase both the concentration of wealth and the amount of it in everyone's hands. Let's say a rich person puts up the money to open a restaurant. He puts up the money and hires 10 employees. If fantastically successful, he may keep 3 out of every ten dollars and pay the rest as salary to the ten employees and suppliers. He keeps a disproportionate share of the profits, and he gets richer faster, relative to his employees, and yet his employees are also getting richer. They may not get as rich as fast as their employer does, but they are getting richer, and without him, they wouldn't get any money at all.

That's why concentration of wealth is not incompatible with increasing wealth levels for everyone. All that money that's being plowed into finance and insurance and health care is stimulating the economy.

Government spending, on the other hand, has a much lower multiplier effect than private spending, because much of government spending is simply redistribution that produces nothing, or pays for the salaries of bureaucrats, who also produce nothing.

So asking about concentration of wealth is the wrong question. The right question is whether the bottom 50% is getting more money than it had before, irrespective of its comparison to the top 1%. And if it's not, is it due to government policies? You won't see any of these questions addressed in the Oxfam/NYT class struggle agitprop press release, though.

And, where exactly is this money being held? br b... (show quote)

Brilliant response JMHO. You must be an economist.
But I don't think Gluecon will understand it. He has blinders against reason.

Glaucon

StaleM8 wrote:

Remember, you didn't make that yourself. lol

You could make It yourself, but be sure to wash your hands when finished.

Glaucon

EconomistDon wrote:

Brilliant response JMHO. You must be an economist.
But I don't think Gluecon will understand it. He has blinders against reason.

I have no trouble seeing through you. However , you don't defined reason the way the rest of us do.

bylm1-Bernie

Glaucon wrote:

I have no trouble seeing through you. However , you don't defined reason the way the rest of us do.

Thank God!!!!

America Only Loc: From the right hand of God

Glaucon wrote:

Richest 1 Percent To Own More Than Half Of The World's Wealth By 2016,
| By Jade Walker

The rich keep getting richer, and by next year, just a handful of the upper-class will have accumulated more than half of the world's wealth.
A new report released on Monday by Oxfam warns that this deepening global ine******y is unlike anything seen in recent years.
Using research from Credit Suisse and Forbes' annual billionaires list, the anti-poverty charity was able to determine that the richest 1 percent of the world's population currently controls 48 percent of the world's total wealth.
If trends continue, Oxfam predicts that the most-affluent will possess more wealth than the remaining 99 percent by 2016, The New York Times reported.
Drill down the numbers even more and you'll learn that the 80 wealthiest people in the world possess $1.9 trillion, which is almost the same amount shared by some 3.5 billion people at the bottom half of the world's income scale.
Thirty-five of the lucky 80 were Americans with a combined wealth of $941 billion. Germany and Russia shared second place, with seven uber-rich individuals apiece.
Not surprisingly, the richest were titans in the finance, health care, insurance, retail, tech and extractives (oil, gas) industries, and they paid fortunes to lobbyists to maintain or increase their riches. Seventy of the world's wealthiest were men. And 11 members of the elite 80 simply inherited their wealth.
"Do we really want to live in a world where the 1 percent own more than the rest of us combined?" Oxfam executive director Winnie Byanyima said in a letter. "The scale of global ine******y is quite simply staggering and despite the issues shooting up the global agenda, the gap between the richest and the rest is widening fast."
This week, more than 2,500 of the world's rich and powerful will fly to Switzerland on hundreds of private jets to attend the World Economic Forum. There they will chat about the financial markets and economic trends while eating the finest food and staying in Davos' five-star hotels.
Oxfam will also be in Davos, urging the wealthy and powerful to tackle the rising ine******y situation. The charity hopes to encourage world and business leaders to improve public services, introduce living wages, end the g****r pay gap and crack down on tax-dodging corporations, Reuters reported.
In the meantime, more than 1 billion people on this planet continue to live on less than $1.25 a day

Richest 1 Percent To Own More Than Half Of The Wor... (show quote)

You could improve your own income if you wanted to do so....then you could attempt to be one of those people that are going to "own" all the wealth...and if you do that, you want everyone else on the planet to be pissed off at you? NEWS FLASH...everyone else on the planet is already pissed off at you, for being so brain dead.

Antisocialist Loc: Florida

Glaucon wrote:

I have no trouble seeing through you. However , you don't defined reason the way the rest of us do.

You are a clueless moron.

Randy131 Loc: Florida

Socialism and C*******m is to blame, because governments keep putting regulations and restrictions that stop the poor from achieving independence and the ability to become wealthy, as those who are had, and once wealthy, it is very easy to maintain, because the wealth gets you around those regulations and restrictions, just as the rich can get justice for themselves that the poor are unable to receive, and so fill our prisons. During the history of the USA many very poor became very rich, because the people of the USA had real freedoms, and weren't handicapped by government regulations and restrictions, because during those times the government honored the US Constitution and didn't violate it for the excuse of it being best for the people and there welfare, as the politicians also honored their oaths to the US Constitution, which today almost all violate those oaths, for the excuse it is better for the people, but only ens***es them through dependency and usurps their freedoms and rights that once gave them the chance to become rich from the poor state they were born in. The Declaration of Independence defined T***hs that were considered self-evident, that all Men were created equal and endowed by their with the unalienable Rights of 'Life', 'Liberty', and the 'Pursuit of Happiness', which today all have been usurped by an oppressive federal government. The Right of 'Life' starts at conception, and the federal government under the control of Obama and the Democrats not only support, but promote the k*****g of innocent children in their mothers' wombs, and refuse to allow mothers the knowledge of what they are agreeing to when accepting an a******n, that would be accessible to them through the viewing of a simple ultra-sound view of their unborn baby, and being shown the after math of an aborted baby, which when these are seen, every potential mother refuses the a******n that is being pushed upon them by 'Planned Parenthood' and the federal government. The Right of 'Liberty' is guaranteed through our 'Habeas Corpus Laws', which the 'Patriot Act' has usurped and now allows any American citizen to be arrested indefinitely through only an accusation, and never being allowed to face his accuser or have a day in court to prove his innocence, but locked up forever at only the discretion of the federal government and those people in charge of the same who may have an axe to grind against the accused. The Right to the 'Pursuit of Happiness' is simply every individuals Right to choose for themselves what they believe is best for them, and then, being right or wrong does not matter, being allowed to pursue that choice, instead of some know-it-all elitist in the government deciding what is best for them, and then forcing everyone to accept the choice of the elitist over that of their own, which is a perfect description of Obamacare, and usurps our Right of the 'Pursuit of Happiness'. How can anyone achieve their goal of becoming self-reliant and rich when the federal government makes rules, regulations, and restrictions that makes that impossible through socialistic and c*******tic ideals and procedures to spread the wealth, robbing the earners and giving to the sloth. A free market creates innovation that spreads the wealth through invention and initiative of individuals, not handicapped by an oppressive government with regulations and restrictions that curtails their ability to advance themselves in society and join the ranks of the rich from the ranks of the poor from which they originated. The cost to start a business and make it succeed today is beyond the means of the common man only because of all the rules, regulations, and restrictions of the federal government, that makes that reachable and achievable by only the very rich. The American people once had the right to succeed and achieve their goals and dreams, but that was only when the US Constitution was honored and obeyed, giving the people their Rights described in the 'Declaration of Independence', but today the federal government and those in charge of it rob from the producers and make the middleclass poor, and the poor ens***ed through dependence on entitlements handed out at the pleasure of those in power to those who will capitulate to their will, and now the federal government's control to the access to healthcare will now empower the federal government, and those who run it, even more than what the power of entitlements they had and abused in the recent past gave them.

Glaucon

JMHO wrote:

And, where exactly is this money being held?

They're being held in businesses. Businesses, that, you know, employ thousands of people. Businesses, such as insurance, that enable other businesses to function. Businesses that produce products and services that millions of people want or need.

Did these richest of the rich forcibly take money from others? Were people forced to hand over their money? I don't think so. I think people handed over their money voluntarily, and were even eager to do so, to get goods and services.

Where it becomes involuntary is when governments do it, through taxation and deficit spending. People can choose to buy or not to buy products from a company, but they can't choose whether or not to pay taxes. A rich person spending money can't impoverish people, but government spending can and does impoverish people.

Look at Greece. The government spent much more money than it had, and the economy has basically collapsed. And the rest of Europe isn't far behind. Too much government spending has created record joblessness and poverty.

Spending by rich people and large companies, on the other hand, can increase both the concentration of wealth and the amount of it in everyone's hands. Let's say a rich person puts up the money to open a restaurant. He puts up the money and hires 10 employees. If fantastically successful, he may keep 3 out of every ten dollars and pay the rest as salary to the ten employees and suppliers. He keeps a disproportionate share of the profits, and he gets richer faster, relative to his employees, and yet his employees are also getting richer. They may not get as rich as fast as their employer does, but they are getting richer, and without him, they wouldn't get any money at all.

That's why concentration of wealth is not incompatible with increasing wealth levels for everyone. All that money that's being plowed into finance and insurance and health care is stimulating the economy.

Government spending, on the other hand, has a much lower multiplier effect than private spending, because much of government spending is simply redistribution that produces nothing, or pays for the salaries of bureaucrats, who also produce nothing.

So asking about concentration of wealth is the wrong question. The right question is whether the bottom 50% is getting more money than it had before, irrespective of its comparison to the top 1%. And if it's not, is it due to government policies? You won't see any of these questions addressed in the Oxfam/NYT class struggle agitprop press release, though.

And, where exactly is this money being held? br b... (show quote)

The use of colored letters for emphasis is boorish and indicates even you have some question about your comments. STOP

bylm1-Bernie

Glaucon wrote:

The use of colored letters for emphasis is boorish and indicates even you have some question about your comments. STOP

I like it!!

oldroy Loc: Western Kansas (No longer in hiding)

bylm1 wrote:

I like it!!

I like it, also. I use colored letters most often to indicate quoted words and although glaucon doesn't like me and what I write he doesn't b***h about it. I think he has seen that he has been had and is trying to change the subject in a way that can make his enemy look like the bad guy. Old Saul Alinsky did tell his progressive followers that changing the subject is one outstanding way to win an argument and glaucon surely is one of those.