Not a new idea but worth spotlighting on MLK Day that class warfare is forging ahead. Oxfam, in anticipation of the gathering of the Masters of the Universe at Davos, tells us this nugget: the richest 85 people have the same wealth as 3.5 billion people, half the population of the world.
More:
In the past year, 210 people have become billionaires, joining a select group of 1,426 individuals with a combined net worth of $5.4 trillion.
Corporate profits, chief executive officer (CEO) salaries, and stock exchanges are breaking new records daily, with no signs of slowing down. At the time of writing, the Dow Jones industrial average reached the highest mark in its 117-year history.
The wealth of the one percent richest people in the world amounts to $110 trillion. That’s 65 times the total wealth of the bottom half.
And:
• Almost half of the world’s wealth is now owned by just one percent of the population.
• The wealth of the one percent richest people in the world amounts to $110 trillion. That’s 65 times the total wealth of the bottom half of the world’s population.
• The bottom half of the world’s population owns the same as the richest 85 people in the world.
• Seven out of ten people live in countries where economic inequality has increased in the last 30 years.
• The richest one percent increased their share of income in 24 out of 26 countries for which we have data between 1980 and 2012.
• In the US, the wealthiest one percent captured 95 percent of post-financial crisis growth since 2009, while the bottom 90 percent became poorer
I appreciate Oxfam's work but the truth is that it's kind of irrelevant to be appealing to the Davos types. It's a flaw to think that those who benefit from the privilege of this huge robbery will do much, other than tinkering around the edges, to reverse course--because that would mean declaring that the entire system, their system, has utterly failed.