Discussion: Study: World's Richest 1% Will Own More Wealth Than Bottom 99% By 2016

Yup, dropped headfirst on home plate and they think they belted one out of the park.

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What I find really disheartening is that this newer crop of wealthy parasites seems to not have even the slightest inclination to at least appear to be doing something for the 99%.

In generations past, at least we might have gotten a library, a school maybe a playground out of the robber barons. Today, newer generations feel no sense of obligation to anything that might be considered “America.” As far as they’re concerned, they have no country; they have their money. Therefore, they have more in common with wealthy Asians than with the rest of us. If sh*t gets too real here in this country and the police can’t tamp it down sufficiently, they can leave. To Singapore, Switzerland, Hong Kong, the Caymans. They feel as though they owe this country NOTHING.

They’re not afraid because we’ve not shown them any reason so far to be afraid even though we have the numbers.

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Yeah, the walmart heirs are a good example.

Actually I heard (dunno if it’s true) that it was Melinda Gates that turned Bill on to philanthropy. He wasn’t into it before she turned his head around.
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Don’t worry guys, I have been assured by republicans that the wealth is going to trickle down any moment now. /s

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There seems to be a correlation between his marriage and his increased giving; however, that’s not necessarily causation. E.g., could be getting older that got him interested.

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I could not agree with you more on that. Totally on the mark!

One of the things that just chaps my ass in the extreme is that an offshoot of the mentality you just mentioned is this idea that if for some reason you fall down in this life and need help, government isn’t the answer.

Charity is the answer. If the 1% (in the form of the Waltons) want to assist the lower life forms, fine. If not, we’re hosed. But since they’re better than us in general, they know best whom to give help to if we’re worthy. And if they’re not in a giving mood, well, that’s better then "soshulizm.’

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The Waltons are a disgusting family. I’ve shopped there exactly one time my entire life. What a crappy store they have. All I remember is how dirty it was. I feel sorry for the people that work there. From everything I’ve read over the years, they are treated like shit.

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wealthy individuals have generated and sustained their vast riches through their interests and activities in a few important economic sectors, including finance and pharmaceuticals/healthcare

A nice juicy cut off the living and the dying…
Sweet, nice work if you can get it…and nicer if the media would provide a few more specific clues for the top 80 humans, country of origin & country of primary residence, origin of wealth and any known charitable giving?

The Walmartians have already blessed us with low prices and low wages, why should they give some money away also?

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Remember, remember!
The fifth of November,
The Gunpowder treason and plot;

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Indeed. I recall a study in the early 1990s that said that 262 individuals owned 3/4 of the world’s wealth. This sounds like a bit of an improvement, but are we being told the real numbers of individuals who are in the 1%?

If half the world’s wealth is owned by a mere handful of people, it seems like the rest of us should start redefining ‘wealth,’ so that it ‘includes them out’ as Sam Goldwyn once famously said.

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Take another look.

This report is more or less completely innumerate and verges on intellectual dishonesty.

There are reasons for caring about the distribution of wealth and it’s distorting effects on our political life, and these are discussed somewhat in the report, but because it focuses mostly on percentages, the situation is set up as a zero sum game. Who cares how much wealth the top 1% own as a percentage? The important factor is how much wealth the poorest have in absolute terms. That is food on the table and real material wealth. Would you want the typical subsistence farmer to be poorer so that Bill Gates had a smaller percentage of the world’s wealth?

The report shows the most important facts but cherry picks the results that it reports. This figure from the report shows that the absolute wealth of the bottom 50% of the world’s population has increased almost 3 times from 2000 to 2014. That is somewhat diluted by the increase in population of approximately 20% in the same period, so the per capita increase in wealth of the bottom 50% is about 2.5 times. That’s a real tangible increase in wealth and given that it effects about 3.5 billion people, is really much more significant to the world’s well-being than the increase of wealth of the top 1%.

Oxfam chose to select not the 2000-2014 period, but the 2009-2014 period. Perhaps they have compelling reasons to believe that the last 5 years are unique and that their data is so precise that it can support that uniqueness, but they haven’t even tried to make that argument. It looks to me like they have just cherry picked their data.

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Well, duh! Anyone with half a brain (excludes Republicans) could see this coming.

I say let’s start with the richest first, and when there are no more empty lampposts, we’ll stop.

Damn the bastards, hang them all!

Long live the revolution!

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Most of the people commenting here are probably among the world’s richest 1%. According to this article, an annual income of just $34,000 puts you in that category.

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Thank God Mitt Romney will correct this problem when he is elected President in two-thousand never.

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Disgusting!

Isn’t the goal of capitalism to beat the competition… to “win” if you will? If my calculations are correct, that means eventually — if capitalism works as is should — one person (corporation) should own more than the rest of the world combined. This makes me wonder why monopolies are illegal… isn’t that the point to smite all the competition?

And the Gates are not doing American education any favors by generous funding of charter schools. Philanthropy is nice but it never makes up for what people who aren’t wealthy really need: enough income to buy a decent roof over their heads,a safe neighborhood to live in, good schools for their children, adequate food, decent medical care, a pension fund, etc.-- all those things the middle class more or less had in the 50’s and early 60’s.

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