Twardlow Loc: Arkansas

'World's richest 1% get 82% of the wealth', says Oxfam
By Katie Hope
BBC News, Davos

The gap between the super rich and the rest of the world widened last year as wealth continued to be owned by a small minority, Oxfam has claimed.

Some 82% of money generated last year went to the richest 1% of the global population while the poorest half saw no increase at all, the charity said.

Oxfam said its figures - which critics have queried - showed a failing system.

It blamed tax evasion, firms' influence on policy, erosion of workers' rights, and cost cutting for the widening gap.

Oxfam has produced similar reports for the past five years. In 2017 it calculated that the world's eight richest individuals had as much wealth as the poorest half of the world.

This year, it said 42 people now had as much wealth as the poorest half, but it revised last year's figure to 61. Oxfam said the revision was due to improved data and said the trend of "widening inequality" remained.

'Unacceptable'

Oxfam chief executive Mark Goldring said its constant readjustment of the figures reflected the fact that the report was based "on the best data available at the time".

"However you look at it, this is an unacceptable level of inequality," he said.

Oxfam's report coincides with the start of the World Economic Forum in Davos, a Swiss ski resort. The annual conference attracts many of the world's top political and business leaders.

Inequality typically features high on the agenda, but Mr Goldring said that too often "tough talk fades away at the first resistance".


Analysis by Anthony Reuben, BBC Reality Check

It's really hard working out how much wealth the super-rich and the very poor have.

The super-rich tend not to publicise their worth and many of the world's poorest countries keep poor statistics.

To illustrate that, this time last year, Oxfam told us that eight individuals have as much wealth as the poorest half of the world's population. Now it has revised that figure to 61 people for last year, falling to 42 people this year - that's a pretty big revision.

And there are other caveats around the data on which all this is based, such as that the people on the list with the lowest wealth are not necessarily poor at all - they may be highly qualified professionals with large amounts of student debt, for example, or people with high incomes but enormous mortgages.

But whether it's eight people, 42 people or 61 people who have the same wealth as half of the world, there is still great wealth inequality around the world, which is the message Oxfam is taking to Davos.

The charity is urging a rethink of business models, arguing their focus on maximising shareholder returns over broader social impact is wrong.

It said there was "huge support" for action with two thirds (72%) of 70,000 people it surveyed in ten countries saying they wanted their governments to "urgently address the income gap between rich and poor".

But Mark Littlewood, director general at free market think tank The Institute of Economic Affairs, said Oxfam was becoming "obsessed with the rich rather than the poor".

"Higher taxes and redistribution will do nothing to help the poor; wealth is not a fixed pie. Richer people are also highly taxed people - reducing their wealth won't lead to redistribution, it will destroy it to the benefit of no one," he added.

It was a criticism echoed by Sam Dumitriu, head of research at another free market think tank - the Adam Smith Institute - who said the charity's inequality stats "always paint the wrong picture".

"In reality, global inequality has fallen massively over the past few decades.

"As China, India and Vietnam embraced neoliberal reforms that enforce property rights, reduce regulations and increase competition, the world's poorest have received a massive pay rise leading to a more equal global income distribution."

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-42745853


Emphasis added by irate Poster!

Steven Seward Loc: Cleveland, Ohio

Hey Twardlow, since you are in the upper 1% of Wage earners World-Wide, are you planning to give away your wealth to those less fortunate?

Kmgw9v Loc: Miami, Florida

That question would most appropriately be addressed to Trump; but not really--- the answer is a given.

Steven Seward Loc: Cleveland, Ohio

Why do you pick Trump as the object of my question? Most Americans fit into the top 1% of wage earners World-Wide. You probably are as well. Should we all give our money to the rest of the World?

Twardlow Loc: Arkansas

Justify what you say....

Actually, I just looked it up, and you are correct. However, you miss the point. The issue isn’t wealth of the top 1%, or whether we should share what we have, but the financial inequality within the world.

And there’s more: assume you have one billion dollars—and there are several who do—and before your death you place it at 7% and hold it within a Seward Family Trust. In Fifty years, what your trust be worth? You may take a few million dollars a year for descendants, a sort of allowance to finance a generation of Paris Hiltons, but that would be pocket change, the kind of stuff you’d fine in the couch cushions.

So, how much would you have in fifty years, and how would it affect a democracy where you could buy the congress, the executive and the Supreme Court with pocket change?

Let us hear your answer.

Sjfh

Let’s compare the effort inequity right alongside. You would want to be fair and balanced, I’m sure.

Steven Seward Loc: Cleveland, Ohio

I haven't the foggiest idea of what you are talking about. Suppose I had a billion dollars and put it in a trust? After 50 years it would affect Democracy and I could buy off the Congress and the Supreme Court???????????????

If I had a billion dollars, why couldn't I just buy them off right now?

Sjfh

You don’t exist in a vacuum. There needs to be a robust economy to keep you earning 7%. You would be far from the only one earning at that rate and no better off, relatively, from where you began. If you can’t buy them now you can’t buy them later.

I might argue that your bribe also relies on a corrupt individual(s) willingness to accept said bribe. Although we are talking politicians here, there is no value if you don’t have a buyer for what you’re peddling.

Twardlow Loc: Arkansas

You could and they do, as you know. But now that the estate tax is gone, the wealthy can compound interest safely and build unconscionable fortunes.

Someone, maybe you, said the Nordic model works in Scandinavia because the population is homogeneous. Probably true. For most of our history, this nation has been fairly homogeneous, too, but that’s about to change—not tomorrow, but fairly soon.

We are about to develop a super-rich class, not wealthy or rich, maybe Sam Walton’s 100 billion, or Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos—each around 100 billion—but big money, nation numbing, country crushing, wild assed wall-to-wall cash and domination.

It will alter our nation—after your and my days, perhaps, but permanently and profoundly.

Twardlow Loc: Arkansas

You can buy annuities that guarantee that rate. That’s why I picked it.

If you’ll pardon me, you have no idea what you’re talking about. It’s not the rate, but the compounding, drawing interest upon interest.

I didn’t say you couldn’t buy then now, you can, and they do. But put a 100 billion at interest for a few or several years and you outstrip small nations, and power and corruption follows.

drainbamage

Hey irate poster. So how would you solve this crisis in your head? Spread the wealth across the globe? Obama liked that idea - they would love more money from the United States, they were listening with all ears. They knew Obama had a full wallet to give away so that the United States of America would become just another third world country. The princes of Saudi Arabia, Dubai, Kuwait and other largely wealthy emirates will never give up their money. But they will encourage us all the way to give them our hard earned dollars, and then laugh at us as they put the billions we give them into their wallets.

Steven Seward Loc: Cleveland, Ohio

I'm kind of getting the idea that your point is that some people will become very rich (Oh! the Horrors!). So what? What difference is it gonna make to you?

The richest people today are not as rich as billionaires used to be in the past. I already knew that John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie were richer than Bill Gates, but look at this interesting list I found. http://time.com/money/3977798/the-10-richest-people-of-all-time-2/

Twardlow Loc: Arkansas

We had it solved to a degree and it worked for 200 years. First off, we need higher tax brackets as we used to have. Then we had the estate tax, which does not penalize those who work and earn, but taxes those who do nothing, will never do any thing.

The idea is not to punish earners, but to seek relative equality, and inequality eventually kills—look at pre-revolutionary France.

Don’t laugh, but we’re not that far away.

Steven Seward Loc: Cleveland, Ohio

How do you figure that? I just pointed out in my last post that the rich were richer in previous generations. That didn't seem to kill the United states. I'd say we're doing a smidge better than pre-revolutionary France.

Twardlow Loc: Arkansas

There were wealthy people before, some of them very wealthy, but they didn’t create a permanent super-wealthy class. That’s what is happening now.

We might be doing a smidge better than pre-revolutionary France,, but we’ve laid the foundation on both ends—increasing poverty and financial insecurity on one side, and a permanent super-wealthy class on the other. Won’t happen while I’m around—I’m 78 years old, but we’re building serious trouble.