Oxfam says richest 1% to own more than half of world's wealth by 2016

'Oxfam says richest 1% to own more than half of world's wealth by 2016'

Or as Fox News would have it 'Layabout European charity advocates worldwide communism'.

How the GOP will address Obama's call for free junior college education and tax cuts for the working class paid for by the 1% will be interesting to observe.

During the industrial revolution, the ultimate distorter of wealth distribution, countries such as England got much wealthier, did that mean that, say, China got poorer?

Increase taxation of the rich and use the money to build affordable housing and infrastructure for the rest.

Oxfam says richest 1% to own more than half of world's wealth by 2016

A ridiculous and unacceptable state of affairs.

Of the remaining 52%, almost all—46%—is owned by the rest of the richest fifth of the world’s population, leaving the other 80% to share just 5.5% with an average wealth of $3,851 per adult, the report says

Ditto.

There should be some happy balance between the left and right. The world belongs to us all.

Want money? Fine! Earn your own. Taking property from another person against the owner's wishes is theft. Doing so under the direct or implied use of force is armed robbery.

' Fine! Earn your own. Taking property from another person against the owner's wishes is theft. Doing so under the direct or implied use of force is armed robbery.'

Atlas farted.

@davestrousers Real median income has remained roughly flat while productivity has skyrocketed in developed countries. And I bet that doesn't take into account the unemployed. That says to me that there is going to be some readjustment whether we like it or not.

Average world income per person is estimated at about 10,000 USD. If you earn more than this, start redistributing!

Taking property from another person against the owner's wishes is theft.

Agreed. I want all the money back that was taken from my pension fund due to the thieves on Wall St. who deliberately sold toxic assets and caused the GFC, yet somehow managed to INCREASE their own wealth at the same time. Now there is true thievery.

'Layabout European charity advocates worldwide communism'.

You're pretty much on track with that.

How the GOP will address Obama's call for free junior college education and tax cuts for the working class paid for by the 1% will be interesting to observe.

The problem is with that idea is that more and more 2 year colleges are taking the place of High school drop outs, most of the kids nowadays read below the 8th grade level and why on Earth should junior college be free when it's pretty much already affordable OR that's also why there are Pell Grants to cover those that really don't have it. So what else should we make free for society, housing, food, cars? Why work at all to be honest.

Wow, those guys in the 1% must work really hard.

Want money? Fine! Earn your own. Taking property from another person against the owner's wishes is theft. Doing so under the direct or implied use of force is armed robbery.

This assumes that the owner in question came to possess their property without theft, coercion, force, or exploitation in the first place.

... will be among world leaders seeking to chart a path away from fundamentalism towards solidarity.

WTH does that mean?

@turbostat

It's an official secret. Gaol time for anyone explaining it....

I am not sharing, I worked hard for mine, worked 16 hour days year in year out, invested my profits back into my business, used my wits, knowledge, smarts and experience and I'm keeping it.

Get off ya asses , think smarter work smarter you want some of your own.

Define the value of wealth, the intangible assets of an entity minus debt, or perhaps huge abundance of valuable material procession and/or resources that Oxfam feel you through hard work and entrepreneurial endeavour contributes to the worlds inequality. To hell with the fact that you have had to put your reputation on the line, financed, borrowed, devoted the time drawing up detailed business development planning. I once collected for Oxfam outside a post office weekends as a volunteer. That was Oxfam the charity.

Today Oxfam takes those public donations and spends them as a organisation akin to a political lobbying group, giving thousands to an activist agenda for global redistribution of wealth through punitive taxation.

@It'sonly

The truth hurts, huh?

Hi lucabrasi , it's a tad irritating from a 'charity' whose primary aim once focused on alleviating third world famine.

John GaltJan. 19, 2015 - 04:36PM JST Want money? Fine! Earn your own. Taking property from another person against the owner's wishes is theft. Doing so under the direct or implied use of force is armed robbery.

While corporations evade taxes and pass on those savings to the 1%? I call that the proceeds of illegal activities, and demand that the 1%'s assets be confiscated as the proceeds of crime. Let them prove they DIDN'T obtain the money illegally.

They'll find courts and politicians a LOT less inclined to make decisions in their favour and pass laws to protect them when they lack the money to bribe anyone.

@it'sonly

It's their job. Alleviating poverty has a lot to do with pointing out inequalities. We're not living in Victorian times when the "deserving poor" were expected to shut up and receive their bowl of broth humbly....

StormR: I am not sharing, I worked hard for mine, worked 16 hour days year in year out, invested my profits back into my business, used my wits, knowledge, smarts and experience and I'm keeping it. Get off ya asses , think smarter work smarter you want some of your own.

I think your point of view was much more correct 40 years ago, but not so much today. That's back when the biggest employer was GM and not Walmart. You do need hard work, but the way the system is, you can work your ass of and have someone else take it all away from you. And if you're simply unlucky...well....

What is unlucky? Unlucky is devoting your life to teaching, putting yourself through school, using your own money, then suddenly losing your job because state revenues collapsed during the recession. Unlucky is working your ass off in the construction industry then having your entire industry go bye bye (like in Vegas) when the banks stop making loans. Unlucky is having your business plan turned upside down when currency market changes drastically overnight. Unlucky is losing your job that you were good at, losing your health insurance, then getting a disease. Unlucky is fighting in the Middle East for a decade and coming home and realizing there's no good job for you to go into. Unlucky is living well below your means, saving and investing your money, and having some Wall Street banker blow it up on risky, unregulated financial transactions that they don't even understand themselves.

Or I suppose all of those people just didn't work as hard as you, right?

Now more than ever it seems there are so many things outside of your control that can ruin you financially. You need to work hard....and you need to be lucky. Just being a plumber or a teacher isn't good enough anymore. We're creating a line and you'll either be above it (very well off) or below it (working until you die). And that line is going up every day.

The financial time bombs are plentiful, and the ones rigging them only seem to get more and more. The people at the investment banks who made the big decisions that ruined so many lives are doing quite well. Those under them, like hard-working staff, lost their jobs. The guy who put himself through school and took out loans and studied his ass off to get a junior position at one of those firms saw himself on the street overnight because - Oh, wait.... it's because he didn't work hard enough.

So if you are in the Top 1%, congrats. More power to you. But we live in a world where "hard work" is becoming more and more irrelevant. Instead of telling people to kiss your ass maybe you should be thanking your lucky stars.

Like saying "TEPCO is wealthy because they work hard", seriously.....

Oxfam executive director Winnie Byanyima profile is a leader on women's rights, democratic governance and peace building. A blatant politicisation, hijacking a once respected Charity originally founded in 1942 as the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief by a group of Quakers.

"I'm not sharing. I worked hard for mine...."

Well, there you have it... society is going to hell, and those in a position to make a difference couldn't care less.

To quote the bible: "Jesus wept."

The problem is that the situation isn't like the beginning of the game of Monopoly, but rather closer to the end game. As the game ends in a sense everyone loses. Now many governments are more and more corporate-statist, which only make the playing field more uneven.

Speaking as a UK citizen, the rot in morality kicked in really hard in the Thatcher/Reagan years when things I was taught to be vices became virtues. Avarice, greed, the screw you I've got my pile mentality aligned with the infamous 'no such thing as society' quote. I was brought up with the values of my father, a sailor who'd seen spaghetti-armed kids with distended stomachs in Africa and Asia begging them for food when they docked. Perhaps he should have told them to get off their bony backsides and pull themselves up by their bootstraps or told them he'd worked hard for his cash and wasn't prepared to share it around.

'Jesus wept' Although I don't share Lucabrasi's religion, I admire the man who railed against materialism and greed. If he were here today, I'd like to think he wouldn't be weeping, he'd be turning over tables in Wall Street offices.

The more important issue is whether or not more of the worlds people are rising out of poverty or not? It would surprise a lot of folks on the Left to learn that capitalism is the only proven economic system to lift huge numbers of people out of poverty. I would also add that a huge contributor to wealth concentration are government policies that favor certain industries over others (like agriculture).

How the GOP will address Obama's call for free junior college education and tax cuts for the working class paid for by the 1% will be interesting to observe.

Obama is not focusing on junior college, he is targeting primarily state run community colleges. So you want to morph state community college systems into a federal 'community' college system? The GOP should respond to yet another effort to erode American federalism by saying, 'No thank you'. Obama has already created a trillion dollar government backed college education debt - as if the federal housing debt collapse wasn't enough of a benefit to the American people.

Why can't Democrats come up with any ideas that do not involve ever more money funneled through the Federal government? Do Democrats have a debt target above $18 trillion that they are not telling the public?

Why Oxfam is focused on envy instead of how to alleviate poverty is more of an indication of their political ideology rather than a concern for the world's poor.

"Of the remaining 52%, almost all—46%—is owned by the rest of the richest fifth of the world’s population, leaving the other 80% to share just 5.5% with an average wealth of $3,851 per adult"

Wow, 80% of the population is dirt-poor! And whose fault is this? The richest fifth! Good grief...

Yeah sure , we got hit in the financial crash in 08 too, hit hard actually, but I guess you lot are all correct and right, so from now on Im just gonna whinge and moan and stick my hand put for my share, coz to be honest hard work for what you have is over rated when you can just expect to have it all handed to you , I mean come on we are all entitled to it arnt we ?

The give me generation,

you know something else ? There is nothing I despise more on this planet than one of those wall street banker type prikks who screwed the working man and the business man and the family man and well ya know just about everyone else, but the easiest thing is blame it all on bad luck as opposed to getting up and getting stuck back into it and clawing back what you lost.

The most successful people in this world are those who got back up more times than they got knocked over, but hey lets just lie around with our hands out blaming our damn luck eh?

@John Gait, I am much in agreement with you on this however where does that leave the Wall Street guys or those that are right now from past transgressions of taking others land and some cases, countries?

'It would surprise a lot of folks on the Left to learn that capitalism is the only proven economic system to lift huge numbers of people out if poverty'

It certainly surprised me. Even the haters of the Chinese Communist Party, and I'm far from a fan, are forced to admit that they lifted enormous numbers of people out of dire poverty. Not a fact that crops up on Fox.

How depressing.

'It would surprise a lot of folks on the Left to learn that capitalism is the only proven economic system to lift huge numbers of people out if poverty'

not sure where/when you made this fiction up, but China has lifted the most people (+500 million) out of poverty in human history. google is your friend.

Owning a basic apartment in Tokyo would put you into this 1 percent. So if you do, or have comparable assets, please stop complaining and start redistributing.

StormR: Yeah sure , we got hit in the financial crash in 08 too, hit hard actually, but I guess you lot are all correct and right, so from now on Im just gonna whinge and moan and stick my hand put for my share, coz to be honest hard work for what you have is over rated when you can just expect to have it all handed to you , I mean come on we are all entitled to it arnt we?

OK, Mr. Extremes..... You got to where you are simply by hard work and others simply didn't reach your level because they didn't work as hard. End of story.

Anyway, this story has nothing to do with your situation. It's about taxes. Across the board the taxes we pay are at their lowest levels in decades, and that just happens to be at a time when our debt is at an all-time high. A vast, vast majority of economists (except for far right wing) say we need BOTH increases in revenues and a decrease in spending.

Republicans have sold their rabid base on some false promise that we can use austerity to get out of this mess and it's a complete lie. And it's hurting us. New revenues have to be part of the equation and if you don't accept that then you aren't serious about cutting the deficit/debt. The top 1% seems like a good place to start.

Some here blame the GOP here in the US but hasn't it excellerated under the Democrats? Just sayin....

@MarkG I think its fair to say inequality accelerated at breakneck speed from Reagan onwards and the Democrats have done little to even attempt to reverse this. Despite the balloon heads living in an alternate reality babbling on about the communist or 'distributer in chief' currently sitting in the Whitehouse, facts or numbers mean little to them and dealing with wealth gaps hasn't been a priority. GOP presidents from past generations like Eisenhower, Nixon or Ford would be dismissed as foaming at the mouth Trotskyites by today's standards in the US.

Get off ya asses , think smarter work smarter you want some of your own.

Hi. I'm already very much off my ass for decades (working full-time since I was 16) and working smarter, which is why I am in demand. But last time I checked, housing and land was still mostly the in the hands rich and/or lucky.

Take away the need to work for years just to buy a home and a lot of poverty will disappear. The tax burden for social security will lessen too.

MarkG: Some here blame the GOP here in the US but hasn't it excellerated under the Democrats? Just sayin....

What balls you guys have. Republicans handed Obama 3,000,000 lost jobs in the 5 months before he took office and all you have to say is that the inequality gap accelerated under Obama? You mean he wasn't able to clean up your mess while at the same time reverse a trend that's been happening since Reagan?

This isn't the Republican bubble. This is the real world.

40 years ago it was instilled in my generation that the way forward was hard work, frugal spending, no hand outs, get off your asses, make it happen, stop whining , that was how we were brought up, now it seems the pendulum has swung to the its my entitlement, give it to me, I want it now, I deserve it so some one better serve mentality generation.

In a way I agree the very top are greedy scheming bunch who have enslaved the rest of us, their greed is un heard of and it boggles the mind that some can keep on accumulating wealth at the expense of everyone else.

I do not agree with simply taking it off anyone but maybe tilting the table a little so more money runs down hill is good.

If the masses have money they will spend it, but the thing is it will end up back up the top again, some people have no economic sense at all while others know how to make things work to fill their pockets.

Communism is not the answer though.

There are many options. Almost no one wants a total redistribution of wealth (perfect egalitarianism of 0.00 on the Gini), but there need to be brakes on the geometric increase of wealth by a very few using the corporate-statist governments. No need to reduce the options to a "false dichotomy".

I think the perception that the democrats have of "spreading the wealth" is wrong. The issue is that the people who have been the 1% wealth have been encouraging and quite literally instigating "laws" that help them to make more money regardless of how they get it and also effectively limiting the opportunities of those with much lower incomes than theirs. That is exactly how the Middle class sector of US society (and even some of those with low-wealth millionaires) found themselves struggling to survive looking for work or maintain a business.

From personal experience and those around me, the crash of the economy happened because of the US Republican legislation for their "trickle down theory" just showed what people with money are willing to do to make more money even though they have more than enough to be satisfied. Its just plain excessive greed in an attempt to continue living their lives lavishly.

Even though the state I live in has recovered quite well and more businesses are hiring and looking for employees, the wages have still remained the same while prices for many other items and services has gone up.

"This assumes that the owner in question came to possess their property without theft, coercion, force, or exploitation in the first place."

Did you miss the part where I said "Earn your own"?

Earn: transitive. verb: earned, earn·ing, earns

To gain especially for the performance of service, labor, or work: earned money by mowing lawns. To acquire or deserve as a result of effort or action: She earned a reputation as a hard worker.

davestrousers: Owning a basic apartment in Tokyo would put you into this 1 percent. So if you do, or have comparable assets, please stop complaining and start redistributing.

No need to give up the apartment. Just move the kids into parents room for about half the year and donate use of their room to the deserving homeless the rest of the year. Kids won't mind. Wait til they start snoring to get romantic.

It worked in Communist China! Except it wasn't a donation, you weren't just giving up one room (you were getting reduced to one or part of one room and giving up the rest), and it was year-round! Also wasn't just 1-pcters, but middle class giving up their digs.

As Ayn Rand used to say "the best way to help the poor is not be one."

HonestDictator: I think the perception that the democrats have of "spreading the wealth" is wrong. The issue is that the people who have been the 1% wealth have been encouraging and quite literally instigating "laws" that help them to make more money regardless of how they get it and also effectively limiting the opportunities of those with much lower incomes than theirs

Yep. And needless to say they have all of the tools available to them to make their taxes as low as possible, much moreso than the rest of us. That's how Warren Buffet pays a smaller % in taxes than his assistant. As he says, "If you make money with money, as some of my super-rich friends do, your percentage may be a bit lower than mine. But if you earn money from a job, your percentage will surely exceed mine — most likely by a lot."

HonestDictator: From personal experience and those around me, the crash of the economy happened because of the US Republican legislation for their "trickle down theory" just showed what people with money are willing to do to make more money

It's astounding that the Right still has faith in that broken economic system. Kansas elected a far right governor who slashed taxes and the result is that the state is heading for bankruptcy. Literally.

Remember: Its only 'class warfare' when we fight back.