Annual income of richest 100 people enough to end global poverty four times over

[HiPointDem]

An explosion in extreme wealth and income is exacerbating inequality and hindering the world’s ability to tackle poverty, Oxfam warned today in a briefing published ahead of the World Economic Forum in Davos next week.

The $240 billion net income in 2012 of the richest 100 billionaires would be enough to make extreme poverty history four times over, according Oxfam’s report ‘The cost of inequality: how wealth and income extremes hurt us all.’ It is calling on world leaders to curb today’s income extremes and commit to reducing inequality to at least 1990 levels.

The richest one per cent has increased its income by 60 per cent in the last 20 years with the financial crisis accelerating rather than slowing the process.

Oxfam warned that extreme wealth and income is not only unethical it is also economically inefficient, politically corrosive, socially divisive and environmentally destructive.

Jeremy Hobbs, Executive Director, Oxfam International, said: “We can no longer pretend that the creation of wealth for a few will inevitably benefit the many – too often (always....) the reverse is true."

http://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressrelease/2013-01-19/annual-income-richest-100-people-enough-end-global-poverty-four-times

[graham4anything]

1. another faux analogy

but let's assume they "get" the 100 to give up 100% of what they have.

Will everyone agree, that 100% of the money will go to the lowest 10% and not stop somewhere in the middle?

It is ridiculous to think that if one gets rid of the 100 people talked about in that article,
that even one penny would make it to those in the lowest 10%

Please explain how it would? Because it would not. But I can see it makes a good soundbyte.

But show me a precise plan and then I would listen.

[HiPointDem]

2. tax the hell out of them and pay workers better, for starters. do you think that would help, oh

mighty Word Salad Man?

PS: not 'faux' & not an analogy.

[graham4anything]

4. No. You are talking about trickle down, proven to NOT work.plus

that can be done without getting rid of the 100, whose money would NOT get to the 1% on the bottom.

Which by the way, the 1% on the bottom don't work.

You are talking about workers, who are not the very bottom.

If you take away the top, it can NOT stop in the middle.

It would need to also take away the middle, to all go to the poorest (starting with those on welfare for instance), then everyone would be equal.

People who work are already better off than those at the lowest level.

Because unless that is done, why wouldn't the very very bottom still whine about theirs?

Take away 100% of the money of the 100 in the OP, and it still does not mean one penny
to anyone else.
Just saying tax the hell out of them, is meaningless, as that does not get to the people itself, though it can help to shovel the snow, and pick up the trash (but then the workers who do that are not on the bottom level.)

[HiPointDem]

5. that's not trickle down, word salad man. that's fdr tax & jobs policy.

[graham4anything]

7. The poorest don't pay any tax at all. And nothing taken out of a person not working

So those people already are NOT paying taxes, so one cannot lower their tax.

As for the rich, take 100% of their money away, then they are not working, and have none,
so what do you do next week? next month? next year?

See, the tear it down, burn it down don't work.

All that is gotten is some sort of revenge, gladiator arena style, but that does not put a penny in the hands of those with absolutely nothing(who already are not working).

but it makes good slogans.

Speaking of FDR-he never said the number would remain constant, nor did he say those
that are now under 50, should expect that SS will pay 100% of their money when they hit
age 67.
And FDR compromised all the time.
Look at how he compromised not going into WW2 for a good how many years was it til they finally went?

Actually, one needs to look at Wilson or LBJ along with FDR and not selectively say FDR.
LBJ was far more liberal than FDR 365 days a year.

BTW-wouldnt FDR be included back in being one of the 100 richest people around?
(of course ones money was worth a different amount, so it wouldn't have been the same number now).
Did you wish FDR to lose all his money too?(being that you brought up the name FDR to use.)

(btw-unemployment in FDR's time was, of course, so much less-
then, generally, only one person worked in a family, and then, all people of a certain age and male,were drafted, meaning they were out of the job market for 2 years or more.

So are you saying we should restart the draft to be like in FDR's time to help lower the unemployment rate?

Personally, my wish list would be full amnesty, citizenship and a million dollars to each of those for the hardships they have endured, but that is just silly to think it would happen, same as taking away the top 100 and thinking those dollars would trickle down to the poorest with no jobs.

[HiPointDem]

9. Go-go, Word Salad Man!

[graham4anything]

16. So? No answers to actual questions, just mocking?.

and again, are you handing the top 100 directly to the bottom 10000?
If not, and it stops in the middle, it is disingenious as it don't help the bottom 10,000.

and are you including ALL workers in your example who are in this country?

Being that all workers pay into the system in one form or another including the 11million who work hard, and who purchase breakfast, lunch and dinner and all other goods at stores contributing to those people's incomes

[kristopher]

20. Do you really, honestly think that is the implication of the OP?

Please tell me that isn't so. Tell me you are just using a series of obviously false interpretations in order to annoy people.

[graham4anything]

47. I really, truly, sincerely do believe that the OP is a faux analogy.

btw- how does electing republicans or Ralph or Jill or Rand or Ron going to do 1/2 as good as straight democratic voting?

[kristopher]

50. Don't divert the topic

The OP article is EXPLICIT in what it calls for.

Your interpretation of their visualization aid is entirely your product, it is not to be found in the article in any way, shape or form.

We're done.

[graham4anything]

51. the OP says the title is the graph. So I am 100% correct.

[fishwax]

54. you need to brush up on your trickle down

High taxes on the rich isn't trickle down.

[aquart]

6. Golly, here I thought hiring bridgeworkers and meat inspectors would benefit all of us.

America's decaying infrastructure needs an army of maintenance workers, engineers, designers, steelworkers, painters, planners, ...that's what the middle class used to be made of, before we just handed blank checks to the executive class.

I guess you don't want police or firemen or EMT or GARBAGE COLLECTORS in your paradise neighborhood where every selfish asshole fends for himself or dies. OR DO YOU THINK THEY SHOULD WORK FOR FREE?

We need to hire lawyers and forensic accountants. We need to hire building inspectors and sponsor high level contests and research into tornado and hurricane-proof architecture. We need to make sure solar technology is being installed on every rooftop.

Tax the rich and every one of those workers and professionals gets a paycheck every week, here in America.

[graham4anything]

8. Is this directed to me? I think you mean the OP, not me.

but I don't see how getting rid of 100 people would trickle down to anyone else.

That would just make 100 more unemployed, or 100 more retired people.

But I do advocate sales taxing the internet, as the mom and pops are at a big disadvantage, and only those making over a million would be taxed.
It is robbery to shop on the net for free, if one goes to Target and pays 8% for the same item.

[Fumesucker]

27. Your solution to global poverty is to increase taxes on the 99%?

Because that's who pays the vast majority of sales taxes that you are so hot and bothered to increase.

http://www.lcurve.org/

The US population is represented along the length of the football field, arranged in order of income.

Median US family income (the family at the 50 yard line) is ~$40,000 (a stack of $100 bills 1.6 inches high.)

--The family on the 95 yard line earns about $100,000 per year, a stack of $100 bills about 4 inches high.

--At the 99 yard line the income is about $300,000, a stack of $100 bills about a foot high.

--The curve reaches $1 million (a 40 inch high stack of $100 bills) one foot from the goal line.

--From there it keeps going up...it goes up 50 km (~30 miles) on this scale!

[graham4anything]

48. the small mom & pops already pay sales tax. Time to stop robbing them by shopping online

and I see nobody telling me how exactly getting rid of the 1% will help anyone in the lower 10%?
It's not like they are going to hand their money out to them, nor would anyone else if they were eliminated from the work force.

It would be like firing someone who is 50 to hire a 19 year old.

[cui bono]

22. Who's "getting rid of 100 people"? n/t

[Democracyinkind]

32. "getting rid of people"

Sometimes I think that the way you write is actually a mere reflection of the way you read.

I'll take this as a confirmation.

[liberal N proud]

42. If the 1% actually did what they claim to do "Create Jobs"

Good paying jobs, then it would help a lot of people and build the economy in the process.

BUT, GREED is these peoples top line, they want it all and they want it NOW!

[Jim Levy]

3. Various report place the amount spent since 1964 ...

... on the US Domestic "War on Poverty" between 9 and 14 TRILLION US Dollars (a number several times that of the collective wealth of the 100 richest people in the world).

If we've spent that much money and we still have a DOMESTIC poverty problem, what makes anyone think that appropriating the wealth of a few individuals and spreading it around will end the much larger GLOBAL poverty problem?

The problem with poverty is, it's a sliding scale -- the definition of what we call poverty has been changing ever since the Neolithic Era. You cannot solve a problem that is continuously being redefined.

[aquart]

10. Welcome to DU. May your mind open like a flower.

Here's a first point to ponder: Does poverty increase when the tax code is altered to encourage the export of factories and jobs overseas? Such alteration increases the wealth of the rich and makes beggars of hardworking people who never put a foot wrong but whom so many feel entitled to sneer at. You, for instance.

Why do you feel entitled to sneer at a man who lost his family-supporting job because greedy bastards prefer to pay Chinese workers pennies instead of dollars? And then pocket the difference NEVER creating a job here with that profit?

Do you feel happier knowing your clothes are now made in factories which can cave in at any moment? BECAUSE BANGLADESH HAS NO UNIONS, NO OSHA, NO INSPECTORS AND NO HOPE.

Sleep well.

[Jim Levy]

12. "Why do you feel entitled to sneer at a man...?"

There is no sneering. No sneering at all -- I'm just pointing out that what is being suggested has in fact been tried -- on a MUCH larger scale -- with little or no success.

As difficult as it might be to conceive, perhaps solution to this particular issue to this particular is isn't throwing heaps of money at it?

[Democracyinkind]

21. Yeah, because the US seriously tried to end poverty?

Come on. Are you serious? We have never tried to eradicate poverty in the us. We have spent some money on trying to aleviate it. Nothing more.

[Jim Levy]

25. Maybe you're a lot richer than I

but, 9 TRILLION dollars sounds pretty serious to me.

[Democracyinkind]

29. "sounds" "feels"

It may "sound" and "feel" to you how it may - No legislation proposed in the US ever seriously attempted to eradicate poverty. To claim such a thing is simply nonsense. Maybe Johnson's Great Society had that motivation to a certain extent (certainly in the way it was marketed, but even there, the motive of aleviation is predominant) but it was never funded to the extent that it could achieve such a thing.

It may "sound" and "feel" like a lot to you - the question is whether i) it was a high enough amount to structurally influence poverty rates in the US (mildly so) and ii) the goal of said amount was to put an end to poverty (not).

You're pushing this same old, tired and bourgeois logic: We've spent X (!!! the horror!!) on poverty. There's still poor people. Obviously, the poor can't be helped, something's wrong with them, let's leave it altogether, that's just how the world is, some are meant to be poor. Which, strikingly, is always parroted by the not so poor.

Hipoint was right. It is a pretty boring argument. One that everyone on DU has heard before, when discussing the ridiculous economic worldview of the teabaggers.

[Martin Eden]

45. Sounds like a made-up number to me

What is the source of your "various reports" ... and does that include the SS & Medicare programs that are earned benefits, or unemployment compensation?? Even so, that sum comes out to an average of $125 billion per year; what did the Iraq war cost per year?

You criticized the OP (justly, up to a point) as a vague solution that doesn't spell out how it would work, but your 9 TRILLION talking point is just as vague -- and considerably more unhelpful in recognizing and dealing with real world problems.

Concentrated individual wealth on one hand with extreme poverty on the other IS a HUGE problem. Economic prosperity happens when money is widely circulated, but concentrated wealth takes that money out of circulation. Meanwhile our infrastructure is crumbling, we have a dire need to wean ourselves from fossil fuels, and our educational system is abysmal while teachers and unions are made scapegoats for budget shortfalls.

Democracyinkind was right in post #21 when he wrote that past efforts have been more about alleviating than eradicating poverty. There will always be some lost people who for whatever reason can't or won't lift a finger on their own behalf but the current economic model benefitting the one percenters fails billions of people worlwide who work their tails off, and millions of Americans who work hard or want to but lack the opportunity.

Poverty becomes a neverending cycle for families born into it, whose children go to crumbling schools where the peer culture sneers at academics and glorifies gangsta decadence. Very few are able to rise above that. Our schools need to be a bastion of opportunity and pride in helping young citizens make the most of their potential, but our educational system is more like a national shame. The teaching profession should attract the best and the brightest and they should be compensated accordingly for their critcially important role in society, not denigrated for their pension plans and failing to work miracles in overcrowded classrooms where simple discipline is a constant struggle.

WE -- ostensibly the greatest nation on earth -- need to figure this out. We need to make education a firm national commitment and highest priority. It's true that we can't just "throw money" at the problem -- but any realistic solution is going to cost a lot more, and the insanely concentrated wealth at the top (nobody earns or deserves that much wealth) is where the money is. We can start by raising the top tax bracket to 90%, like it was in the golden era of the 1950's the beabaggers pine so wistfully for.

[HughBeaumont]

39. Hey, it works gangbusters for corporations, war profiteers and pharmaceutical conglomerates.

You do realize that, historically, when the wealthy are taxed appropriately, that's when America was at it's strongest and most equitable, right? Even a Republican like Eisenhower knew that, even though we had an expensive Cold War to maintain, veering back to the JJ Hill/Jay Gould/Rockefeller era of plutocracy and would be disastrous. He'd seen the horrors of war AND economic depression; the MBA bean counters of today that run our corporations have never seen first hand what grinding poverty is like. Guys like MacArthur did DuPont's bidding. Eisenhower would not and would continue to tax the wealthy despite all of their ridiculous blather about "Teh Creeping Red Menuhse".

[HiPointDem]

13. yes, i think taxing & otherwise limiting the percent of global income the rich take & redistributing

it to the non-rich in the form of jobs, higher wages, free education and health care, & guaranteed old-age benefits will make living conditions more equal.

yes, i do.

PS: there's 3.4 TRILLION of US corporate money sitting in untaxed accounts RIGHT NOW, just waiting for the government to declare a tax holiday.

[Jim Levy]

17. I read the OP twice ...

... the subject was about appropriating the personal assets of the richest 100 persons -- not about revising the current US corporate tax code, an effort which I would support.

[kristopher]

26. Not even close.

It's about socially unhealthy wealth inequality.

It makes the point with the visualization aid of comparing the assets of the most wealthy to the most poor.

Nowhere does it call for anything except a more just society.

In large letters so that hopefully you'll notice it this time-

QUOTE: "It is calling on world leaders to curb today’s income extremes and commit to reducing inequality to at least 1990 levels "

[Democracyinkind]

31. The subject of the thread is taxing INCOME, not ASSETS.

So much for reading twice.

[muriel_volestrangler]

49. To add to the ohter points about what you missed in the article

Nowhere does it suggest "appropriating the personal assets of the richest 100 persons". What it suggests is:

Closing tax havens – which hold as much as $32 trillion or a third of all global wealth – could yield an additional $189bn in additional tax revenues. In addition to a tax haven crackdown, elements of a global new deal could include:

a reversal of the trend towards more regressive forms of taxation;
a global minimum corporation tax rate;
measures to boost wages compared with returns available to capital;
increased investment in free public services and safety nets.

Notice that it's not about appropriation - it suggests getting just 0.6% a year out of the assets in tax, by not having them in tax havens. And you can apply "a reversal of the trend towards more regressive forms of taxation" to the USA tax code, and "increased investment in free public services and safety nets".

[jtuck004]

35. You cannot solve a problem you never seriously set out to solve, either. Your math sucks, btw.

And by sucks I mean something seems to have sucked some of the ledger sheets right out of your accounting manual.

For example, the audits released in 2011 show the government paid Bank of America over $7 trillion dollars in a period of less than 5 years in the ongoing criminal enterprise we call "too big to jail" banking today. And that's just to benefit a few people at one bank. When you look at Chase and the others it is a fat wad more, tens of trillions of $, in just a handful of years, than the 7-14 trillion spent over 50 years and divided among between 200 and 300 million people.

It has certainly kept the banks out of poverty.

So get back to us when the same assets in that proportion are invested in other's lives. Say $5 trillion for every 100 families for a year, along with tax breaks and other government incentives that allow them to keep and store that wealth. Then we can compare gold to gold, and not rotted fruit with diamonds.

Otherwise it's just the typical disingenuous teabagger sort of argument that a worthless bastard like, say, Mi$$ RobMe would make.

[Scuba]

37. You fail to comment on where that $9 - 14 trillion went. Handing cash to "jobs creators" ...

... in the name of ending poverty is a scam. Too bad you can't see that.

[Progressive dog]

44. Since 1964, wow only 49 years, 2% a year

Let's put this in perspective, almost certainly less than $1,000 per year per person. Somewhere near 2.5% of GDP. That is SO generous and SO likely to make a difference.
Sixteen percent (about 50,000,000 people) of Americans are living in poverty. This is after these "huge" expenditures.

You said
"The problem with poverty is, it's a sliding scale -- the definition of what we call poverty has been changing ever since the Neolithic Era. You cannot solve a problem that is continuously being redefined."

OK, so you would like poverty to retain some original definition. We wouldn't have to go back very far to get rid of modern medicine and hospitals. Modern transportation, sanitation, and clean drinking water could follow. Then we could get rid of electricity for those damn poor people.

Save us a lot of that awful cost, wouldn't it?

[DanTex]

55. Do you have a cite for that 9 trillion?

Please tell me it's not from a right-wing think tank.

[Jim Levy]

11. The French Tried this in 1789

and it didn't alleviate poverty in France

The Russians tried it in 1917 and it didn't alleviate poverty in Russia

China, North Korea, Cuba and various others all tried it ... it didn't alleviate poverty in any of those places

10th time the charm?

[Jim Levy]

15. Thanks for the constructive criticism

I feel we all grow from a well-reasoned rebuttal.

[HiPointDem]

19. where is the argument i am supposed to rebut? you copy and paste 1950s anti-communist

boilerplate and you expect a rebuttal?

the whole claim is bullshit starting with the premise.

[Jim Levy]

23. The French were Communists?

Thanks for the info ... who knew?

So, what you're saying is ... income redistribution from the top .000001% of the population is the answer to global poverty?

[Democracyinkind]

33. No but...

"The French tried that in 1789" actually was (and probably still is) a bumper sticker produced by The Liberty League.

It simply isn't an argument because the French tried no such thing. The French Revolution ended in the exact minute when the people wanted to take from the rich bourgeois, instead of just from the churches and aristocracy. Therefore, portraying the French Revolution as some kind of great redistributive scheme is engaging in revisionism.


As to you're last question: The Article makes a convincing case that taxing the income of the adequately 0.0000001 (or however many 0's you put there) would be enough to end global poverty.

[graham4anything]

18. FDR wasn't an isolationist, but Ron Paul is.

[Democracyinkind]

24. The french confiscated the assets of the 100 wealthiest citizens and redistributed it globally?

Now that's an interesting history of the French Revolution. Funny how it isn't in any of the books I've read about. Oh welll...

[Jim Levy]

28. I said ... it didn't end poverty in France

Are you saying if they spread it globally instead of domestically poverty would have ended in the 18th century?

I guess you're right, they would have gotten more Bang-for-the-Franc if they globalized.

[Democracyinkind]

30. You're saying the French tried what the article lines out. I'm saying that's simply not true.

And it isn't true for any of your other examples, either.

Try to stay on topic, it might help.

[Progressive dog]

46. Revolution against a feudal aristocracy is trying to alleviate poverty

I'll have to contact all those historians who missed the part about the French revolution being about eliminating poverty.

[Egalitarian Thug]

56. Uh, you might want to re-check your information there...

[blkmusclmachine]

34. .

.

[dipsydoodle]

36. World Bank figures shows that there are still 1.2 billion people living in extreme poverty.

i.e living on less than $1.25 / day. The $200 that each would get from distribution of the $240 billion would last them at best 160 days @ $1.25 / day, lesser number of days at a higher rate , and that's assuming that all funds reached them which I would doubt most sincerely.

I'm not saying the idea isn't good but there are inherent impracticalities not least in equitable distribution of the funds.

[sfpcjock]

38. So basically they can hang with $180 billion

Last edited Thu May 23, 2013, 01:20 PM - Edit history (1)

I think that's the math

[xchrom]

40. du rec. nt

[sibelian]

41. Redistribution lottery.

Select 1/3 of the richest at random and seize their assets. Redistribute.

Give the other 2/3 part of the distribution - 1/12, to keep 'em sweet.

Leaves 1/4 for us. Problem solved.

Better still, give all of the richest a secret way to affect the bingo machine so they get to CHEAT. Let them plot and scheme among themselves to select out the 1/3 of the richest they don't want at the party. That'll set their little faces a-melt with glee! Oh, how they love to screw with people! They actually like screwing with each other best of all, I would guess...

Do the whole thing as a reality TV programme.

Do it once every 5 years or so, maybe ten... make it a big, global event...

It would work. It woudl still be worth getting super-rich so your monster capitalist psycho personalities would still make mega businesses.

I've just had an even better idea.

Do it as a reality TV programme where the global population gets to VOTE which of the top 100 gets their wealth redistributed...



Bet you it would work. Totally bet.

[woo me with science]

52. k&r

[Fire Walk With Me]

53. Scarcity is an illusion.

[stuntcat]

59. Yep. We feed trillions of animals, get sick eating them, and 40,000 humans starve to DEATH each day.

FORTY THOUSAND people, mostly children, every 24 hours.

Humans scare me more than any horror ever imagined.
Every day I'm reminded over and over why I'm so glad my years watching this shit are half over.

[woo me with science]

57. kick

[HomerRamone]

58. kick