Number of global billionaires has doubled since the financial crisis

[grahamhgreen]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/number-of-global-billionaires-has-doubled-since-the-financial-crisis-9826345.html

The influential report is supported by Bank of England chief economist Andrew Haldane and Nobel Prize-winning economist Joseph Stiglitz. It notes that since 2009 one million women have died in childcare due to lack of basic health care, and that 57m children are currently missing out on any form of education.

The charity, which published the report as part of its new Even It Up campaign, also found that the richest 85 people in the world have the same wealth as the poorest half of the world’s population.
This group saw its wealth increase by a staggering £412m every day in the last year, while Oxfam now estimates that there are 16 billionaires in Sub-Saharan Africa, where 358m people live in extreme poverty.

....

By calling for a shift of taxation from labour towards wealth and capital, the charity risks being attacked by those on the economic right, who accuse it of politicising the international debate surround poverty..

Wealth tax??? Hell yes.

[bmac19gg]

1. how do you tax the rich....

....and not piss them off? Clearly running around calling them evil greedy thieves and then trying to take their money isn't going to work. So how do we get them to give it up willingly? There has to be an answer to that.

[bluesbassman]

2. To steal an ad line from Nike: Just Do It!

Who gives a flying pig if the wealthy are pissed off? What are they gonna do, pick up their toys and move to North Korea? Let them go, but freeze their assets as they head out the door.

They have been pillaging the national coffers of every nation on this planet for years, have effectively destroyed the middle class in the United States, and made billions on the backs of people who can't even afford to sustain themselves without government assistance. At this point why should anyone care if they willingly want to give it up.

[bmac19gg]

4. ya pretty much

Not North Korea but certainly somewhere else. Use France as an example. The people rallied behind Hollande's rhetoric, which was similar to some of the class warfare narratives we hear in the US, giving him a mandate to take an overly aggressive stance on taxes for wealthy people. France's rich decided they didn't have to stand for having massive taxes levied against them while being insulted in the media and by their own leadership, so they left. And it wasn't only individuals packing up their millions/billions and heading to more friendly lands but also companies. That hurt France, badly, and now President Hollande is walking back his bad play.

I know having a hatred of the rich has become a pretty common characteristic in recent years and its not like I don't see where it comes from but we cant become thugs out to steal from people we don't like. You say "freeze their assets" but what of the 5th Amendment?

So back to my original question, how do we raise taxes on the rich and not piss them off in the process. I don't have a complete answer but surely the start of it goes something like "first stop demonizing everybody that has money". There are a lot of smart people out there and hopefully working on this but if you tell me the only way to even out the stakes of wealth for Americans is to have government steal it? ....I'm sorry that just doesn't fly with me.

[nc4bo]

5. Pay their fair share just like the rest of us poor blokes.

Many of them do not.

Whinest bunch of welfare queens, corporate whores and slavers you ever want to meet. Oh, and did you hear that corporations are people to? Don't that beat all?

Pay their fair share just like the rest of us and put back what they so gleefully take.

Let them go, there will be others companies more than happy to fill in.

[grahamhgreen]

7. The richest people in this country are the Walton family. They buy cheap crap in China and resell it

Anybody can do that. Breaking up their monopoly would have a very positive effect on the economy, and we'd be far better off without them.

You must agree we'd be better off without the Koch bros and their fracking practices?

IN my view, their is no way to tax them 1 nickel and not have them pissed off.

They are at war with us and they have no mercy.

[woo me with science]

8. "we cant become thugs out to steal from people we don't like."

we cant become thugs out to steal from people we don't like.

Oh, my WORD. Who's stealing from whom again? Virtually ALL new wealth is going to the top one percent....and you're smearing the 99 percent as the thieves?

I swear, the corporate talking points get more jaw-droppingly insulting every single day.

[grahamhgreen]

3. they're already pissed off. They won't be happy til your children go hungry.

[Turborama]

6. Richest 85 people in the world have the same wealth as the poorest half of the world’s population!

Figures like this should be getting a lot more attention than they are.

The charity, which published the report as part of its new Even It Up campaign, also found that the richest 85 people in the world have the same wealth as the poorest half of the world’s population.

This group saw its wealth increase by a staggering £412m every day in the last year, while Oxfam now estimates that there are 16 billionaires in Sub-Saharan Africa, where 358m people live in extreme poverty.

Mark Goldring, Oxfam’s chief executive, said: “Inequality is one of the defining problems of our age. In a world where hundreds of millions of people are living without access to clean drinking water and without enough food to feed their families, a small elite have more money than they could spend in several lifetimes.

“The consequences of extreme inequality are harmful to everyone - it robs millions of people of better life chances and fuels crime, corruption and even violent conflict. Put simply, it is holding back efforts to end poverty."


Earlier this month the OECD said global inequality was at its worst levels since 1820. It said that the “great divergence” between the global rich and poor was one of the most “worrying” developments in the last 200 years.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/number-of-global-billionaires-has-doubled-since-the-financial-crisis-9826345.html

If all the world's billionaires had been taxed at a rate of 1.5% on their wealth over 1 billion US dollars in 2014, it would have raised £46 billion - enough to get every child into school and deliver health services in all of the world's poorest countries which would cost around half that figure - said the report.

http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2014/10/29/number-of-billionaires-haa-grown_n_6068066.html?utm_hp_ref=uk

[woo me with science]

9. K&R, and as Piketty has noted, the disproportion will only escalate from here simply as a result

of how the system is now structured. Nothing has to happen; it will occur naturally as current laws stand.

Simply because of how the laws and tax structures have been rigged, owned, hoarded wealth will continue to grow itself, and smaller and smaller proportions of wealth will be left to the rest of us.

The mechanisms are in place to create serfdom, and that's no exaggeration.


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Happy Halloween:
(Thanks, DeSwiss)

[woo me with science]

10. Kick. This is important.