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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsSlap-in-the-Face Wealth Gap Images
by Paul Buchheit
Published on Monday, December 01, 2014 by Common Dreams
Just 70 individuals now own as much wealth as half the world. In the U.S., the richest 40 individuals own as much as half the country, and the 16,000 American households in the top .01% have accumulated an average net worth of over a third of a billion dollars. As extreme wealth continues to grow out of control, inequality worsens for the rest of us, plaguing our country and our world, spreading like a terminal form of cancer. It should be a major news item in the mainstream media. But the well-positioned few are either oblivious to or uncaring about its effect on less fortunate people.
The data and charts (citations here) come from Forbes, Credit Suisse, and a recent study by Emmanuel Saez and Gabriel Zucman.
1. Just 70 Individuals Own As Much Wealth As Half the World
halftheworld.jpg
Less than a year ago, Oxfam reported that the richest 85 individuals owned as much wealth as half the world. But recently updated calculations reveal that the richest 70 individuals now own $1.842 trillion, more than the poorest half of the world.
We're drawing nearer to the fulfillment of Charles Koch's dream: "I want my fair share and that's all of it."
2. Just 40 Americans Own As Much Wealth As Half the United States
40americans.jpg
About a month ago it was 43, and a month before that it was 47. Now the richest 40 Americans (The Forbes 40) own a little over $1.092 trillion, about the same, according to calculations based on Credit Suisse data, as the poorest half of the country.
The national wealth that was created by all of us over many decades is quickly being redistributed to fewer and fewer incomprehensibly rich people.
One of the causes for this pathological transfer of wealth is revealed in the final image..
3. Stock/Equity Wealth of the Richest 12,000 Households Has Surpassed the Housing Wealth of 108,000,000 Households
stockequity.jpg
Just 35 years ago, the percentage of national wealth in middle-class housing (net of mortgages) was about seven times more than the percentage of national wealth in equities owned by the .01% (12,000 families). Now middle-class housing is only about half the value of those equities.
Saez and Zucman report that the total of corporate equities, bonds, and savings deposits owned by the .01% amounted to 2.2 percent of total U.S. household wealth in the mid-1980s, rising to 9.9 percent in 2012. Meanwhile, housing for the bottom 90% dropped from 15 percent of total household wealth to 5-6 percent. Since the bottom 50%, according to the authors, own almost zero wealth, the housing figures pertain to the 50-90% families, which can be described as "middle class."
Possible solutions are becoming clearer:
(1) A Financial Speculation Tax to slow down the flow of money to the takers
(2) Occupy Wall Street, Phase II
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 License
Paul Buchheit is a college teacher, an active member of US Uncut Chicago, founder and developer of social justice and educational websites (UsAgainstGreed.org, PayUpNow.org, RappingHistory.org), and the editor and main author of "American Wars: Illusions and Realities" (Clarity Press). He can be reached at paul@UsAgainstGreed.org.
SOURCE w/links to details: http://www.commondreams.org/views/2014/12/01/slap-face-wealth-gap-images
Octafish
(55,745 posts)Bet your sweet bippy it does.
CIA moonlights in corporate world
In the midst of two wars and the fight against Al Qaeda, the CIA is offering operatives a chance to peddle their expertise to private companies on the side a policy that gives financial firms and hedge funds access to the nations top-level intelligence talent, POLITICO has learned.
In one case, these active-duty officers moonlighted at a hedge-fund consulting firm that wanted to tap their expertise in deception detection, the highly specialized art of telling when executives may be lying based on clues in a conversation.
The never-before-revealed policy comes to light as the CIA and other intelligence agencies are once again under fire for failing to connect the dots, this time in the Christmas Day bombing plot on Northwest Flight 253.
SNIP...
But the close ties between active-duty and retired CIA officers at one consulting company show the degree to which CIA-style intelligence gathering techniques have been employed by hedge funds and financial institutions in the global economy.
The firm is called Business Intelligence Advisors, and it is based in Boston. BIA was founded and is staffed by a number of retired CIA officers, and it specializes in the arcane field of deception detection. BIAs clients have included Goldman Sachs and the enormous hedge fund SAC Capital Advisors, according to spokesmen for both firms.
CONTINUED...
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0110/32290.html#ixzz0eIFPhHBh
Thank you for grokking, abelenkpe! I wonder how long "compartmentalized information" holds when the "price is right" is on?
liberal_at_heart
(12,081 posts)progressoid
(49,962 posts)SomethingFishy
(4,876 posts)I would say it's a safe bet that those 6 are run by some of the 70 people. Which means we will never see a "real" story about this in the MSM..
"Wal-Mart Cuts Health Benefits for 30,000 Employees as Profits Continue to Rise"
http://www.nationofchange.org/2014/10/10/wal-mart-cuts-health-benefits-30000-employees-profits-continue-rise/
It's literally reverse Robin Hood. They want more, more , more so they take from the poorest among us to get it. It's fucking sick.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)(as in the populace of the world). They are begging for the tumbrel rides to the national razor at this point. Time to grant them their richly (ha!) deserved fate.
Nye Bevan
(25,406 posts)before you execute her due to her wealth?
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)The List is reserved for the banksters, Koch types and hedge fund tenth-percenters. Rowling actually contributes much to the world. The financial engineers contribute nothing.
zeemike
(18,998 posts)Once they own it all, and that is just a matter of time, they will be kings.
And we will all have to lick their boots if we want to survive...Fuedalism is our future it seems.
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)Planet Earth is suffering from a disease the disease has a name it is called Econimic Terrorism:
In a document released at the end of May, the American banking and investment giant JP Morgan Chase calls for the overturning of the bourgeois democratic constitutions established in a series of European countries after the Second World War and the installation of authoritarian regimes.
The 16-page document was produced by the Europe Economic Research group of JP Morgan and titled The Euro Area AdjustmentAbout Half-Way There. The document begins by noting that the crisis in the euro zone has two dimensions.
First, the paper argues, financial measures are necessary to ensure that major investment houses such as JP Morgan can continue to reap huge profits from their speculative activities in Europe. Second, the authors maintain, it is necessary to impose political reforms aimed at suppressing opposition to the massively unpopular austerity measures being carried out at the behest of the banks.
JPMorgan calls for authoritarian regimes in Europe
The Austerity programme is exactly about finally crushing our human rights and reclaiming into private hands all the national assets the people won after WW2. Except, this time, the controllers of that wealth & assets have no interest or direct bond with the nations that provide their upward flow of cash human-energy. There is very real evidence which strongly suggests that a union of interests between an essentially Eugenicist/Nazi-Elite, has actively conspired to open the doors to this, their day of triumph i.e. a dance on the grave of Human Rights, back to slavery because this time, it is NOT slavery it is repaying a debt, a debt that was already repaid a thousand times over; without the obscenity of reckless, financial-usury, in truth, it is the banks who are indebted to the people.
Read more: http://www.exposingtruth.com/snowdens-quantum-leap/#ixzz3KgpIcDYI
Follow us: @Exposing4Truth on Twitter | ExposingTheTruth on Facebookn2
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)Jayzus, the New Fascists don't even try to hide it anymore, do they?
Ichingcarpenter
(36,988 posts)As the link shows and can also be found with independent searches and reading the study itself
JP Morgan-the-euro-area-adjustment--about-halfway-there.pdf
h
https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B52MZ4CG3AqgUUZuZVNLVGo0MjA/edit
As usual Octafish reveals the ugly truth which is why I posted in his tread because he gets a high read count and I thought this information I brought is pertinent and relevant to the OP.
world wide wally
(21,739 posts)and democrats are still looking for a set of tires so they can get in this race?
renate
(13,776 posts)Was income inequality addressed at all in the past election? Because if it isn't a huge focus in 2016 then the Democrats will truly have fallen down on the job. This should be an outrage to 99% of the population and/or to anybody with a human heart.
I admit I only read liberal sources of news and opinion, so maybe I see a lot more about this topic than a mainstream voter, but it feels as though a tipping point is being approached... goodness, I hope so.
Dont call me Shirley
(10,998 posts)The rest of the iceberg is their unreported monies.
http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=&imgrefurl=http://tea.armadaproject.org/smith/11.18.1999.html&h=300&w=271&tbnid=S-khRN__kJwkzM:&zoom=1&docid=lB-zkmGl16GQiM&hl=en-US&ei=lwR9VLqEPYSWyQS504KgBg&tbm=isch&ved=0CCEQMygDMAM
renate
(13,776 posts)I never even thought of that.
Dont call me Shirley
(10,998 posts)The visual puts the thought into perspective. Alarming.
hifiguy
(33,688 posts)That the global ultra rich have $25-35 TRILLION squirreled away in various financial black holes around the world. Get the ropes.
Dont call me Shirley
(10,998 posts)and buckets of tar.
I read somewhere, wish I had it bookmarked, that they work very hard to not allow the majority of the general public to know, for if we did we would rip them limb by limb for everyone to see.
chknltl
(10,558 posts)Odin2005
(53,521 posts)liberal_at_heart
(12,081 posts)Marrah_G
(28,581 posts)librechik
(30,674 posts)why do you think you are above the rest of commerce? You monarchs don't have to pay taxes because you have Congress's balls in your purse. You are nothing but the lowest of vulgar criminals and thieves.
grahamhgreen
(15,741 posts)CincyDem
(6,346 posts)Last time I looked, the proposal was something like a penny per hundred (maybe thousand) dollars of transaction - sure that gets to be a big number with the transactions are huge but it still leaves 99.99 (or 99.999)% in the buyer/seller's pockets.
The tax issue we need to address is the cost we pay to make money via labor versus make money via financial manipulations.
If I go out and work a 40 hour week, I pay income taxes - in effect I pay the government for the right to work in this country. If, on the other hand, I have a fair amount of money I can let it go out and do the work and I pay capital gains taxes. In this case, I'm paying the government for the privilege of having my money doing the work.
We tax labor at 30+%, maybe as high as 40% by the time every taxing entity between the local precinct and the federal government gets their hands on my W2.
At the same time, we tax capital gains at 15% and as best I recall, it's only the feds. Some states tax cap gains and very few municipalities do.
So...given the choice, I pay more for the privilege of laboring in this country than I do for the privilege of sitting back and letting my money do the work.
Until we fix that imbalance, the system will always tilt to devaluing labor.
Sounds like America.
JEFF9K
(1,935 posts)lonestarnot
(77,097 posts)JEB
(4,748 posts)The majority of Politicians are beholding to the money. The cops make no bones about protecting and serving the 1% from the rest of us peons. The media is nothing but distraction or outright propaganda for the oligarchs. I am sad to say that I believe things will get much worse for us.
burrowowl
(17,636 posts)lonestarnot
(77,097 posts)Laelth
(32,017 posts)-Laelth