Subscribe to Receive the Daily Report

Saturday, March 29th, 2014

Oxfam: 85 Richest People as Wealthy as Poorest Half of the World

Author:     GRAEME WEARDEN
Source:     The Guardian (U.K.)
Publication Date:     Monday 20 January 2014 04.24 EST
 Link: Oxfam: 85 Richest People as Wealthy as Poorest Half of the World
Stephan:   What particularly stood out for me in this report was that the last time I looked at this it was 300 individuals had as much wealth as 42 per cent of the rest of the world population. Now it is 85 and 50 per cent. As history has shown repeatedly when inequality gets to a certain point social violence and disruption occurs. How close do you think we are? SOURCE: Working for the Few - Oxfam report Source: F. Alvaredo, A. B. Atkinson, T. Piketty and E. Saez, (2013) "The World Top Incomes Database', http://topincomes.g-mond.parisschoolofeconomics.eu/ Only includes countries with data in 1980 and later than 2008.

The world’s wealthiest people aren’t known for travelling by bus, but if they fancied a change of scene then the richest 85 people on the globe – who between them control as much wealth as the poorest half of the global population put together – could squeeze onto a single double-decker.

The extent to which so much global wealth has become corralled by a virtual handful of the so-called ‘global elite’ is exposed in a new report from Oxfam on Monday. It warned that those richest 85 people across the globe share a combined wealth of £1tn, as much as the poorest 3.5 billion of the world’s population.

The wealth of the 1% richest people in the world amounts to $110tn (£60.88tn), or 65 times as much as the poorest half of the world, added the development charity, which fears this concentration of economic resources is threatening political stability and driving up social tensions.

It’s a chilling reminder of the depths of wealth inequality as political leaders and top business people head to the snowy peaks of Davos for this week’s World Economic Forum. Few, if any, will be arriving on anything as common as a bus, with private jets and helicopters pressed […]

Read the Full Article