Subscribe to Receive the Daily Report

Friday, October 24th, 2014

Piketty’s prophecy comes true: The planet’s middle class is rapidly going extinct

Author:     Lynn Stuart Parramore
Source:     Salon
Publication Date:     Thursday, Oct 23, 2014 03:30 AM PDT
 Link: Piketty’s prophecy comes true: The planet’s middle class is rapidly going extinct
Stephan:   The Obama Administration's failure to hold the grifters and criminals that crashed the economy in 2007-2008 responsible, and the failure of both Obama and the Congress to draft the necessary legislation to see that it didn't happen again, I think, will be seen by history as one of the greatest examples of poor governance in American history and, as this report spells out, it has planetary consequences. More than that, it virtually guarantees it will happen again. These wheeler-dealers are still obscenely rich, and ethically degenerate. And the the transfer of wealth that was part of this process will haunt us for a least one, and perhaps two generations. The middle class is dying and no democracy can endure that does not have a vibrant middle class. They are the consumers that drive the economic engine.
Thomas Piketty Credit: Reuters/Charles Platiau

Thomas Piketty
Credit: Reuters/Charles Platiau

According to a new report, the richest one percent have got their mitts on almost half the world’s assets. Think that’s the end of the story? Think again. This is only the beginning.

The “Global Annual Wealth Report,” freshly released by investment giant Credit Suisse, analyzes the shocking trend of growing wealth inequality around the world. What the researchers find is that global wealth has increased every year since 2008, and that personal wealth seems to be rising at the fastest rate ever recorded, much of it driven by strong equity markets. But the benefits of this growth have largely been channeled to those who are already affluent. While the restaurant workers in America struggled to achieve wages of $10 an hour for their labor, those invested in equities saw their wealth soar without lifting a finger. So it goes around the world.

The bottom half of the world’s people now own less than 1 percent of total wealth, and they’re struggling to hold onto even that minuscule […]

Read the Full Article