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World’s 100 richest earned enough in 2012 to end global poverty 4 times over
RT.com ^ | 20 January, 2013, 15:46

Posted on 01/20/2013 9:50:34 AM PST by TaxPayer2000

The world's 100 richest people earned a stunning total of $240 billion in 2012 – enough money to end extreme poverty worldwide four times over, Oxfam has revealed, adding that the global economic crisis is further enriching the super-rich.

“The richest 1 percent has increased its income by 60 percent in the last 20 years with the financial crisis accelerating rather than slowing the process,” while the income of the top 0.01 percent has seen even greater growth, a new Oxfam report said.

For example, the luxury goods market has seen double-digit growth every year since the crisis hit, the report stated. And while the world's 100 richest people earned $240 billion last year, people in "extreme poverty" lived on less than $1.25 a day.

Oxfam is a leading international philanthropy organization. Its new report, ‘The Cost of Inequality: How Wealth and Income Extremes Hurt us All,’ argues that the extreme concentration of wealth actually hinders the world’s ability to reduce poverty.

The report was published before the World Economic Forum in Davos next week, and calls on world leaders to “end extreme wealth by 2025, and reverse the rapid increase in inequality seen in the majority of countries in the last 20 years.”

Oxfam's report argues that extreme wealth is unethical, economically inefficient, politically corrosive, socially divisive and environmentally destructive.

The problem is a global one, Oxfam said: "In the UK inequality is rapidly returning to levels not seen since the time of Charles Dickens. In China the top 10 percent now take home nearly 60 percent of the income. Chinese inequality levels are now similar to those in South Africa, which is now the most unequal country on Earth and significantly more [inequality] than at the end of apartheid."

In the US, the richest 1 percent's share of income has doubled since 1980 from 10 to 20 percent, according to the report. For the top 0.01 percent, their share of national income quadrupled, reaching levels never seen before.

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

Hobbs explained that concentration of wealth in the hands of the top few minimizes economic activity, making it harder for others to participate: “From tax havens to weak employment laws, the richest benefit from a global economic system which is rigged in their favor.”

The report highlights that even politics has become controlled by the super-wealthy, which leads to policies “benefitting the richest few and not the poor majority, even in democracies.”

“It is time our leaders reformed the system so that it works in the interests of the whole of humanity rather than a global elite,” the report said.

The four-day World Economic Forum will be held in Davos starting next Wednesday. World financial leaders will gather for an annual meeting that will focus on reviving the global economy, the eurozone crisis and the conflicts in Syria and Mali.


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: 7deadlysins; envy; greed; marxism; redistribution
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To: TaxPayer2000

I’m not falling for this..... obama administration is again pitting one group against the other.


41 posted on 01/20/2013 10:41:27 AM PST by malia
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To: TaxPayer2000
World’s 100 richest earned enough in 2012 to end global poverty 4 times over

The absurd claim above notwithstanding, in the infantile mind of the liberal, burning the Mona Lisa would keep a homeless person warm for twenty minutes. That's how the mental defectives we know as liberals actually think.
42 posted on 01/20/2013 10:45:24 AM PST by SpaceBar
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To: TaxPayer2000

Do the math.

$240B / world population = $35.

The article describes “extreme poverty” as living on less than $1.25/day.
Another $35 per year won’t help.
Relegating that money to just 10% of the population at best raises them to about $2.25/day (or less). That still doesn’t help much: twice dang near zero is still dang near zero.

Not sure how they take that to ending global poverty 4 times over.
And I don’t see the author(s) giving up most of their income to others.


43 posted on 01/20/2013 10:46:23 AM PST by ctdonath2 (End of debate. Your move.)
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To: fhayek; muawiyah
I simply cringe every time I see a proposal concerning how someone else’s wealth is to be divied up. I see no positives to that way of thinking. Sorry, I just don’t.

Same here. Sadly, that way of thinking is increasingly popular. It's no less idiotic. The "rich" can only do three things with their money: 1) Put it in the bank (good, they'll have more to loan). 2) Spend it. (good, they'll purchase goods and services that keep people working). 3) Expand a business with it (good, more jobs).

The idea that someone having a lot of money is a problem is absurd. And it's rooted in the foolish liberal idea that there's only so much money, that the "rich" took too much of it and that's not fair. Total nonsense.
44 posted on 01/20/2013 10:52:12 AM PST by youngidiot (God help us.)
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To: TaxPayer2000

OPRAH already proved you CANNOT END POVERTY BY GIVING PEOPLE MONEY! The big Lottery winners as a rule usually prove it true, also!


45 posted on 01/20/2013 10:59:07 AM PST by goodnesswins (R.I.P. Doherty, Smith, Stevens, Woods.)
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To: TaxPayer2000

I am too worried about my family sinking into poverty to be concerned about global poverty, idiots!


46 posted on 01/20/2013 11:06:56 AM PST by spel_grammer_an_punct_polise (Learn three chords and you, too, can be a Rock Star!)
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To: youngidiot
i'm speaking only of how to divvy it up AFTER they're dead. I think it's best to hand it over to the relatives on the outside chance that they carry a gene that put to work can create vast fortunes with immense profits.

Better than just locking the family out and giving the bucks to the professional nonprofit oundation class ~ those people are all scum you know.

47 posted on 01/20/2013 11:10:11 AM PST by muawiyah
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To: JHL
Incidentally, if the $240 Billion were spent on poverty programs instead of Rolls Royces and other luxury items, what would happen to all the people who work in factories making those luxury products?

Not a terribly good argument. Luxury products, by definition, are produced in small quantities and employ comparatively few people, as opposed to products intended for mass consumption.

I understand your point, but as a percentage of the total economy of the world luxury products are a small factor.

As I expect can be quickly shown by comparing the worldwide employee count of Rolls and Lamborghini to that of Toyota and Ford.

48 posted on 01/20/2013 11:10:27 AM PST by Sherman Logan
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To: muawiyah
i'm speaking only of how to divvy it up AFTER they're dead. I think it's best to hand it over to the relatives on the outside chance that they carry a gene that put to work can create vast fortunes with immense profits.

Better than just locking the family out and giving the bucks to the professional nonprofit oundation class ~ those people are all scum you know.


Yes, but I maintain that it's none of our business what people do with their money, dead or alive. Let them leave it all to Communist if they so desire, we'll have that fight head on.
49 posted on 01/20/2013 11:12:37 AM PST by youngidiot (God help us.)
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To: TaxPayer2000
The richest 1 percent has increased its income by 60 percent in the last 20 years

Which doesn't keep pace with world GDP. Something the article doesn't want you to know.

IE, the rich are getting poorer compared to the rate of world growth.

50 posted on 01/20/2013 11:12:37 AM PST by mnehring
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To: SpaceBar
During the midst of the Northern hemispheric weather anomaly that destroyed Northern and Western Europe after 535AD, people burned ancient rare books and other works of art just to keep warm ~ all to no avail. The Dark Ages ensued and it took that part of the world nearly a thousand years to recover economically to the levels they'd achieved when the Roman Empire ruled the region.

Burning a Mona Lisa to keep warm is sometimes the correct answer.

51 posted on 01/20/2013 11:13:34 AM PST by muawiyah
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To: youngidiot

When you are dead you have no business. You are dead. Time to take care of your own people even if you hated them in life. Why should they become a public charge when you have left billions behind.


52 posted on 01/20/2013 11:15:33 AM PST by muawiyah
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To: TaxPayer2000

Of course, you know the REAL solution that the Proggies have for the “excess poor”.

A bullet to the head and a ditch, some lime, and a bulldozer.

They could probably achieve THAT for $240 billion. . .


53 posted on 01/20/2013 11:18:25 AM PST by Salgak (Acme Lasers presents: The Energizer Border. I **DARE** you to cross it. . . .)
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To: muawiyah

I wonder how many of them were liberal 1%’ers?...


54 posted on 01/20/2013 11:18:51 AM PST by jsanders2001
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To: muawiyah
When you are dead you have no business. You are dead. Time to take care of your own people even if you hated them in life. Why should they become a public charge when you have left billions behind.

If they are a public charge, that happened long before my death. Simply mandating that those fools get money solves nothing. Most of them will cash it in for $1 bills and head to the nearest titty bar. To each his own.
55 posted on 01/20/2013 11:19:28 AM PST by youngidiot (God help us.)
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To: youngidiot

Titty bars deserve to exist ~ but life is for the living ~ not the dead.


56 posted on 01/20/2013 11:21:40 AM PST by muawiyah
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To: jsanders2001
Odds are good that by passing on inheritances to the 500 closest blood relatives, the largest fortunes will end up being managed by folks who are FAR MORE CONSERVATIVE than any of the professional foundation class.

What's good for Conservatism is good for America, and the world.

57 posted on 01/20/2013 11:23:44 AM PST by muawiyah
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To: The_Reader_David

If you’re experiencing it, it doesn’t matter if it’s mild or extreme poverty. But we’re nothing near the level of poverty that they suffer in 3rd world countries


58 posted on 01/20/2013 11:24:46 AM PST by jsanders2001
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To: TaxPayer2000

The rich could do LOTS of things if they wanted. But is this THEIR problem? Are they responsible fo the bad decisions of others? Hardly.

The taxpayers of the U.S. have been bilked out of BILLIONS of dollars for the war on poverty, drugs, etc,etc,etc.

Has it helped? You be the judge.


59 posted on 01/20/2013 11:26:59 AM PST by unixfox (Abolish Slavery, Repeal The 16th Amendment!)
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To: TaxPayer2000

Hey!

LBJ’s war on poverty” has spent $9 trillion and counting.

Yes, $9 trillion - those are tax dollars.


60 posted on 01/20/2013 11:30:07 AM PST by donna (Pray for revival.)
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