Posted on 06/02/2013 6:40:41 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
According to a study that was just released by Boston Consulting Group, the wealthiest one percent now own 39 percent of all the wealth in the world. Meanwhile, the bottom 50 percent only own 1 percent of all the wealth in the world combined. The global financial system has been designed to funnel wealth to the very top, and the gap between the wealthy and the poor continues to expand at a frightening pace. The global elite continue to hoard wealth and heap together enormous mountains of treasure in these troubled days even though the economic suffering around the planet continues to grow.
So exactly how have the global elite accumulated so much wealth? Well, one of the primary ways is through the use of debt. As I have written about previously, there is about 190 trillion dollars of debt in the world but global GDP is only about 70 trillion dollars. Our debt-based global financial system systematically transfers wealth from us and our governments into the hands of the global elite. And of course the gigantic banks and corporations that the elite control are constantly gobbling up everything of value that they can find: natural resources, profitable small businesses, real estate, politicians, etc. Money, power, ownership and control are becoming very, very tightly concentrated at the top of the food chain, and that is a very dangerous thing for humanity. When too much money and power gets into too few hands, it almost always results in tyranny.
What will eventually happen when the global elite have ALL the wealth?
Will the rest of us work as serfs in a system that they have iron-fisted control over?
And what if they decide that they don't really need billions of people working for them? Will they decide to implement population control measures in order to reduce the number of "useless eaters"? It is already happening in China and other highly centralized societies.
When all of the economic rewards of a society go to a very small handful of people, it tends to be very destabilizing. We have seen this again and again throughout history.
When people have everything taken away from them and they have nothing left to lose, they tend to become very desperate. And right now we are rapidly hurtling toward a time of great global instability. Anger and frustration are growing all over the globe, and the rate at which the gap between the wealthy and the poor is widening seems to be accelerating. Just check out these numbers...
-The wealthiest 1 percent of the global population now owns 39 percent of all the wealth on the planet.
-According to a report that was released last summer, the global elite have up to 32 TRILLION dollars stashed in offshore banks around the planet.
-According to a study conducted by Credit Suisse, the bottom two-thirds of the global population owns just 3.3% of all the wealth.
-A study by the World Institute for Development Economics Research discovered that the bottom half of the world population owns approximately 1 percent of all global wealth.
-It is estimated that the entire continent of Africa only owns approximately 1 percent of the total wealth of the world.
-Approximately 1 billion people throughout the world go to bed hungry each night.
-If you can believe it, more than 3 billion people currently live on less than 2 dollar a day.
In the world that we live in, money equals power. And the more money that the top one percent accumulate, the more power they will accumulate as well.
So exactly who are the top one percent? I discussed this at length in my previous article entitled "Who Runs The World? Solid Proof That A Core Group Of Wealthy Elitists Is Pulling The Strings". The global elite are absolutely obsessed with power and control and they have been working to implement their agenda for a very long time. In the end, they hope to unite the entire planet under a monolithic global system that they control. They are actually quite open about this - it is just that most people do not want to believe it.
The gap between the wealthy and the poor is rapidly growing in the United States as well. Sadly, this means that the middle class is steadily disappearing as the ranks of those that are living in poverty continues to increase.
But of course not everyone is doing badly in the U.S. right now. In fact, those that own stocks have had lots of reasons to celebrate in recent months.
So who owns stocks?
Well, the wealthy do of course. In fact, approximately 60 percent of all individually held stocks are owned by the top 5 percent of all Americans.
During the last recession, Americans lost 16 trillion dollars of wealth. Since then, about 45 percent of that wealth has been "recovered", but the vast majority of that "recovery" has been due to rising stock prices. The following comes from a recent Washington Post article...
From the peak of the boom to the bottom of the bust, households watched a total of $16 trillion in wealth disappear amid sinking stock prices and the rubble of the real estate market. Since then, Americans have only been able to recapture 45 percent of that amount on average, after adjusting for inflation and population growth, according to the report from the St. Louis Fed released Thursday.
In addition, the report showed most of the improvement was due to gains in the stock market, which primarily benefit wealthy families. That means the recovery for other households has been even weaker.
“A conclusion that the financial damage of the crisis and recession largely has been repaired is not justified,” the report stated.
Once upon a time, the United States had the largest and most thriving middle class in the history of the world. That was a great thing. But now the middle class is being destroyed and government dependence has surged to an all-time high.
The following are some of the incredible statistics that show how wide the gap between the wealthy and the poor in America is becoming...
-The wealthiest 1 percent of all Americans now own more than a third of all the wealth in the United States.
-In the United States today, the wealthiest one percent of all Americans have a greater net worth than the bottom 90 percent combined.
-According to Forbes, the 400 wealthiest Americans have more wealth than the bottom 150 million Americans combined.
-The six heirs of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton have as much wealth as the bottom one-third of all Americans combined.
-On average, households in the top 7 percent have 24 times as much wealth as households in the bottom 93 percent.
-Between 2009 and 2011, the wealth of the bottom 93 percent of all Americans declined by 4 percent, while the wealth of the top 7 percent of all Americans increased by 28 percent.
-The poorest 50 percent of all Americans collectively own just 2.5% of all the wealth in the United States.
-The top 0.01% of all Americans make an average of $27,342,212. The bottom 90% make an average of $31,244.
For much more on how poverty is rising and the middle class is being destroyed, please see my recent article entitled "22 Facts That Prove That The Bottom 90 Percent Of America Is Systematically Getting Poorer".
Obviously we have a huge problem here.
With each passing day, poverty is rising and more people are becoming dependent on the government.
So what is the solution to this mess?
like i said, the article made no mention of taxation thus my reply... i have no problem with a consumption tax since that way you would get all the black market criminals paying into the system that as of now pay nothing either, get some of that EBT money back as well
False conclusion. Mass production was inevitable. Ford didn't care about destroying independent livelihoods. He simply needed people to build his cars. And obviously not everyone worked in the "dinghy factories." How else would you suggest we could have gone about making cars or other "dinghies"? I would argue mass production and the resultant huge amounts of wealth created allowed for more people to establish their own independent livelihoods.
Muawiyah - surprise, surprise - you have no idea how much I spend or don’t spend.
We'll do it right this time. Trust us.
It is a good thing that these articles are posted on FR so we know this kind of thinking exists, who publishes it, and who the authors are. Know thine enemy. This sounds like a manifesto written by the “Blockupy” nuts in Frankfurt or their brethren in the US.
Seems like a 23% consumption tax immediately makes everything that is used but still in good condition worth another 23%? I think a consumption tax likely increases items being sold on the black market (outside of the system). Yet... I still prefer a consumption tax to what we have now. Maybe not 23% though.
You’re right. We’d all be much wealthier and living happier lives with more consumer goods if everything we bought were made by individual artisans and we didn’t have interchangeable parts and those horrible assembly lines. How foolish of humans to reorder their economic systems and lives for higher productivity and reduced costs.
When the article mentions a rapidly disappearing middle class and people having things taken from them I assume taxation.
And the power they have over me is what?
my taxes haven't gone up so i attribute it to inflation and wage stagnation, many people haven't had a raise since shortly after the boy took office...
23% would really be harsh, let alone after adding state/county/city sales taxes in many places and then add state income taxes and you're talkin real out of pocket money!
‘Well, here’s the tried and true, used in Russia, China, Cambodia, all over Eastern Europe: “Kill or imprison the producers, confiscate their machinery and lands, subvert their institutions of learning.”’
You forgot the part about making the educated and the professionals work in the fields or are simply murdered outright and their property stolen.
Make your own way in this world or quit taking up space on this planet!!!
Make you own wealth or shut up!
Wasn’t the dreaded Hindenberg Omen seen recently?
And the bottom 50%, surprise, surprise, still don’t spend as much as you do.
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Wow, ladyjane must be fabulously wealthy as well as the world’s greatest spendthrift if she spends more that the bottom 50% do.
Also from the original article - "Once upon a time, the United States had the largest and most thriving middle class in the history of the world. That was a great thing. But now the middle class is being destroyed and government dependence has surged to an all-time high."
That 'once upon a time' period, the United States recognized personal properties (ownership of wealth), now we have the professional agitator in chief "you didn't build that' leading the mob.
And we are not talking about the >90% peasant class in the past, these are the 50% 'paid idle poor'.
I never said mass production was a bad thing. On the contrary: I said, “Mass production is not a bad thing.”
A rising tide does lift all boats. Indeed, even the poor in this country are quite well-off in an absolute sense.
But tell me, how many of us - now that we have our bare necessities and even many luxuries, now that we’re wealthy compared to the average Chinese or our grandparents or whomever - how many have said “I have enough now” and gone back to living independent lives?
Aren’t we all instead chasing after a moving goal? Once we all became so rich as to afford one of Henry Ford’s Model A automobiles, did we stop there? Did we say, “Thanks for the job, Mr. Ford. And here’s the money to pay for the car. I’ll be heading back to my own independent livelihood now.”? (There’s a reason Huxley chose Ford as the god of his “Brave New World”.)
Sure, everyone is entitled to profit from his work and his ideas; I don’t begrudge anyone the fruit of his labors. But at some point corporatism began manufacturing demand to keep us in the factories in much the same way money-lending does to keep us paying interest. (Ever wonder why the Law of Moses forbade the Jews from charging one another interest? Or what the purpose of Jubilee was?)
We’re sharecroppers. With every harvest that supplies our needs and wants, we enrich the wealthy landowner and ensure the perpetuation of our condition. Yet we defend him and say, “But without him, we would starve!”
Silly serfs we are.
Heh! Ever heard of the “housing bubble”? Wealth transfer on a grand scale, that was.
(It seems some here have never played Monopoly.)
She’s in the 20% at the top ~ gave herself away by her responses. All the people in the lower 50% by definition have less to spend than does she.
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