Some Are Way More Equal Than Others

As the latest Davos conference of the super wealthy happens this month in Switzerland, here's a not-so-gentle reminder from OxFam that wealth inequality is a global problem, not just a US one.

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.

We're not even talking the one percenters here, but the richest .00001%.  The richest 1% globally have about 68 trillion pounds in collected wealth, or $110 trillion.

One hundred ten trillion dollars.

And guess which country has seen the largest growth in wealth for the top one percent since 1980?

 

But we can no longer afford social programs, and can't afford to raise minimum wages, and can't afford tax increases because the precious rich in this country are too burdened.

Think about that.