8 Men Wealthier than 3.6 Billion People
A report by the international charity Oxfam finds that eight men have as much wealth as the poorest half of the world.
Oxfam said new data from its report “An Economy for the 99%,” shows that between 1988 and 2011, the incomes of the poorest 10% rose by just $3 a year, while incomes of the richest 1% increased 182 times that much. In 2015, the world’s richest 1% held on to their share of global wealth, owning vastly more than the other 99%.
Mark Goldring, Oxfam CEO, said: "This year's snapshot of inequality is clearer, more accurate and more shocking than ever before. It is beyond grotesque that a group of men who could easily fit in a single golf buggy own more than the poorest half of humanity."
Several of the people in the top eight have pledged to give their wealth, or a big chunk of it, to philanthropic causes, and continually drive growth and opportunity for others. Though despite this it is still alarming just how extreme wealth inequality is and how heavily favored the top is. Do you think this economic path is unsustainable, or even possibly unjust?
The eight guys are Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, Carlos Slim, Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Amancio Ortega, Larry Ellison and Michael Bloomberg - collectively worth around $426 billion.
Throughout history we've always had kings that ruled over empires, nothing really new here.
Good for them they earned it. I guarantee you that in 100 years their heirs will not even have 1/100th of what they earned. So the rich are constantly cyclical and not the same people so what you really uncovered is that rich people exist...congrats. Shirt tails to shirt tails in 3 generations.
*Even if they keep it in a trust unless and unless they only have 1-kid wealth gets divided there is no rule of primogeneteur in a democracy. Also, also I know I spelled that word wrong.
Great, by the law of semantics my statements still stands. Also it is the same principal.
Pretty sure there's a lot of wealthy people in the Asia region (Mainly China & India) that could potentially be more wealthier than those individuals but just aren't highlighted by the media as much.
Not so sure about Shervin's comment at least in some cultures, Especially South-Asian they tend to keep their businesses and marriages within their immediate cousins/family members, and these are very strong continuing on for generations. In comparison to the Western Approach.
But yeah, this has always existed and isn't really anything new. (I would think?)
I never have liked the word inequality too often it polarizes the discussion such as nebulous terms like pro life or pro choice. There is no real discussion about the merits and points of each just two people arguing their own trenched in position. I've always heard Milton Friedman respond to the claim of inequality by saying "inequality to what?" There is never a position in this argument where if you said fine, what is a fair amount, the opposition would quantify a sum and not just say less. It is more of a visceral feeling and reaction to those numbers than a reasoning and study as to why the exist and why are they bad. Inequality makes it seem bad but throughout history equality has always been far worse.
"On Inequality, the philosopher Harry Frankfurt argues that economic equality has no intrinsic value. This is a moral claim, but it’s also a psychological one: Frankfurt suggests that if people take the time to reflect, they’ll realize that inequality isn’t really what’s bothering them."... ... ...
"Frankfurt argues, though, that we aren’t really bothered by inequality for its own sake. He points out that few worry about inequalities between the very rich and the very well off, even though these might be greater, both absolutely and proportionately, than inequalities between the moderately well-off and the poor. A world in which everyone suffered from horrible poverty would be a perfectly equal one, he says, but few would prefer that to the world in which we now live. Therefore, “equality” can’t be what we really value."
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