New Tally of Global Wealth Illuminates Staggering Disparities

New Tally of Global Wealth Illuminates Staggering Disparities

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The study’s starkest data snapshot? Maybe this: Half the people aged 20 and over in the world today hold under 2 percent of world wealth.

The United Nations University in Helsinki, in 2006, did try to tally household assets for the entire world. But that UN University World Institute for Development Economics Research report didn’t cover data from any year beyond 2000.

Now two of the scholars behind that 2006 report, Anthony Shorrocks and Jim Davies, have joined with the Cred

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The world’s 4.4 billion adults, notes the new Credit Suisse research, now hold $194.5 trillion in wealth. That’s enough, if shared evenly across the globe, to guarantee every adult in the world a $43,800 net worth.

But the world’s wealth, of course, does not stand evenly divided, and the new Credit Suisse study, to its credit, neatly breaks down the arithmetic of our staggering global unevenness.

The results of this study are indicative of where society is going and unfortunately, the richer the rich become and the poorer the poor become, the wider the gap becomes and the more difficult it becomes for people to lift themselves out of poverty.

Now don't get me wrong, I think that if you don't work for what you have, then there is a good reason why you don't have it, though I think that their are influences who will do whatever it takes to ensure that there isn't playing field.

In a free-market society, everyone has a chance to pull their own weight and even become wealthy if they work hard enough, however we don't have a free-market society and the elite create conditions that ensure they stay wealthy, why everyone else suffers and that I believe is wrong.

For starters, the American economic empire, that is actually more like a corporate economic empire, creates conditions in the thrid world that keeps these nations in the third world. One only has to look at what happened and is happening in Latin America.

When you clear your mind and think about the details of this study, what does it say for our species? Sadly, this gap is only going to get wider, faster.


--airspoon

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Originally posted by airspoon
...In a free-market society, everyone has a chance to pull their own weight and even become wealthy if they work hard enough, ...

There's a saying back home 'nobody gets richer by working hard'.

Working hard to get ahead is a slave mentality

Having others work hard for you is the better angle, and the one most don't consider...

Not all of us however can afford to hire others to work for us..so we have to do the work hard slavery bit.

reply to post by SaturnFX

Working hard to get ahead is a slave mentality

Not necessarily. In the wild, [humans] have to work hard to put food in their mouths. Nature makes us work to survive, though it is only since civilization surfaced that we can defy that notion. So, working hard to get ahead is only natural.

Having others work hard for you is the better angle, and the one most don't consider...

Now this notion can be be slave mentality, only as the enslaver. If you take choice out of the equation, to where people have to work for you to survive, than that notion is slave mentality. However, if it is by choice, then not so much.

This society has created conditions where the choice is no longer ours. We have to work for them to survive. In fact, we aren't even allowed to hunt our own food and we are forced, through taxes, to pay a portion of our gains.


--airspoon

Things have gone backwards and economic disparity has gotten worse since people started believing in the whole free market nonsense. There is no such thing as a free market. The concept is an unrealistic idealism that has fooled people into turning away from democratic principles in a similar vein to where communism leads.

When the rules are eliminated to that allow civilization to function, the system begins to break down, and economies begin to fail. We might as well go back to being savages.

I don't think it is fair to blame the actions of ICs on the U.S.. The ICs are not loyal to any nation. The people who rule Latin America rule it with a mob mentality, and do onto their own, creating their own problems. Yes, unscrupulous business men from the U.S. join in the exploitation, but they didn't create the environment.

If anything, this desire to believe that the U.S. is responsible for poverty around the world only helps those who seek to take our independence away from us, as in everyone.

This exploitation of the third world is enabling ICs to strip the middle class of the U.S. of their wealth. It seems that everyone outside of the U.S. conveniently chooses to ignore this effect of globalization. I think there is a certain satisfaction in looking at the U.S. middle class as lazy, spoiled, and undeserving of our success. The spoiler is that the destruction of the U.S. middle class will only lead to greater exploitation around the globe.

nature doesnt make it to ware any all animals have to work hard are you kidding?
take the kawla bear that animal sleeps 20 hours a day doesnt go more then 2 feet for his food he needs .
but if its humans natrial work load your wondering about well heres the scoop .
baring a drought flood or ice age the averge hours a human worked 30k years agaio was 20 HOURS a week.
yea thats right 20 hours . Not possible you say well tell me just what this primitive human needed or wanted humm.
to eat to stay warm and to mate that it . so what did it take for a human to get these things ?
a small group working toghter say 300 people now the mate thing is taken care of . Didnt even have to leave camp for taht one.
ok food next well now assuming humans really did hunt mammoths then well you have lunch for 300 people for a couple weeks and the skin will keep you warm to boot pulse some wood to make a fire well had to walk all of 20 feet for that hu.
how is it lions can just loaf around for days on end anyway? humm well a water bufflo will feed a pride for days and a lucky hunt takes only a hour including the walk.
just because modern humans have convinced them selfs that working any thing under 40 hours is lazy doesn't make it so. Humans are the ONLY land animal stupid enough to be running Around in the middle of the day in 110% of heat .
NO LION would be trying to hunt at high noon unless they were despret

reply to post by airspoon


This is in line with my thread about the middle class being hollowed out.... However, the issue here falls on the middle class. For too long they have been happy to look to others for security and not internally toward their own ingenuity and own sense of authority. You can see this by how much social issues are used during a campaign in a country which prides itself on freedom.... This hypocrisy illustrates what drives the middle class of yesterday.


News flash folks.... Capitalism is an individualist philosophy, if you think rich == evil, then you will be impoverished your whole life. The narrative that wealth is for the lucky and that poverty is somehow a virtue has caused this in a huge way.

The middle class is the only ones to be blamed for this, for not thinking for themselves and teaching their children do do things "because i say so"... I guess we all get that which we deserve.

The middle class of the 20th century squandered there chance because they brought all of the superstitions of the poor with them.

soundcloud.com...

Consider something for a few moments.

We can break our economic systems into two groups after 1950, one group is the Post World War II Economic Expansion which was marked by heavy government involvement to guarantee full employment and stimulating the economy and the other group is the Washington Consensus which is marked by government involvement to maximize business expansion and growing global free trade.

1951-1973 was the Post World War II Economic Expansion
1973-NOW is the Washington Consensus

(Unemployment USA 1950-2005)


(Income Distribution USA 1940-2010)


en.wikipedia.org...

Post World War II Economic Expansion was also known as the "Golden Age" of Capitalism.

Golden Age

4.8% Average Global Growth
3.9% Average Global Inflation
4.8% Unemployment (US)
1.2% Unemployment (France)
3.1% Unemployment (Germany)

Washington Consensus

3.2% Average Global Growth
3.2% Average Global Inflation
6.1% Unemployment (US)
9.5% Unemployment (France)
7.5% Unemployment (Germany)

Globally, the golden age was a time of unusual financial stability, with crises far less frequent and intense than before or after. Martin Wolf reports that between 1945–71 (26 years) the world saw only 38 financial crises, whereas from 1973–97 (24 years) there were 139.

(National Debt United States)


(US Income Inequality Ratio)


(Income Disparity since WWII)





Ever since we abandoned Keynesian Economics for Neoliberal Economics our results are horrible, our economies have slowed down, employment has be drastically cut and the inequality between the rich and the poor has exploded.

When government is involved through stimulating the economy and guaranteeing full employment we are all better off, not just the rich.

What frustrates me as someone trained in economics is the mindless loyalty to the supposed free market system displayed by lower class Americans. Today, we call this the Tea Party, but it has existed always. It is the intellectually superior rich tricking the stupid poor into supporting their own exploitation.

reply to post by Grumble


No it's the poor who believe the superstitions of their parents...

Stop blaming the rich for being rich, and start blaming the poor for being poor.

Originally posted by jmlima

Originally posted by airspoon
...In a free-market society, everyone has a chance to pull their own weight and even become wealthy if they work hard enough, ...

There's a saying back home 'nobody gets richer by working hard'.

Exactly... And this is why i blame the middle class for their own disappearance... I was taught to work hard by my parents, but i didn't get wealthy until i stopped believing this...

reply to post by HunkaHunka


So you feel that because you're better off financially you can scapegoat a whole class of people? I'm having a hard time understanding why you have such resentment towards the poor. There's a lot more of us than there is of them, why should the ones fed with a silver spoon make all the decisions? You're actually counting yourself among that ruling class? Are you better than me because you make more money? You don't see a staggering imbalance with those figures?

I've had to learn the hard way as many others have, that hard work doesn't always equal financial gain. Sometimes we work our asses off and can barely pay the rent. We're still doing it though, and still paying taxes on the peanuts we get for a wage. Blame the poor....

reply to post by W3RLIED2


I blame everyone for their continued situations.... If you are in a situation for a long time, then there is something about you that is the factor.

For example, i realized a long time ago that the middle class beliefs given to me were my biggest Achilles heel. It was my beliefs which held me back... My belief that others were somehow responsible for my situation... My belief that working hard would bring wealth... My belief that it was virtuous to not be wealthy, that the wealthy were evil...

Once I learned that it was quite alright to have a goal of laziness and wealth, i began an affluent journey which i can best describe as miraculous.

Yes i consider myself one of the ruling elite, only because of my mindset... And because I am my own God, the only one responsible for me, the only one to blame when things are sour, and the only one who says what is right or wrong for me.

I find that the poor are shackled by beliefs of right and wrong given to them by other poor people... I think it's rather silly to expect a different outcome from the same beliefs.

The problem is that, as the nineties opened up unregulated and gluttonous greed as a way of life, the ability for the majority of us to get a decent slice of the pie is rapidly disappearing. Opportunity used to knock. Then we learned to go out and find its door and do our own knocking. Nowadays it's getting to the point where opportunity has an unlisted number and is becoming more reclusive than Howard Hughes on an OCD binge.

The playing field is getting less and less even with each passing day and it's a sad testimony to the American dream. The disparities are staggering. The middle class is shriveling. And we are all becoming accustomed to taking the fall. Each new "bubble" strips wealth from the masses and puts it comfortably into the coffers of the banks and corporations.

And there are more bubbles headed our way.

~Heff

This system of haves, and have not's will continue as long as the have not's truly believe they can be one of the "haves", as long as they play by the rules, when in reality, they're nothing more then a dog begging for scraps at the dinner table, receiving a scrap thrown their way, every once in a while, to keep them complacent, and from rushing the table to take what they need/want/desire.

reply to post by HunkaHunka


So is it lonely up on that pedestal? Basking in laziness and wealth making broad generalizations about other people, an entire group of people, simply because you have more money....

People with an attitude like yours is the reason I can't stand the rich, You are no better than any other man. You pay taxes, bleed and die like the rest of us. In the end we all return to the dirt we came from, so enjoy your self made throne.

I'm gonna go hang out with the rest of the working people in this little place called reality land, where if you don't work you don't eat dinner or pay rent, where laziness gets you fired and not able to collect unemployment.

I don't no what else to say, you make me sick.

reply to post by W3RLIED2


It has nothing to do with the money, it has to do with the wealth....

Perhaps this videdo will make it clearer....


Because reality is whatever you make it....




Or this song

reply to post by HunkaHunka

For too long they have been happy to look to others for security and not internally toward their own ingenuity and own sense of authority.

I completely disagree, it was the middle class who engineered the innovations of the internet, and brought the success of the nineties, and it was the evil corporations who screwed it all up.

News flash folks.... Capitalism is an individualist philosophy,

No, it only flourishes under democratic governments. It requires a community to function decently.

if you think rich == evil, then you will be impoverished your whole life

Sorry but this is patently false. I am a long ways from being impoverished, and I know plenty of others, who are quite successful, who see wealth as a road to evil. Not everyone who is rich is evil, but far too many of them are.

The problems are far more complex. We could be living a far higher quality of life, but this disposable society put in place by those who are so insecure they need wealth to feel good about themselves, is wrecking the future for our descendants.

Originally posted by airspoon
reply to post by SaturnFX

 

Working hard to get ahead is a slave mentality

Not necessarily. In the wild, [humans] have to work hard to put food in their mouths. Nature makes us work to survive, though it is only since civilization surfaced that we can defy that notion. So, working hard to get ahead is only natural.

Actually thats not very true at all. For example, the Cherokee... Prior to the encounter with Europeans, they lived a very sedentary lifestyle...

They werernt exactly hard workers lol....