The 62 richest people have as much wealth as half the world

originally posted by: Eilasvaleleyn
I wonder what would happen if all that wealth was shunted down to the poor and middle class? What effect would it have upon the world?

In truth you would see massive inflation.

a reply to: Punisher75

But why?
Inflation is a result of printing money. This is wealth that already exists.

The only "inflation" that would occur would be out of greed rather than necessity. Prices might increase due to greater demand, but that is not inflation.

originally posted by: Eilasvaleleyn

But why?
Inflation is a result of printing money. This is wealth that already exists.

Not exactly, inflation is a measure of the value of currency. The reason you see inflation due to printing new money is because it artificially places more money in the market place.
Redistribution via simply taking a lot of cash from rich people and handing it over to poor people has the same effect on the marketplace, because it artificially adds more currency in the market, thus devaluing its worth.

I keep harping over the fact that we're entering a new age of feudalism...

The difference between us and serfs of the dark ages? We've been given a fancy illusion of freedom and ownership over things.

originally posted by: MystikMushroom
I keep harping over the fact that we're entering a new age of feudalism...

The difference between us and serfs of the dark ages? We've been given a fancy illusion of freedom and ownership over things.

We entered feudalism when they started charging property tax.

feu·dal·ism
noun: feudalism
the dominant social system in medieval Europe, in which the nobility held lands from the Crown in exchange for military service, and vassals were in turn tenants of the nobles, while the peasants (villeins or serfs) were obliged to live on their lord's land and give him homage, labor, and a share of the produce, notionally in exchange for military protection.

a reply to: MystikMushroom

Actually, the peasants may have had a better comparative QoL than us. They had to worry about war and executions and stuff, but they also didn't work 70 hours a week.

Ti don't envy these people in the slightest, just, find it sad that they don't have more altruistic plans for their enourmous wealth. Personal wealth must get boring once you can't even buy anything with it. Once you have 2 or 3 of everything you could possibly need, it's just bits of paper or digits on a screen, meaningless

a reply to: woodwardjnr

I do envy them, but mostly because I'd actually do some interesting things with the money (read: crazy) rather than using it to make more money and I'd like to see how those things panned out.

originally posted by: woodwardjnr
Ti don't envy these people in the slightest, just, find it sad that they don't have more altruistic plans for their enourmous wealth. Personal wealth must get boring once you can't even buy anything with it. Once you have 2 or 3 of everything you could possibly need, it's just bits of paper or digits on a screen, meaningless

Well I am pretty conservative however I agree with you totally.
I don't however think its about greed; I think its about power.

a reply to: theantediluvian

Gotta wonder where or if this aggregation of wealth to pinnacle of mankind will stop.

Will we one day read that one person owns 99.9% or all the wealth on entire planet?

Lets hope the final 4 have big fall out and kill each other.

These people who keep us going do they not have lots of staff who work in their Empires who keep them going? Do the large corporations have lots of people working for them (sometimes children) in sweatshops working day and night for a £1 a week?

Without the normal man on the street working for these people they wouldnt have the money they have. Even the footballers and celebrities rely on the normal man on the street to pay their wages by buying tickets for matches, concerts, folms at cinema. So who is actually holding who up. If every person in the world downed tools we would soon see who is supporting who.

All this sbout but they pay their taxes that is not necessarily trur. I worked in Trust Law for many years in Jersey, Channel Islands when it really was offshore and I have seen billions hidden away from many people quite well known. You wouldnt believe the lengths gone to to find tax loops and havens.

Look ay Google etc in UK they pay pittance in tax.a reply to: Staroth

a reply to: Eilasvaleleyn they are still susceptible to illness and loss, so you shouldn't envy anyone. I understand that you'd like to see what you could do with all that money, but these people are still humans, with all the problems many of us are disposed to

a reply to: theantediluvian

sounds about right 62 > 1/2.

I like to live in denial, stop this bus and let me get off!

I wouldnt want that sort of money. One of the pleasures in life for me is going on holiday. A holiday that you have saved for and which is something to look forward to. Imagine being able to go wherever you want, whenever you want soon there would be nothinh new, nothing to look forward to.

If I had enough to buy a little house somewhere near the sea, nice car, not have to worry about bills and enough to live comfortably for the rest of my life that would be enough for me, the rest I would useto help children with no home and all the other needy people. That would givr me more satisfaction and fulfilment than buying a gold rolex watch.

I commented the othet day on Odonasis who was married to Jackie Kennedy. His daughtet was dying and he reportedly said "Im the richest man in the wotld but I cant save the most precious thing in my world". For me that sums it up, money isnt everything friends and family are.

a reply to: anxiouswens

Imagine being able to go wherever you want, whenever you want

Sounds freaking awesome. However, as I said, the reason I am envious of people with absurd wealth isn't because of what they do with it (accumulate more, sit on it like a dragon, that's so boring) it's because of what I would do with it. (Crazy things, weird things, so on and so forth. It would add color to the world, I think.)

a reply to: greencmp

What is never said in these sorts of oversimplifications is that these figures are certainly net worth, not cash under the mattress.

Well they do keep the cash under the mattress; overseas tax havens. They are the hiders of capital, they dont use it in productive investments like manufacturing. They use Asian factories to manufacture their overpriced software. You do know that Microsoft and Apple dominate the desktop software market?

How about you at least do a rudimentary search before espousing their virtues? Its pretty much in your face, Capitalism at its finest!

motherboard.vice.com...

Apple Avoids $60 Billion in Taxes by Keeping Money Overseas, Report Says

Written by
SAM GUSTIN
CORRESPONDENT
October 7, 2015 // 06:00 AM EST

Apple, Microsoft, Google and other corporate giants avoid paying hundreds of billions in US taxes every year by stashing mountains of cash in offshore tax shelters, according to the latest study to document widespread tax avoidance by corporate America.

The 500 largest US companies are sitting on more than $2.1 trillion in overseas cash hoards, allowing them to avoid paying an estimated $620 billion in US taxes if the funds were repatriated, according to a new report by the progressive Center for Tax Justice and the US Public Interest Research Group Education Fund.

“US-based multinational corporations are allowed to play by a different set of rules than small and domestic businesses or individuals when it comes to the tax code,” wrote the study’s authors, Robert S. McIntyre, Richard Phillips, and Phineas Baxandall.

The use of legal offshore tax havens by the largest US companies has been a source of controversy and debate for years, but the new study, which relies on Securities and Exchange Commission filings, is one of the most detailed accounts yet of the systematic effort by corporate America to avoid paying US taxes.

Apple, an iconic American firm, has the dubious honor of holding more money overseas—$181.1 billion—than any other US company, and would owe $59.2 billion in US taxes if those funds were brought back, according to the study. Microsoft has parked $108.3 billion offshore, while Google is holding $47.4 billion overseas, the study found.

www.theguardian.com...

Bill Gates Philanthropy!
But like those other aid apostles Bono and Bob Geldof, he risks being perceived as a rank hypocrite. For he sees nothing wrong in complex tax avoidance schemes while telling nations how to spend their revenues, notwithstanding the growing body of opinion that aid undermines development and democracy by propping up poorly run regimes. The latest expert to highlight this "aid illusion" is Professor Angus Deaton, the leading expert on measuring global poverty and a former true believer, in his fine book The Great Escape.

Gates says he pays his personal taxes. Great. But he made all that money from Microsoft which, like other tax-avoiding technology giants such as Amazon, Facebook and Google, uses sophisticated systems to shift paper profits around the planet and evade the designs of governments. Indeed, so extreme are its methods the company was used as a case study in a Senate investigation into US corporate tax avoidance, which found one example of offshoring profits through a tiny Puerto Rico office alone saved it $4m a day in taxes.

Moving earnings through low corporation tax countries such as Ireland, Luxembourg and Singapore means the company saved itself, according to one estimate, almost £3bn annually in tax. A Harvard law professor pointed out that Microsoft's divisions in three low-tax nations employed fewer than 2,000 people, but supposedly recorded about £9.4bn of pre-tax profit in 2011 – more than the 88,000 employees working in all its other global divisions.

In Britain, Microsoft reported revenues of £1.7bn in a single year for online sales on which it paid no corporation tax. This is why if you look at the small print when buying software through its British website, you find you are dealing with a Luxembourg offshoot. A newspaper investigation found a small office there with just six staff handling online sales from around Europe.

originally posted by: theantediluvian
CNN Money - The 62 richest people have as much wealth as half the world

And yet most of the world is not illiterate. The vast majority of people have known about this issue for decades but they chose to reproduce anyway. What if the majority of them had chosen to protest by refusing to play (Choosing not to reproduce)?

a reply to: theantediluvian

I wonder how much good these people have done with their riches? You can only buy so many material things to satisfy your wants.

I'm not rich by a long shot, but I live a comfortable life. At my age, I don't really need anything. I even tell my kids "don't waste buying me anything for Christmas because there's nothing I really need." I just can't imagine how some rich people can enjoy sitting on a huge pile of money. I would think after you have satisfied yourself with material things, giving to those who really need help would replace the "material satisfaction."

I've never been impressed with fancy cars or huge luxurious homes. I guess I'm just satisfied on being practical rather than trying to impress people with what I own.

a reply to: WeRpeons

Some people (the very rich) do do things like that, like the man who drove around in a ($500,000 I think?) Batmobile and batman costume visiting sick children.

It's just that the uber rich (billionaires) tend not to do anything with that money but use it to acquire more money.

a reply to: greencmp

Wealth doesn't trickle down – it just floods offshore, research reveals A far-reaching new study suggests a staggering $21tn in assets has been lost to global tax havens. If taxed, that could have been enough to put parts of Africa back on its feet – and even solve the euro crisis

www.theguardian.com...