Oxfam\u2019s recent report,\u00a0“WEALTH: HAVING IT ALL AND WANTING MORE\u201d<\/span><\/a>\u00a0contains shocking figures that the press haven\u2019t sufficiently publicized; so, the findings and the reliability of their sources will be discussed here. The results will then be related to the central political debate now going on in the U.S. Presidential contests for 2016, which is about equality and inequality.<\/span><\/p>\n First, the findings:<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n 1. The richest 80 individuals own as much as do all of the poorest half of humanity.<\/span><\/p>\n 2. During 2009-2014, the wealth of the 80 richest people\u00a0doubled, yet the wealth of the bottom 50% declined slightly.<\/span><\/p>\n Now, the sources:<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n These data are calculated from\u00a0Forbes<\/i> magazine<\/span><\/a>, regarding the world\u2019s richest individuals, and from the\u00a0Credit Suisse Global Wealth Databook 2014<\/i><\/span><\/a>, regarding the global wealth-distribution.<\/span><\/p>\n The source on the richest 80:<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n The Forbes<\/i> list is one of two such lists, the other being Bloomberg<\/span><\/a>. The two are generally in rather close agreement, but sometimes disagree enormously. For example, as of 8 May 2015, Bloomberg\u00a0shows Sweden\u2019s Ingvar Kamprad, the owner of Ikea, as #8 owning $43.1B, but Forbes<\/i>\u00a0shows him as #497 owning $3.5B.<\/span><\/p>\n Furthermore, Newsweek<\/i> on March 2nd headlined \u201cWhy Putin Isn\u2019t on \u2018Forbes\u2019 Billionaires List,\u201d<\/span><\/a> and reported that, \u201cForbes<\/i> excludes members of royal families and \u2018dictators who derive their fortunes entirely as a result of their position of power.\u2019 Although it details this caveat, the magazine offered limited insight into the exact reason Putin was left off. When asked about Putin, a spokeswoman for Forbes<\/i> told Newsweek<\/i>: \u2018Vladimir Putin is not on the list because we have not been able to verify his ownership of assets worth $1 billion or more\u2019 and cited the methodology. The spokeswoman and [Assistant Managing Editor Kerry] Dolan did not comment directly as to whether the magazine considered Putin a dictator, and thus exempted him from the list by this classification. A reporter who worked on the list did not reply to a request for comment.\u201d So: royals, and \u201cdictators,\u201d are both left off the list. Also: Dolan said that the magazine attempts to obtain the cooperation of listees but that \u201csome cooperate; others don\u2019t.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Forbes<\/i> itself<\/span><\/a> says that, \u201cWe do not include royal family members or dictators who derive their fortunes entirely as a result of their position of power, nor do we include royalty who, often with large families, control the riches in trust for their nation. This means the wealthy royal families of the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries are not eligible for our global wealth ranking. (These monarchs, like Khalifa bin Zayed Al-Nahyan and Saudi King Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz Al Saud, land on our list of The World\u2019s Most Powerful People.)\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n Consequently, the Forbes<\/i> ranking is quite unreliable; and, on top of that, it is methodologically opaque. Leaving royalty off of their list is automatically excluding the royalty in England, Saudi Arabia, and other countries, where those people might well be the richest ones in their nation, if not the richest people in the entire world.<\/span><\/p>\n The Forbes<\/i> ranking is thus untrustworthy, because it automatically excludes entire groups of people which might include many who are wealthier than any who are on their list. However, all that this means is that many people might exist who are even wealthier than the ones that show up as being among the top 80 on the Forbes<\/i> list. Consequently, the Forbes<\/i> list systematically under-<\/i>states the wealth of the people who are actually the world\u2019s 80 richest. The richest 80 could conceivably even be an entirely different list. Therefore, perhaps the richest 80 own far more than do the poor half of Mankind. But they almost certainly don\u2019t own less than do the poor half of Mankind. In any case, they own at least<\/i> as much as do the lower half.<\/span><\/p>\n The source on the global wealth-distribution:<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n The source that\u2019s used to calculate the amount of personal wealth in the entire world and its nation-by-nation distribution, Credit Suisse, is overwhelmingly regarded as the most thorough that exists on this subject. Its research-team was selected by Anthony Shorrocks<\/span><\/a>, who had long headed the UN\u2019s World Institute for Development Economic Research<\/span><\/a>, which is the leading research institute on global wealth-distribution.<\/span><\/p>\n However, yet again, the available data exclude a lot at the very top. For example, since the Saudi and other royals and dictators are disappeared from even the pretense of being calculated for possible inclusion into world\u2019s-richest lists, the wealth-distributions for many Arabic and other totalitarian countries \u2013 and for constitutional monarchies such as in Norway, Netherlands, UK, Morocco, and Jordan \u2013 are necessarily based on much guesswork. Consequently, global wealth-inequality is being systematically underestimated, even in the best available source. Yet, even so, what can be publicly determined about global wealth-inequality is staggering:<\/span><\/p>\n The\u00a0Credit Suisse Global Wealth Databook 2014<\/i> presents on its page 98, a global wealth pyramid, which indicates that the world\u2019s richest 0.7% (35 million people) own $115.9 trillion, while the poorest 99.3% (4,665 million people) own $147.3 trillion. It also shows that the richest 8.6% own $224.5T (trillion), while the poorest 91.4% own only $38.7T. (Or, in other words: the richest 8.6% own 5.8 times as much as do the poorest 91.4%.)<\/span><\/p>\n Consequently, if the transfer of wealth from the many to the few is to continue, then the main way for that to happen will need to be by the super-rich receiving their added wealth from the lesser-rich, because the percentage of wealth that exists amongst the non-rich \u2013 the lower 91.4% \u2013 is only 17% of the globe\u2019s total wealth, which isn\u2019t much; and, even if all of that were to go to the richest 8.6%, it still would increase their current $224.5T to $263.2T, a 17% rise. However, from 2009 to now, the wealth of the richest 80 humans has actually more than doubled; so, even a 17% rise would be far less than the 80 richest are accustomed to \u2013 especially over such a multi-year time-period as was 2009-2014. Those 80 people would then be feeling shortchanged.<\/span><\/p>\n This is why the richest 80 people will need to be getting their increases, in the future, mainly from the richest 8.6%. Wall Street and other major financial centers are perhaps in the best position to achieve that.<\/span><\/p>\n The Credit Suisse Global Wealth Databook 2014<\/i> presents, on page 124, its categorization of countries according to equality-inequality, and they apply for this purpose a methodology that minimizes the distortive influences such as have been mentioned here. Here is their resultant listing:<\/span><\/p>\n As is clear there, the United States is listed in the highest-inequality category; and, so, no reasonable question exists that inequality is even more extreme here than it is in most of the world\u2019s countries.<\/span><\/p>\n The way that U.S. President Barack Obama and his economic advisors have dealt with this is to say that what needs fixing in the U.S. isn\u2019t economic inequality itself but instead inequality of economic opportunity \u2013 as if the latter doesn\u2019t depend upon the former. It\u2019s impossible to increase equality of economic opportunity unless economic equality is increased.<\/a><\/span> America\u2019s politicians lie through their teeth, because they\u2019re financed \u2013 in both Parties \u2013 by the super-rich. The only difference between the two Parties is that the Republicans lie by saying that America\u2019s extreme economic inequality is okay and that government action to reduce it merely increases inequality of economic opportunity \u2013 something that presupposes what it pretends to be concluding, which is that government has no constructive role to play in this matter. They\u2019re all hoaxters. But the American public senses this, even if only vaguely. They sense that the problem is real, but they don\u2019t know that the Democratic Party\u2019s approach to the problem since the time when Bill Clinton became President in 1993 is itself fraudulent and a sell-out to the super-rich.<\/span><\/p>\n The resultant political debate in the U.S.:<\/b><\/span><\/p>\n On May 4th, Gallup headlined\u00a0“Americans Continue to Say U.S. Wealth\u00a0Distribution Is Unfair,\u201d<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and reported that, in response to the question, \u201cDo you feel that the distribution of money and wealth in this country today is fair?\u201d 63% say no, and in 1985 it was 60% saying no to that question. The highest percentage saying no was 68% right before the 2008 crash, and the lowest was 58% immediately after that crash. By 56% to 34%, Republicans right now are saying that the wealth-distribution is<\/i> fair. By 86% to 12%, Democrats say that it\u2019s not. (Among the overall population, 63% say it\u2019s un<\/i>fair, and 31% say it\u2019s fair. That\u2019s a two-to-one margin.) The poorer a person was in Gallup\u2019s study, the likelier he or she was to say it\u2019s \u201cunfair.\u201d The richer he was, the likelier to say \u201cfair.\u201d In other words: only at the very financial top is the belief commonly held that the existing wealth-distribution is \u201cfair.\u201d However, Republicans, of any amount of wealth, think that it\u2019s \u201cfair\u201d: virtually all Republicans agree with the very rich about the fairness of the wealth-distribution, and virtually all non<\/i>-Republicans don\u2019t agree with that.\u00a0(The only problem for non-Republicans is how to solve it.)<\/span><\/p>\n The only U.S. Presidential candidate who focuses, and stands clearly, on the side of this issue that says it\u2019s \u201cunfair\u201d (which, as was just pointed out, Gallup finds to be by two-to-one, the norm) is Bernie Sanders, who is running in the Democratic Party. Unlike Obama and the Clintons, he acknowledges that it\u2019s the basic problem, and that shunting it off onto \u201cequality of economic opportunity\u201d is essentially fraudulent. All of the other candidates are raising their campaign-funds from the top 1% of America\u2019s wealth-pyramid, who are the very people the likeliest to believe that the present wealth-distribution is fair. Those candidates are raising their campaign-funds from the few people who own almost everything that there is to own, and these are also the people who have the most to lose. Senator Sanders is raising his campaign-funds from the many people who own almost nothing. While other candidates need to serve the rich, Sanders needs to run an authentically grass-roots campaign, which can defeat far-better-financed opponents, or he otherwise stands no real chance of winning.<\/span><\/p>\n This situation is called \u2018democracy\u2019 in the United States, but other terms are used for it in other countries.\u00a0The only scientific study that has been done of the question of whether the U.S. is a democracy has found that it definitely is not.<\/span><\/a>\u00a0In order to make it one, profound change would be required. However, America\u2019s richest need to convince America\u2019s public that the nation already is a democracy, because, otherwise, America\u2019s public won\u2019t continue to accept rule by the super-rich \u2013 the people who finance almost all major politicians and who benefit from the current dictatorship. And that would cause the public to vote against any candidate who is receiving most of his financial support from the super-rich, which is almost all candidates. So: the only possible way to overcome any such tendency of the public to vote against the interests of the rich is to distract the public from that entire issue, onto personalities and other such distractions.<\/span><\/p>\n Consequently, it is to be expected that, in the 2016 contests, the best-financed candidates will be promoted by advertisements and issues that distract and deceive, instead of inform or educate, the public. That will be a contest between well-financed lies, and poorly financed truths. Perhaps by Election Day, the poorly financed truths will have been totally drowned-out. That way would lead to hellish future for the United States.<\/span><\/p>\n The 2016 contests will be of major historical importance: if the movement into democracy doesn\u2019t win in 2016, then its likelihood of succeeding in the future will be virtually nil (since the current direction is toward increased dictatorship by the super-rich<\/span><\/a>). The 2016 elections will be do-or-die for future democracy in the U.S. If for no other reason than this, the 2016 Presidential contests will be hugely important. If the poor come out in record numbers in the Democratic primaries and then, if Sanders wins the nomination, in the final election, then economic inequality in the U.S. will be reduced and equality of economic opportunity in the U.S. will increase, and so the future for the United States will be improvement. Otherwise, America\u2019s future will be grim, no matter how well America\u2019s top 0.1% will be living.<\/span><\/p>\n America has a huge problem; and, if it\u2019s ignored in 2016, as it has been ignored ever since Ronald Reagan won the White House in 1980, then America will, virtually certainly, spiral down into hell.<\/span><\/p>\n The problem is real; it has to be grappled-with, now, or else. It\u2019s now, or it\u2019s never. That\u2019s the 2016 choice, for Americans \u2013 and, then, perhaps, for the rest of the world, and for all of the human future. That\u2019s what is at stake, in the 2016 U.S. elections. The data make this clear.<\/span><\/p>\n ———-<\/span><\/p>\n Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They\u2019re Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010<\/i><\/span><\/a>,<\/i> and of\u00a0<\/i>CHRIST\u2019S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity<\/i><\/span><\/a>, and\u00a0of\u00a0Feudalism, Fascism, Libertarianism and Economics<\/i><\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Eric Zuesse Oxfam\u2019s recent report,\u00a0“WEALTH: HAVING IT ALL AND WANTING MORE\u201d\u00a0contains shocking figures that the press haven\u2019t sufficiently publicized; so, the findings and the reliability of their sources will be discussed here. The results will then be related to the central political debate now going on in the U.S. Presidential contests for 2016, which is […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1254,"featured_media":149513,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[461,1622],"tags":[937,115,30,951,96,29,535,545,5624,526,949,49,964,40],"class_list":{"0":"post-149512","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-editorials","8":"category-featured","9":"tag-937","10":"tag-barack-obama","11":"tag-big-brother","12":"tag-clinton","13":"tag-cover-up","14":"tag-democrats","15":"tag-global-news","16":"tag-inequality","17":"tag-money","18":"tag-propaganda","19":"tag-sanders","20":"tag-usa-news","21":"tag-wealth","22":"tag-white-house"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149512","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1254"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=149512"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/149512\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/149513"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=149512"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=149512"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=149512"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"Screen](\"http:\/\/www.washingtonsblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/Screen-Shot-2015-05-08-at-11.07.48-AM.png\")
<\/a><\/p>\n