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Oxfam Report On Wealth And The 1 Percent

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Oxfam Report On Wealth And The 1 Percent

Trending News: Oxfam Predicts That The Top 1% Will Control Half The World's Wealth By 2016

Why Is This Important?

Because this has very scary implications for the future.

Long Story Short

Oxfam just released a new report that predicts by 2016, the richest 1% of the world's population will own more than half of the world's wealth.

Long Story

"The richer get richer and the poor get poorer" — a new Oxfam report is proving the old aphorism to be truer than ever.

The report, entitled "Wealth: Having it all and wanting more," extrapolated current trends to come to the conclusion that by 2016, the world's wealthiest 1% will likely control more than 50% of global wealth.

The report explained that even in 2014, the 1 percenters controlled 48% of the global wealth. And of the remaining 52% of wealth, the majority was controlled by those included in the richest 20%, leaving only 5.5% for the remaining 80% of people in the world.

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Image via: Oxfam

The Oxfam report explains that, in the early aughts, the wealth of the world's billionaires and the wealth of the poorest 50% of the world actually increased at the same rate. There was still a major disparity between the two, but at least they were both on the rise. However, that all changed in 2010. Since 2010, the wealth of the poorest 50% actually began to decrease. Meanwhile the 80 richest people in the world saw their wealth literally double between 2010 and 2014. "3.5 billion people share between them the same amount of wealth as that of these extremely wealthy 80 people," Oxfam reports.

So how that plays out is, while an elite few are deciding on a new shade of gold leaf paint for the interior of their luxury yacht, 3.5 billion people are wondering if they'll have enough food to last them the week.

So who are these wealthy few and how do they manage to make their riches grow while the rest of the world's crumble? Well, according to Forbes, one-third of the world's 1,645 billionaires of 2014 started their lives wealthy and are ending their lives wealthy too, as 85% of them are over 50. They're also 90% male. And according to Oxfam, the exceedingly wealthy focus their attention and assets in a few "important economic sectors, including finance and insurance and pharmaceuticals and healthcare."

These billionaires and the companies they own spend millions lobbying politicians, mainly on budget and tax issues, in order to create a policy environment that protects their best interests (namely, their wealth). And this money-on-the-mind mentality generally does not prioritize issues of public interest.

Tomorrow, President Obama reportedly plans to use his State of the Union speech to call for tax increases on the wealthy to help the middle class, which would at least be a start at wealth distribution in the U.S.

One of the issues when it comes to talking about wealth distribution and the have and the have-nots is that there's too much emphasis placed on personal wealth. The have-nots of the world wouldn't actually benefit that much from a bunch of extra numbers in their bank account (the wealthy don't actually benefit that much from it that much either, although they think they do).

What they would benefit from, in a lot of cases, is if those who do have a bunch of extra numbers in their back account would put a good chunk of it toward projects working to give poor countries the things that all human beings need to survive and thrive in this era — like proper infrastructure, particularly for water and agriculture; education; and a governing body that cares about their needs and safety. 

Own The Conversation

Ask The Big Question: What can be done to encourage wealth distribution from the filthy rich to the desperately poor?

Disrupt Your Feed: Something has to be done to wake people up from this delusional game of number-hoarding.

Drop This Fact: Almost 30% of Forbes' 1,645 billionaires were American.

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