(http://i2.cdn.turner.com/money/dam/assets/160114173556-oxfam-wealth-inequality-780x439.jpg)
http://www.democracynow.org/2016/1/21/the_1_economy_the_worlds_richest
QuoteA new report from Oxfam on global inequality finds the world’s richest 62 billionaires now own as much wealth as half the world. The wealth of the poorest halfâ€"3.6 billion peopleâ€"has fallen by $1 trillion since 2010. At the same time, the wealth of the world’s richest 62 people has increased by more than half a trillion dollars. Oxfam faults a global financial system that has "supercharged the age-old ability of the rich and powerful to use their position to further concentrate their wealth." The report singles out deregulation, privatization and offshore tax havens that have let trillions of dollars go untaxed. The Oxfam report is timed to coincide with the meeting of global elites at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. We are joined by Raymond Offenheiser, president of Oxfam America.
I wonder just how much of the world's wealth is locked up in banks, no longer circulating?
What will happen when
all the money is locked up in banks, and no longer circulating?
Quote from: Unbeliever on January 21, 2016, 06:02:03 PM
What will happen when all the money is locked up in banks, and no longer circulating?
We might figure out that capitalism has become a scam. We might actually have to know our neighbors.
Capitalism - a scam!? Please tell me it ain't so!
How could that possibly be, when the top 1% of people own more wealth than the bottom 99%?
http://fortune.com/2015/01/19/the-1-will-own-more-than-the-99-by-2016-report-says/
Since air is still free I thank my lucky stars I have a big nose.
Quote from: AllPurposeAtheist on January 21, 2016, 06:26:26 PM
Since air is still free I thank my lucky stars I have a big nose.
Not in Beijing. I hear they are selling canned air from LA ;-)
Unbeliever - it is well known what happens when all the money is locked up in a bank doing nothing, or one guy owns everything and starts liking geometric burial places. But people never learn from history, recent or ancient.
Actual economic models predict, that if too much money is locked up in "finance" or "debt payments" that the economy takes a nose-dive. Not just Public Debt but Private Debt as well. The 2008 crash was caused by too much private debt, and the reaction was to produce too much public debt. Like fighting a grass fire with gasoline. If you create the right fire breaks, it actually works, but you have to really know what you are doing and have to be real careful. Our governments don't meet that criteria ;-P So all the money is locked up in vaults (virtual ones for virtual money) and you can't get any more credit, even if you are a good risk. So an economy that depended on regular debt cycles ... is anemic as hell. But that is what happens when you run your car until the gas tank is empty. We still have a private debt problem ... some real estate is still to expensive, car loans have gotten out of hand, and student loans are thru the roof. We have a ways to go, to clear out the brushwood ... I hope that Smokey the Bear doesn't burn for it ;-(
In this case, the NRA will find its partner. It's happened before when the poor cannot do anything but watch. They will use pitchforks and fire, but today the poor will have guns. Now you may think the military will support the government, but I contend that with social media on the watch, most kids are not going to start shooting into crowds when Mom and Dad and Sis and Bro and maybe Kids are watching him on the net.
Quote from: aitm on January 21, 2016, 07:31:01 PM
In this case, the NRA will find its partner. It's happened before when the poor cannot do anything but watch. They will use pitchforks and fire, but today the poor will have guns. Now you may think the military will support the government, but I contend that with social media on the watch, most kids are not going to start shooting into crowds when Mom and Dad and Sis and Bro and maybe Kids are watching him on the net.
Learn French while you still can, d'accorde!
There's a way to cut things down to size.
(http://boisdejustice.com/Workshop/Guillotine19.JPG)
And yet anytime I try to say capitalism is fucked up, I'm just dismissed for being a socialist (Which I am a socialist)
O well.
Quote from: Jannabear on January 21, 2016, 09:54:30 PM
And yet anytime I try to say capitalism is fucked up, I'm just dismissed for being a socialist (Which I am a socialist)
O well.
There are people here, who used to be on the picket line with J Edgar Hoover saving us from fluoridation of our water supply. I used to be, used to be ... one of those. But I didn't want ideology to be my epitaph.
QuoteI hear they are selling canned air from LA ;-)
I wonder how much canned South Carolina air would sell for..
I sometimes get the sinking feeling that there are people who want to make air so filthy and unbreathable that to even exist you'll have to wear an oxygen generator with special filters that will have to be replaced regularly and only certain filters will work.. Whoever gets in on the ground floor of that scheme is set forever..
Quote from: AllPurposeAtheist on January 21, 2016, 11:25:10 PM
I wonder how much canned South Carolina air would sell for..
I sometimes get the sinking feeling that there are people who want to make air so filthy and unbreathable that to even exist you'll have to wear an oxygen generator with special filters that will have to be replaced regularly and only certain filters will work.. Whoever gets in on the ground floor of that scheme is set forever..
Keurig air filters has your back! Not only that, the water will all be like Flint Michigan, and only Nestle will have bottled fresh water ... just ask California ;-) This is called the "crapification of everything" model .. the Hidden Hand hard at work.
Perspective
According to Bloomberg The 62 richest people in 2015 had a combined net worth of $1,556 billion. If they liquidated all their assets and distributed the money to 3.6 billion individuals each recipient would get $432.
According to the World Bank 2.1 billion people (down by 47% since 1990) are currently living on less than $3.10 a day. If those same assets were equally divided among those 2.1 billion people living on less than $3.10 a day each of them would get $749. At $3.10 a day that's 239 days or about 8 months of income.
Basically if the 62 richest people in the world gave all their money to the poorest people in the world it would feed them for about 8 months. After that they are right back where they started. The bottom line here is that if you want to bring everybody out of poverty then everyone that isn't living in poverty is going to have to a contribute significant portion of their income to the cause because redistribution of the wealth of the richest of the rich alone isn't going to cut it.
Once upon a time there were kings and queens and they were given their power from GAWD! And the funny thing is people actually believed it.. Gee, why can't we just go back to those simple times when the oligarchy was given the power from gods?
Quote from: Baruch on January 22, 2016, 06:41:20 AM
Keurig air filters has your back! Not only that, the water will all be like Flint Michigan, and only Nestle will have bottled fresh water ... just ask California ;-) This is called the "crapification of everything" model .. the Hidden Hand hard at work.
I'm sure those multi-billionaires continually masturbate with the Hidden Hand...
Quote from: AllPurposeAtheist on January 22, 2016, 02:25:49 PM
Once upon a time there were kings and queens and they were given their power from GAWD! And the funny thing is people actually believed it.. Gee, why can't we just go back to those simple times when the oligarchy was given the power from gods?
The gods came to Earth to become
the Koch Network (https://projects.propublica.org/graphics/koch)
Here’s all the money in the world, in one chart (http://www.marketwatch.com/story/this-is-how-much-money-exists-in-the-entire-world-in-one-chart-2015-12-18)
(https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/0a/d4/d1/0ad4d1d2d63b6a553716ce86a02e0fa7.jpg)
Quote from: PopeyesPappy on January 22, 2016, 12:45:24 PM
Perspective
According to Bloomberg The 62 richest people in 2015 had a combined net worth of $1,556 billion. If they liquidated all their assets and distributed the money to 3.6 billion individuals each recipient would get $432.
According to the World Bank 2.1 billion people (down by 47% since 1990) are currently living on less than $3.10 a day. If those same assets were equally divided among those 2.1 billion people living on less than $3.10 a day each of them would get $749. At $3.10 a day that's 239 days or about 8 months of income.
Basically if the 62 richest people in the world gave all their money to the poorest people in the world it would feed them for about 8 months. After that they are right back where they started. The bottom line here is that if you want to bring everybody out of poverty then everyone that isn't living in poverty is going to have to a contribute significant portion of their income to the cause because redistribution of the wealth of the richest of the rich alone isn't going to cut it.
You are misestimating their net worth by a order of magnitude. They have to sell their companies and real estate ... including the Vatican, the Rothschilds and the Queen of England. There are many more trillions where those came from. And we can sell raffle tickets on who gets to throw bean bags to dunk the royals etc.
No, there isn't enough money or assets, for everyone to be a millionaire, but that isn't the point. Their miser-dom is destroying the world economy ... that and their Middle Ages view of reality.
Sorry Baruch, but that $1.5 trillion includes the value of the stock in the corporations they own. You don't really think Bill Gates has $80 billion in cash laying around do you? As for the Rothchilds their wealth was diluted over generations of a large family. While some of them are still worth billions and exercise some small amount of influence on international banking the reason none of them are listed among the world's richest people is because they aren't worth as much as you want them to be. While I do believe the rich mostly control the world, and the ever growing disparity of wealth is one of the biggest problems we've got, I don't subscribe to your Illuminati conspiracy theory bullshit.
Quote from: PopeyesPappy on January 22, 2016, 10:22:00 PM
Sorry Baruch, but that $1.5 trillion includes the value of the stock in the corporations they own. You don't really think Bill Gates has $80 billion in cash laying around do you? As for the Rothchilds their wealth was diluted over generations of a large family. While some of them are still worth billions and exercise some small amount of influence on international banking the reason none of them are listed among the world's richest people is because they aren't worth as much as you want them to be. While I do believe the rich mostly control the world, and the ever growing disparity of wealth is one of the biggest problems we've got, I don't subscribe to your Illuminati conspiracy theory bullshit.
Well if you think that the pyramid building was spontaneous hacktivism ... then LOL. We have been building pyramids for the non-conspiracy ever since.
That and you don't even consider that the quantity of money is elastic. None of those derivative instruments even existed during the Clinton administration ... and that is the vast majority of new money, dwarfing all that came before. And that hidden hand ... is Adam Smith's theological contribution ... that and working for the Glasgow mafia. Every bit of land in the UK, ultimately is owned by the Queen of England ... everyone else is a lease holder. In the US, it is the Federal government ... but who controls that?
I don't think Capitalism, as a system, is to blame here.
It's obviously the centralizing of money that is, they should spend it.
Quote from: Sal1981 on January 24, 2016, 04:21:47 AM
I don't think Capitalism, as a system, is to blame here.
It's obviously the centralizing of money that is, they should spend it.
Because actually capitalism has some sense of awareness, consciouness and poor thing didn't want things to go out of hand? It's all about the idiot people and we go and blame her. Tsk Tsk.
Sorry, couldn't resist. Sal some times you really make no sense at all.
Quote from: Sal1981 on January 24, 2016, 04:21:47 AM
I don't think Capitalism, as a system, is to blame here.
It's obviously the centralizing of money that is, they should spend it.
The SCOTUS has decided that corporations are persons. Get with the psychosis! Yes, hoarding of money lowers the money velocity and the effective quantity of money, this will suppress the GDP if it is large enough, and it is. But it also matters what you spend it on ... if you spend it at casinos (not on casinos) then that makes you a consumer in a casino economy. But even then, the croupier gets all the money, in the end. If you spent it all on casinos then there will be no customers. You have to have a will to spend money on goods and services that are actually useful, and you have to be willing to employ people ... having robots or software for everything, won't work either. Besides, robots and software have little need for goods and services anyway, just a little machine oil.
What we are experiencing in the mental collapse of the upper class ... their heads are imploding, and since they are 99% of society (not population), they are taking society with them. Put all eggs in one basket, then drop grenade into basket? Not a good plan. Elites are the catalyst for society, if they stop working, the catalytic converter which is society just belches smoke. WW I was the collapse of the old elite. They simply got bored, and killed millions of people as a result.
Blaming this on capitalism seems... strange.
I know of no place in this world that actually practices capitalism - do you?
The US certainly is no longer capitalist - we are some form of socialist leaning republic at this point in time. At best, we are now under some form of crony capitalism - pay the politicians enough and your riches are protected by law.
Government tax and regulatory policies simply don't allow for capitalism any more.
Quote from: Unbeliever on January 21, 2016, 06:12:28 PM
Capitalism - a scam!? Please tell me it ain't so!
How could that possibly be, when the top 1% of people own more wealth than the bottom 99%?
http://fortune.com/2015/01/19/the-1-will-own-more-than-the-99-by-2016-report-says/
Quote from: GreatLife on January 25, 2016, 01:44:32 PM
I know of no place in this world that actually practices capitalism - do you?
Other than most of the planet? No, none that I can think of...
Capitalism is when the means of production are privately held as opposed to owned by the government. It doesn't mean no regulation or taxation.
Somalia practices pure capitalism among the clan warlords. After the Islamists and UN supported folks, are there any left? At least for awhile, a clan warlord could do anything he wanted ... no government and no religion to stop him. Just like how the New World was settled (sort of).