62 billionaires worth as much as 3.6 billion people

[Unbeliever]

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

[Unbeliever]

Here’s all the money in the world, in one chart

[Baruch]

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.

[PopeyesPappy]

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.

[Baruch]

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?

[Sal1981]

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.

[drunkenshoe]

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.

[Baruch]

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.

[GreatLife]

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. 

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/

[PopeyesPappy]

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.

[Baruch]

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).