This report was originally published by Tyler Durden at Zero Hedge
Back in November, Credit Suisse highlighted an alarming – yet altogether unsurprising – milestone in the increasing concentration of global wealth that has been perhaps the most influential force behind the populist revolts that rocked the US in 2016 and have continued to unfurl across Europe. According to the Swiss bank’s annual “global wealth pyramid,” for the first time, the wealthiest 1% of the world’s population had accumulated more than half of its aggregate household wealth.
Credit Suisse’s researchers describe in stark terms how global wealth inequality had actually improved somewhat in the years between the start of the new millennium and the financial crisis – but in the years after, the gap between the world’s richest and poorest individuals widened dramatically, one of the most pernicious aspects of the Fed and the global cabal of central banks pumping easy money into the global financial system.
The researchers said that “our calculations show that the top 1% of global wealth holders started the millennium with 45.5% of all household wealth. This share was about the same until 2006, then fell to 42.5% two years later. The downward trend reversed after 2008 and the share of the top one percent has been on an upward path ever since, passing the 2000 level in 2013 and achieving new peaks every year thereafter. According to our latest estimates, the top one percent own 50.1 percent of all household wealth in the world.”
But while CS’s report was unequivocally dire, a recent report published by the UK Parliament is even more harrowing.
According to the Guardian, projections produced by the House of Commons library suggest that the top 1% of the world’s wealthiest individuals will own roughly 64% of the planet’s wealth by 2030.
An alarming projection produced by the House of Commons library suggests that if trends seen since the 2008 financial crash were to continue, then the top 1% will hold 64% of the world’s wealth by 2030. Even taking the financial crash into account, and measuring their assets over a longer period, they would still hold more than half of all wealth.
Since 2008, the wealth of the richest 1% has been growing at an average of 6% a year – much faster than the 3% growth in wealth of the remaining 99% of the world’s population. Should that continue, the top 1% would hold wealth equating to $305tn (£216.5tn) – up from $140tn today.
Analysts suggest wealth has become concentrated at the top because of recent income inequality, higher rates of saving among the wealthy, and the accumulation of assets. The wealthy also invested a large amount of equity in businesses, stocks and other financial assets, which have handed them disproportionate benefits.
The study was the brainchild of Liam Byrne, a former Labour cabinet minister, who hopes it will factor into the discussion when the financial chiefs of the world’s largest countries meet in Buenos Aires late this year for a G-20 summit.
“If we don’t take steps to rewrite the rules of how our economies work, then we condemn ourselves to a future that remains unequal for good,” he said. “That’s morally bad, and economically disastrous, risking a new explosion in instability, corruption and poverty.”
Unfortunately, the public is extremely sensitive to growing wealth disparity, and polls show most people in the UK are growing increasingly cynical about the prospects for change. Already a plurality of Britons believe the superrich have more influence and power than national governments.
New polling by Opinium suggests that voters perceive a major problem with the influence exerted by the very wealthy. Asked to select a group that would have the most power in 2030, most (34%) said the super-rich, while 28% opted for national governments. In a sign of falling levels of trust, those surveyed said they feared the consequences of wealth inequality would be rising levels of corruption (41%) or the “super-rich enjoying unfair influence on government policy” (43%).
Indeed, even if the incomes of the wealthiest individuals were frozen at 2017 levels, their share of the world’s wealth would still expand thanks to returns on their investments, according to Danny Dorling, a professor at Oxford.
“Even if the income of the wealthiest people in the world stops rising dramatically in the future, their wealth will still grow for some time,” he said. “The last peak of income inequality was in 1913. We are near that again, but even if we reduce inequality now it will continue to grow for one to two more decades.”
One Tory MP quoted by the Guardian pointed out that while wealth inequality remains a problem, liberal capitalism has lifted more people out of poverty than any other system of government. Though this overlooks the fact that, while this holds true in most of the biggest developing countries, in the developed world, the working and middle class are at risk of seeing their standard of living decline vs. that of their parents’ generation.
George Freeman, the Tory MP and former head of the prime minister’s policy board, said: “While mankind has never seen such income inequality, it is also true that mankind has never experienced such rapid increases in living standards. Around the world billions of people are being lifted out of poverty at a pace never seen before. But the extraordinary concentration of global wealth today – fuelled by the pace of technological innovation and globalisation – poses serious challenges.
“If the system of capitalist liberal democracy which has triumphed in the west is to pass the big test of globalisation – and the assault from radical Islam as well as its own internal pressures from post-crash austerity – we need some new thinking on ways to widen opportunity, share ownership and philanthropy. Fast.”
Demands for action from the group include improving productivity to ensure wages rise and reform of capital markets to promote greater equality.
While this sounds like a plausible plan, the obstacles to it being put into practice are myriad – including opposition from corporations and the wealthy, who might prove reluctant to part with what they’ve gained. And even once central banks retract their stimulus and securities valuations inevitably fall, it remains unclear whether this trend can ever be reversed.
One thing’s for sure: While pundits have been eager to call the end of the populist wave, as long as the wealth divide continues to widen, anger toward the status quo will continue to metastasize.
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How rich could we get if we owned our own printing press? Extend as much debt as you can through your banking system then foreclose the assets when the failures arise when you crash it.
According to my calculations, the richest .000000000000000000001 per cent will own 99.99999999999999999999999 per cent of all the wealth by 2030, God willing and they don’t get put out of their misery before then.
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The Looting of America’s assets continue. How often do you get an Oil Revenue check for the oil pumped out of the ground in America? This is our wealth they are stealung then the sell the oil on Global markets and pocked the profit. Thats called Capitalism.
WELL LOOKY HERE, WHAT HAPPENED TO THE KEYSTONE PIPELINE LAST NOV THAT NATIVE AMERICANS PROTESTED ABOUT AND FEARED THE MOST, CAME TRUE. OIL SPILL TWICE AS BIG AS ORIGINALLY REPORTED OF COURSE. BUT NOTHING HERE FOLKS MOVE ALONG. TRUMP SUCKS FOR APPROVING OF THIS BS EVEN AFTER A COURT ORDERED CEASE AND DESIST, STOPPING IT.
S.D. pipeline spill twice as big as first thought
By AP
April 8, 2018
ABERDEEN, S.D. – A crude oil spill from the Keystone Pipeline in South Dakota last November has turned out to be nearly twice as big as first reported.
Around 407,000 gallons spilled onto farmland when the pipeline broke near Amherst in Marshall County on Nov. 16, a spokeswoman for pipeline owner TransCanada Corp., told the Aberdeen American News. TransCanada had originally put the spill at 210,000 gallons.
The new number would make the spill the seventh-largest onshore oil or petroleum product spill since 2010, as reported to the U.S. Department of Transportation. Repairs have since been made and the cleanup is done.
TransCanada resumed using the pipeline 12 days after the leak.
SO WHO NEEDS CLEAN DRINKING WATER? THE. RICH TAKE AND TAKE AND TAKE, TAKE, TAKE…YOU AND I GET NOTHING BUT DIRTY POLLUTED DRINKING WATER.
Total BS article, it has always been that the 1% own the most wealth…Only in recent history have the masses gained as much as they have now.
Not surprising but I doubt the trend will continue. If it does there will probably be another revolution.
If not, the Millennials think they have an answer for everything.
Please put us out of our misery, B from CA, by not posting your BS any more. Please please please, just stop.
The best things in life are free! Despite this, the Government always finds some way to tax them!
“Analysts suggest wealth has become concentrated at the top because of recent income inequality, higher rates of saving among the wealthy, and the accumulation of assets. The wealthy also invested a large amount of equity in businesses, stocks and other financial assets, which have handed them disproportionate benefits.”
So the wealthy know to save money and invest wisely. The poor will always be poor because they don’t save money or invest wisely.
The poor spend money on cheap crap that has to be replaced often, rather than saving up to buy better quality that lasts much longer. A rich man buys things that will last. He doesn’t want to go shopping for clothes all the time. He will wear the same suits for years. If something goes out of style, it goes to the back of the closet until it comes back in style.
My father once said that if you divided up the entire wealth of the world equally among all the people of the world, in just a year or so the same rich people would be rich again, because they know how.
Any plan to limit individual wealth might limit my own ability to get ahead. Right now, I’m doing okay. My net worth increases every year. Things might collapse tomorrow, but I don’t want any artificial limits set by someone else.
And the New Trump Tax Plan further widens the wealth Gap. Americas wealthiest Corporations just got their tax liability cut in half. Sorry but the poor are only buying food and dhelter. Oh and Cable TV to further their brain washing that everything is A OK. BE HAPPY DONT WORRY. THE POOR WHO ARE SMART BUY GUNS AND PLENTY OF AMMO. WEALTH INEQUALITY WILL TRIGGER A CIVIL WAR. Justice will come when you reach out and kill them just Mildots away. Know your ballistics, Distance times x weather and wind equals justice.
Trump promised tomorrow bomb Syria. This world war.
Drone strike that next Bilderberg conference.
“The wealthy also invested a large amount of equity in businesses, stocks and other financial assets, which have handed them disproportionate benefits.”
I wonder how much of their wealth would evaporate if there was a major stock crash. So many financial instruments are leveraged from the stock market.
Vision 2030? Probably one of the most precious and valuable things in the future will be clean drinking water.
The Poor live in poverty as the Rich live in “Cornucopia.” Horn of plenty. Symbol of overflowing abundance.
A prime example of why ‘trickle-down’ economics does not work. As money is accrued, smart men and women who own the factories realize quickly that humanity is the problem. So, they industrialize/robot-ize. But some say, “they create jobs!!!”. Sure they do. But tell me, even the richest of them, just how many Mexican gardeners and French maids can they hire – do they need? Nowhere near enough people are employed by them to come anywhere close to striking a balance between having 66.666% of the wealth in the hands of the 1% and 99% fighting over the last third.
A few years back we moved here to the Lowcountry in SC. Had a moving crew of 3 dudes…one white, one black, one Mexican. Which one worked hardest? The Mexican ran circles around the other two. The white dude and black dude were making fun of him, calling him names. It was so hot the white dude threw up while the Mexican dude hustled. Guess who a $50 tip and the others got a sideways “F-you” glance.
Moral of the story…Americans don’t want to work anymore. Lazy, mouthy, and weak. Mexicans take the jobs Americans don’t want, can’t do, won’t do. We have created a vacuum and they are filling it.
When the rich cant steal enough in fire merica they proceed with Nation Destroying to steal their nations assets and wealth. Israehell worked with ISIS tonsteal Syrian Oil which was looted the trucked through Turkey Ports and loaded onto ships that sailed to Israehell. Thats how you steal a ship of oil.
Russia had the entire theft route captured off of their satellites. And that to, is why Russia is the boogieman.
Back to feudalism.Time for a new Magna Carta… or just adhering to the American Constitution.
As Orwell said with these rhinestone leftist hypocrites, we’ll all be equal… only some of us will be “more equal” than the others.
These people WILL, of a certainty, stand before God, long or short, to answer. I would hate to be in their shoes at that time, as we are going to be dead a whole lot long than we are alive on this earth