8 Men Have the Same Wealth as 50% of the Worlds Population!
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- Since 2015, the richest 1% has owned more wealth than the rest of the planet combined.
- Eight (8) men, have the same wealth as the poorest half (50%) of the human beings on the planet which is 3.6 billion people.
- Over the next 20 years, 500 people will bequeath $2.1 trillion to their heirs – a sum larger than the GDP of India, a country of 1.3 billion people.
- The incomes of the poorest 10% of the worlds population increased by less than $3 a year between 1988 and 2011 (or $69 a year in 23 years), while the incomes of the richest 1% increased 182 times as much.
- A FTSE-100 CEO earns as much in a year as 10,000 people working in a garment factory in Bangladesh.
- In the US, research by economist Thomas Piketty shows that over the last 30 years the growth in the incomes of the bottom 50% has been zero, whereas incomes of the top 1% has grown 300%.
- In Vietnam, the country’s richest man earns more in a day than the poorest person earns in 11 years.
- Over the past 25 years, the top 1% have earned more income than the bottom 50% combined.
- 1 in 9 people go to bed hungry every single night.
Research shows that 75% of extreme poverty could be eliminated right now, using existing resources, by simply increasing taxation and cutting down on military and other regressive spending.
Who Are These 8 Men?
The world’s 8 richest people in order are:
- Bill Gates - American founder of Microsoft (net worth $75 billion)
- Amancio Ortega - Spanish founder of Inditex which owns the Zara fashion chain (net worth $67 billion)
- Warren Buffett - American CEO and largest shareholder in Berkshire Hathaway (net worth $60.8 billion)
- Carlos Slim Helu - Mexican owner of Grupo Carso (net worth: $50 billion)
- Jeff Bezos - American founder, chairman and chief executive of Amazon (net worth: $45.2 billion)
- Mark Zuckerberg - American chairman, chief executive officer, and co-founder of Facebook (net worth $44.6 billion)
- Larry Ellison - American co-founder and CEO of Oracle (net worth $43.6 billion)
- Michael Bloomberg - American founder, owner and CEO of Bloomberg LP (net worth: $40 billion)
These 8 Men have More Wealth than 3.6 Billion People!
The 2012 World Economic Forum identified rising economic inequality as a major threat to social stability. In 2015, the World Bank stated that its goal was to end poverty by 2030 via shared prosperity.
Does anyone seriously believe that the World Bank is committed to ending poverty - or that it will achieve its stated goal in the next 13 years?
Notice how the World Economic Forum seems to be focused on the social stability aspect i.e. keeping society/people under control. If the World Economic Forum (and World Bank) had a humane bone in its corporate body it would be using strong veribage to state that economic equality is a major threat to civilazation, humanity, lives, people, children, nations, health, morality etc etc - and it would already be taking strong action, and making serious inroads into fixing the problems that they themselves, and their ilk created - and we would all be reminded of it daily (non-stop) in the mainstream media. Their rhetoric is nothing more than doublespeak!
Since these shallow and corrupt organizations uttered those statements the gap between the rich, and every other human-being on the planet has widened.
As I was researching this post my heart hurt as the tragic reality of greed, economic inequality and poverty began to really sink in - in a very deep and meaningful way - that is a humbling and beautiful experience that I hope you have already, or will experience at some stage in your lifetime.
As a child my parents always told me that there were many people much less fortunate than me. It must have sunk in (to some degree). I willingly volunteered for the World Vision 40 hour famine, and I spent a few weekends every year door-knocking the neighborhood as I collected seemingly large sums of money for various charities during my formative years - but the next day, or 40 hours later my life returned to normal, and the poor that were so important to me the day before quickly became a distant memory - until next year of course.
In my own mind, I felt that I had done my little bit to end world poverty for the year and I moved on and felt justified in doing so. I'd done more (I tried to convince myself) than many of my contemporaries had done that year (as the competitive juices kicked), and I was at peace with myself and the world for a little while longer.
I have travelled and/or lived in approximately 70 countries, including India, and while I have seen poverty up close many times in my life. The penny finally dropped for me as I was researching and writing this post, and digesting these damning statistics.
I hope that your heart has also been deeply touched and that you will take a moment to reflect on how fortunate you are, and spare a thought, and say a prayer for the billions of people in the world today that aren't anywhere near as fortunate as you are.
As bad as you think that things are in your world right now - there is always someone else doing it tougher - we often forget that reality!
I am donating 100% of SBD proceeds that are generated by this post because too many people are already profiting from the blood, sweat and tears of the poor and needy - including myself.
We are buying, wearing and consuming goods that are manufactured by forced (slave) labor more often than we realize, and we don't even think twice about it or question where the goods originated from.
The International Labour Organization estimates that 21 million people (almost the entire population of Australia) are forced laborers, generating an estimated $150 billion in profits every year for greedy corporations and I am quite certain that they are under-estimating these numbers.
My hope is that every Steemian will read this post, digest it, upvote it and spread it (both online and offline) with the people that they know and come into contact with. We cannot keep sweeping this under the carpet!
I intend to delve deeper into the reasons behind economic inequality and poverty in future posts, as well as offering solutions. I still have quite a bit of research to do on this topic as it is a new area of research for me - so please share what you know with me (and everyone else) in the comments section below and let's work together and try to fix this mess. If you don't step up - who will?
The world’s 10 largest corporations generate more revenue than the governments of 180 countries combined!
There are only 194 countries in the world!
Please Consider Matching Me Dollar for Dollar, or Helping Out in Other Ways!
I will share who I donated the money to so as to keep it open and transparent. If you know of any honest and trustworthy organizations that won't devour most of the donation in expenses please let me know in the comments below.
Love, Peace & Truth
Related Post: Charles Feeney - The Billionaire That Secretly Gave Away His Entire $8 Billion Fortune Away in 34 Years – True Story
Source: Oxfam - An Economy for the 99%