The Number of Billionaires Is Growing Across the Planet, as Global Inequality Spreads

[xchrom]

Last edited Tue Oct 29, 2013, 09:45 AM - Edit history (1)

http://www.alternet.org/world/number-billionaires-spreading-across-planet-global-inequality-grows

With the help of Forbes magazine, we and colleagues at the Institute for Policy Studies have been tracking the world’s billionaires and rising inequality the world over for several decades. Just as a drop of water gives us a clue into the chemical composition of the sea, these billionaires offer fascinating clues into the changing face of global power and inequality.

After our initial gawking at the extravagance of this year’s list of 1,426, we looked closer. This list reveals the major power shift in the world today: the decline of the West and the rise of the rest. Gone are the days when U.S. billionaires accounted for over 40 percent of the list, with Western Europe and Japan making up most of the rest. Today, the Asia-Pacific region hosts 386 billionaires, 20 more than all of Europe and Russia combined.

In 2013, of the nine countries that are home to over 30 billionaires each, only three are traditional “developed” countries: the United States, Germany, and the United Kingdom.

Next in line after the United States, with its 442 billionaires today? China, with 122 billionaires (up from zero billionaires in 1995), and third place goes to Russia with 110. China’s billionaires have made money from every possible source. Consider the country’s richest man, Zong Qinghou, who made his $11.6 billion through his ownership of the country’s largest beverage maker. Russia’s lengthy billionaire list is led by men who reaped billions from the country’s vast oil, gas and mineral wealth with devastating consequences to the environment.

Global Wealth and Inequality: Towards a World of Super Rich “Trillionaires” Amidst Mounting Poverty

http://www.globalresearch.ca/global-wealth-and-inequality-towards-a-world-of-super-rich-trillionaires-amidst-mounting-
poverty/5354454?print=1


Credit Suisse’s new Global Wealth Report reminds us of the 1790s when inequality ignited the French Revolution and 40,000 met the guillotine. Today, Credit Suisse data reveal that just 1% own 46% of the world, while two-thirds of the world’s people have less than $10,000 wealth.

Credit Suisse predicts a world with 11 trillionaires in a couple generations, as the rich get richer and the gap widens.

Can this trend continue? Or will it trigger an “economic guillotine?” Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz, author of “The Price of Inequality,” is not as optimistic as Credit Suisse: “America likes to think of itself as a land of opportunity.” But today the “numbers show that the American dream is a myth … the gap’s widening … the clear trend is one of concentration of income and wealth at the top, the hollowing out of the middle, and increasing poverty at the bottom.”


***thanks to ichingcarpenter for added link

[pampango]

1. Excellent find, xchrom.

In 1995, Forbes tallied 376 billionaires in the world. Of these, 129 (or 34%)were from the United States. The fact that the number of U.S. billionaires rose to 442 over the next 18 years while the percentage of U.S. billionaires fell only from 34% to 31% of the global total is testimony to how the deregulatory and tax-cutting atmosphere in the United States under Clinton and Bush proved so favorable to the super-rich.

Notable over these past 18 years is that the so-called developed world has been eclipsed by the so-called developing world. In 1995, the billionaire powerhouses were the United States (129), Germany (47), and Japan (35). These three countries were home to 56% of the world’s billionaires. No other country came close, with France, Hong Kong, and Thailand tied in fourth place, with 12 billionaires each. Russia and China didn’t have a single billionaire in 1995, although for Russia, Forbes admitted that financial disclosure in that country in the years after the Berlin Wall fell was sketchy. And, in 1995, Brazil had only eight billionaires and India only two.

Today, these four countries (Russia, China, Brazil, and India) host 333 of the world’s 1,426 billionaires—23% of the total. And, Japan’s total number of billionaires has actually fallen in the last 18 years, from 35 to 22.

Suffice it to say: More equal and more healthy societies require a vastly different approach to public policy. As IPS Associate Fellow Sam Pizzigati has chronicled, fair taxes created a vast middle class in the United States between the 1940s and 1960s. Such fair tax policies are needed today the world over if the gap between the super-haves and the have-nots is to be narrowed rather than widened.

[handmade34]

2. just charts...

[Fumesucker]

3. A billionaire here, a billionare there

Pretty soon you're talking about real tumbrels.

[xchrom]

4. i have an unnatural fear of dropping a stitch. nt

[Ichingcarpenter]

5. Towards a World of Super Rich “Trillionaires” Amidst Mounting Poverty

Credit Suisse’s new Global Wealth Report reminds us of the 1790s when inequality ignited the French Revolution and 40,000 met the guillotine. Today, Credit Suisse data reveal that just 1% own 46% of the world, while two-thirds of the world’s people have less than $10,000 wealth.

Credit Suisse predicts a world with 11 trillionaires in a couple generations, as the rich get richer and the gap widens.

Can this trend continue? Or will it trigger an “economic guillotine?” Nobel economist Joseph Stiglitz, author of “The Price of Inequality,” is not as optimistic as Credit Suisse: “America likes to think of itself as a land of opportunity.” But today the “numbers show that the American dream is a myth … the gap’s widening … the clear trend is one of concentration of income and wealth at the top, the hollowing out of the middle, and increasing poverty at the bottom.”

History is warning us: Inequality is a recipe for disaster, rebellions, revolutions and wars. Not in two generations. Much, much sooner, a reminder of the Pentagon’s famous 2003 prediction: “As the planet’s carrying capacity shrinks, an ancient pattern of desperate, all-out wars over food, water, and energy supplies will emerge … warfare will define human life on the planet by 2020.” Yes, much sooner than two generations.

Revolutions catch us off-guard, ignite suddenly, spreading like fire

The French Revolution is a powerful history lesson, easily denied. Angry masses. Their treasury bankrupt. High interest on nation debt consumed half their tax revenues. Why? Earlier wars, a decedent aristocracy, an incompetent King Louis XVI. The anger so intense that during the 1792-93 Reign of Terror the king was guillotined, along with as many as 40,000 others, many of whom were innocent, as inequality ripped apart their nation.

Why? The aristocracy, intellectuals and the rich were oblivious of the needs of the masses, much like our leaders today. As Adbusters magazine put it: “Even in the seconds before their heads were about to roll away from their bodies underneath the blade of the guillotine, it still puzzled the opulent Paris elite how this could be happening.”

The truth is, they were in denial, not listening to the masses for years. Yes, revolutions catch whole nations by surprise: “Just months before the storming of the Bastille in 1789, everything was peachy. The social order ran smooth. The poor paid their dues. The middle class kept their mouths shut. The aristocracy partied … and the next day they were being dragged through the streets by their frilly collars like common thieves.”

Inequality is accelerating rapidly to revolutionary levels

Are we near a new Bastille Day.......more


http://www.globalresearch.ca/global-wealth-and-inequality-towards-a-world-of-super-rich-trillionaires-amidst-mounting-poverty/5354454?print=1

[xchrom]

6. +1

[Ichingcarpenter]

8. You might add my link to your post

Plus a little info


since everyone doesn't read the comments and I think both stories add up to a bigger picture.

[xchrom]

9. god idea. thanks. nt

[Laelth]

7. k&r for the truth, however depressing it may be. n/t

-Laelth