While income inequality is becoming greater, the rich continue to get richer. Yet, this is no accident—the central bank and government policy are to blame. “It’s not a recession, it’s a robbery.”
On February 4, 2015, Michael Krieger writes on Nation Of Change:
Before I get into the meat of this post, I want to make it clear that the definition of oligarch, a term I use a lot, does not center solely around money.
Late last year, in the post Inside the Mind of an Oligarch – Sheldon Adelson Proclaims “I Don’t Like Journalism,” I attempted to frame the word oligarch as I use it. I wrote the following:
“In a nutshell, while many oligarchs are extremely wealthy (or have access to extreme wealth), not all people with extreme wealth are oligarchs. The term oligarch is reserved for those with extreme wealth who also want to control the political process, policy levers and most other aspects of the lives of the citizenry in a top-down tyrannical and undemocratic manner. They think they know best about pretty much everything, and believe unelected technocrats who share their worldview should be empowered so that they can unilaterally make all of society’s important decisions. The unwashed masses (plebs) in their minds are unnecessary distractions who must be told what to do. Useless eaters who need to be brainwashed into worshipping the oligarch mindset, or turned into apathetic automatons incapable or unwilling to engage in critical thought. Either outcome is equally acceptable and equally encouraged.”
With that out of the way, Five-Thirty-Eight provided the following:
“Eighty people hold the same amount of wealth as the world’s 3.6 billion poorest people, according to an analysis just released from Oxfam. The report from the global anti-poverty organization finds that since 2009, the wealth of those 80 richest has doubled in nominal terms — while the wealth of the poorest 50 percent of the world’s population has fallen.”
There you have it. The reason the wealth of the richest has doubled since 2009 is because “it’s not a recession, it’s a robbery.” Central bank and government policy have done this, it is no accident.
For more evidence…
“Four years earlier, 388 billionaires together held as much wealth as the poorest 50 percent of the world. Thirty-five of the 80 richest people in the world are U.S. citizens, with combined wealth of $941 billion in 2014. Together in second place are Germany and Russia, with seven mega-rich individuals apiece. The entire list is dominated by one gender, though — 70 of the 80 richest people are men. And 68 of the people on the list are 50 or older.”
Oxfam notes that global wealth inequality is increasing while the rich get richer. If trends continue, the organization projects that the richest 1 percent of people will have more wealth than the remaining 99 percent by 2016.
Now here’s the list (in billions):
1 Bill Gates $76 USA Tech
2 Carlos Slim Helu $72 Mexico Telecom
3 Amancio Ortega $64 Spain Retail
4 Warren Buffett $58 USA Finance
5 Larry Ellison $48 USA Tech
6 Charles Koch $40 USA Diversified
7 David Koch $40 USA Diversified
8 Sheldon Adelson $38 USA Entertainment
9 Christy Walton $37 USA Retail
10 Jim Walton $35 USA Retail
11 Liliane Bettencourt $35 France Product
12 Stefan Persson $34 Sweden Retail
13 Alice Walton $34 USA Retail
14 S. Robson Walton $34 USA Retail
15 Bernard Arnault $34 France Luxury
16 Michael Bloomberg $33 USA Finance
17 Larry Page $32 USA Tech
18 Jeff Bezos $32 USA Retail
19 Sergey Brin $32 USA Tech
20 Li Ka-shing $31 Hong Kong Diversified
21 Mark Zuckerberg $29 USA Tech
22 Michele Ferrero $27 Italy Food
23 Aliko Dangote $25 Nigeria Commodities
24 Karl Albrecht $25 Germany Retail
25 Carl Icahn $25 USA Finance
26 George Soros $23 USA Finance
27 David Thomson $23 Canada Media
28 Lui Che Woo $22 Hong Kong Entertainment
29 Dieter Schwarz $21 Germany Retail
30 Alwaleed Bin Talal Alsaud $20 Saudi Arabia Finance
31 Forrest Mars Jr. $20 USA Food
32 Jacqueline Mars $20 USA Food
33 John Mars $20 USA Food
34 Jorge Paulo Lemann $20 Brazil Drinks
35 Lee Shau Kee $20 Hong Kong Diversified
36 Steve Ballmer $19 USA Tech
37 Theo Albrecht Jr. $19 Germany Retail
38 Leonardo Del Vecchio $19 Italy Luxury
39 Len Blavatnik $19 USA Diversified
40 Alisher Usmanov $19 Russia Extractives
41 Mukesh Ambani $19 India Extractives
42 Masayoshi Son $18 Japan Telecom
43 Michael Otto $18 Germany Retail
44 Phil Knight $18 USA Retail
45 Tadashi Yanai $18 Japan Retail
46 Gina Rinehart $18 Australia Extractives
47 Mikhail Fridman $18 Russia Extractives
48 Michael Dell $18 USA Tech
49 Susanne Klatten $17 Germany Cars
50 Abigail Johnson $17 USA Finance
51 Viktor Vekselberg $17 Russia Metals
52 Lakshmi Mittal $17 India Metals
53 Vladimir Lisin $17 Russia Transport
54 Cheng Yu-tung $16 Hong Kong Diversified
55 Joseph Safra $16 Brazil Finance
56 Paul Allen $16 USA Tech
57 Leonid Mikhelson $16 Russia Extractives
58 Anne Cox Chambers $16 USA Media
59 Francois Pinault $16 France Retail
60 Iris Fontbona $16 Chile Extractives
61 Azim Premji $15 India Tech
62 Mohammed Al Amoudi $15 Saudi Arabia Extractives
63 Gennady Timchenko $15 Russia Extractives
64 Wang Jianlin $15 China Real Estate
65 Charles Ergen $15 USA Telecom
66 Stefan Quandt $15 Germany Cars
67 Germán Larrea Mota Velasco $15 Mexico Extractives
68 Harold Hamm $15 USA Extractives
69 Ray Dalio $14 USA Finance
70 Donald Bren $14 USA Real Estate
71 Georg Schaeffler $14 Germany Product
72 Luis Carlos Sarmiento $14 Colombia Finance
73 Ronald Perelman $14 USA Finance
74 Laurene Powell Jobs $14 USA Entertainment
75 Serge Dassault $14 France Aviation
76 John Fredriksen $14 Cyprus Transport
77 Vagit Alekperov $14 Russia Extractives
78 John Paulson $14 USA Finance
79 Rupert Murdoch $14 USA Media
80 Ma Huateng $13 China TechI didn’t provide this list to say whether these people are good or bad. I provide it because whenever 80 people own as much as the poorest 50% of the globe, we sure better know who they are. We should also be cognizant of the disproportionate influence any of them can have on public affairs should they want to.
This should be an eye-opening article and WAKE UP call to the plubs (that’s most of the American population), who are continually subject to wage slavery and welfare slavery perpetrated by an unjust system that is rigged to concentrate wealth-creation, and thus income-generation among the 1 percent of the population.
Why, because our monetary and finance system is based on past savings. This limits how much prosperity can be achieved that benefits EVERY citizen, and who can achieve it.
The present reality is that logically, nothing can be done to broaden prosperity. Why? Because if the pool of past savings is the ONLY source of financing, how much can be financed depends on how much has been withheld from consumption. The economic dilemma is that producers ONLY invest in new physical capital asset formation in response to increases in consumption, but if the ONLY source of financing for new capital formation is DECREASES in consumption, there is either no financing, or no need for financing.
Another way of saying this is if everyone withheld from consumption and saved, there would not be enough “customers with money” to create demand for financing new capital formation. Thus, the economy becomes stagnant with at best anemic growth.
Who can control the outcome within the current system structure? Either the rich, the wealthy capital asset ownership class, who have the capacity to save where the rest of us do not, or the State, which can coercively take what others have in the way of savings, either directly through the tax extraction system, or indirectly by inflating the currency. Either way, those who OWN no capital assets end up the losers with no control except for the ballet box, which sadly is seldom effective due to lack of leadership to reform the system.
In order to make the losers winners requires that the system be reformed so that the financing of new capital assets is based on the present value of that which can be produced in the future, rather than ONLY on which has been withheld from consumption in the past. Which makes more sense––a system of past savings based on reductions of consumption in the past or a system of future savings based on increases in production in the future?
We need to understand that the rich are rich because they OWN wealth-creating, income-producing capital assets, which they continue to accumulate using their asset wealth as security and the income earnings from their investments in new capital asset formation to acquire more and more OWNERSHIP holdings, which then makes their even more wealthly.
Why has OWNING the non-human factor of production, embodied in capital assets such as land, structures, tool, machines, robotics, super-automation, computerization, etc., become the reason the rich are rich? It has ALWAYS been so, but exponentially tectonic shifts in the technologies of production have and will continue to result in less and less human labor required to produce the products and services needed and wanted by society. Such shifts in production results in devaluing the worth of labor as more and more people vie for less and less jobs, resulting in a “laissez-faire” opportunity to produce globally at the lowest possible labor rates. Thus, both efficient physical capital utilization and reduced labor costs effectively enable companies to keep labor input and other costs at a minimum in order to maximize profits for the owners. The rich are always the OWNERS, while those employed are the wage slaves. Those unemployed or underemployed in society are the welfare slaves, dependent on the State and its coercive powers to provide the minimum level of subsistence.
We cannot allow the central bank, the Federal Reserve, and the political government to continue rob the vast majority of the American citizenry from a future of inclusive prosperity, inclusive opportunity, and inclusive economic justice.
There is a solution and a path to reforming the system to empower EVERY citizen to acquire personal ownership shares in future wealth-creating, income-producing capital assets simultaneously with the growth of the economy, while assuring the economy will grow to support general affluence for EVERY child, woman, and man. The proposed Capital Homestead Act is the pillar for this needed change. It provides financial mechanisms that provide equal opportunity for EVERY citizen to steadily acquire a diversified portfolio of income-producing, full-voting and full dividend payout stocks issued specifically for new capital asset formation using insured, interest-free pure capital credit loans, repayable out of the earnings of the investments in the corporations growing our economy. The result would be annual cycles of growth that are self-perpetuating and which would better balance production with consumption, rather than allow the non-human means of production to be OWNED by what is now a tiny minority for which the system allows them to concentrate wealth ownership.
The justice-based argument for this approach to an inclusive society is the agenda of the Just Third Way. There is also a political platform that is offered to any political party or politician upon which to advocate for this new paradigm.
Support the Agenda of The Just Third Way Movement at http://foreconomicjustice.org/?p=5797, http://www.cesj.org/resources/articles-index/the-just-third-way-basic-principles-of-economic-and-social-justice-by-norman-g-kurland/, http://www.cesj.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/jtw-graphicoverview-2013.pdf and http://www.cesj.org/resources/articles-index/the-just-third-way-a-new-vision-for-providing-hope-justice-and-economic-empowerment/.
Support Monetary Justice at http://capitalhomestead.org/page/monetary-justice
Support the Capital Homestead Act at http://www.cesj.org/learn/capital-homesteading/capital-homestead-act-a-plan-for-getting-ownership-income-and-power-to-every-citizen/ and http://www.cesj.org/learn/capital-homesteading/capital-homestead-act-summary/. See http://cesj.org/learn/capital-homesteading/ and http://cesj.org/…/uploads/Free/capitalhomesteading-s.pdf.
Support the Unite America Party Platform, published by The Huffington Post at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/gary-reber/platform-of-the-unite-ame_b_5474077.html as well as Nation Of Change at http://www.nationofchange.org/platform-unite-america-party-1402409962 and OpEd News at http://www.opednews.com/articles/Platform-of-the-Unite-Amer-by-Gary-Reber-Party-Leadership_Party-Platforms-DNC_Party-Platforms-GOP-RNC_Party-Politics-Democratic-140630-60.html.
