Oxfam report: Randians doing better than ever:

[Dot Com]

heres the Randian utopia college Repubs drool over:

http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfa...cal-capture-economic-inequality-200114-en.pdf

Almost half of the world’s wealth is now owned by just one percent of
the population.
•
The wealth of the one
percent richest people in the world amounts to
$110 trillion. That’s 65 times the total wealth of the bottom half of the
world’s population.
•
The bottom half of the world’s population owns the same as the
richest 85 people in the world.

three more bulleted points at above link

 

[joshuah]

The bottom half of the world’s population owns the same as the
richest 85 people in the world.

This is a bad way to measure wealth because a significant part of the world's population owns no assets or even has debt, so if you are an individual who "owns" anything you technically have "more" wealth than billions of people who are technically in negative or zero territory. Global inequality is still an issue - although it may be getting better - but ownership/wealth is a poor way to measure it; income, life expectancy, access to clean water, food, education - these types of things are better measurements, which by the way are getting better also.

the percentage of very poor people has dropped by more than half since 1990

 

[RandomVariable]

The bottom half of the world’s population owns the same as the
richest 85 people in the world.

This is a bad way to measure wealth because a significant part of the world's population owns no assets or even has debt, so if you are an individual who "owns" anything you technically have "more" wealth than billions of people who are technically in negative or zero territory. Global inequality is still an issue - although it may be getting better - but ownership/wealth is a poor way to measure it; income, life expectancy, access to clean water, food, education - these types of things are better measurements, which by the way are getting better also.

the percentage of very poor people has dropped by more than half since 1990

The title from the first link:
American inequality is on the rise. But global inequality is falling.
And the second link is from the Gates Foundation talking about third world.

What my question is, why did you make that reply? Sounds like you are trying to justify inequality by pointing out its global relativity. Is that so? And the only reason Billy Gates is giving so much money away is he is afraid of going to Hell.

 

[joshuah]

What my question is, why did you make that reply? Sounds like you are trying to justify inequality by pointing out its global relativity. Is that so? And the only reason Billy Gates is giving so much money away is he is afraid of going to Hell.

I am not trying to "justify" inequality, however I am looking for a more comprehensive and nuanced discussion of whether the current levels of inequality are good or bad. By some measures (i.e. Oxfam) wealth inequality is at record levels. By other measures (my links), income inequality is falling. Maybe the rich being super duper rich is bad, but surely the number of people in absolute poverty falling by half in the last two decades is also good, is it not?

 

[Dot Com]

let us hope the revolution gets here sooner rather than later.

 

[Quantum Windbag]

heres the Randian utopia college Repubs drool over:

http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfa...cal-capture-economic-inequality-200114-en.pdf

Almost half of the world’s wealth is now owned by just one percent of
the population.
•
The wealth of the one
percent richest people in the world amounts to
$110 trillion. That’s 65 times the total wealth of the bottom half of the
world’s population.
•
The bottom half of the world’s population owns the same as the
richest 85 people in the world.

three more bulleted points at above link

If you have a problem with that, feel free to give all your money away because everyone in the US is part of the 1% as far as the world is concerned.