World's 85 richest earn more than 3.5 billion poorest: UN

[boedicca]

Methinks if Dad2three spent the time he now uses to Whinge about people who have more than he does on productive work instead, he might not be filled with so much jealous rage.

Just sayin'.

Anger and jealousy? lol

Right wingers ONLY have false premises, distortions and lies in their tool boxes, as their policies CONTINUALLY fail for ANYONE but the 1%ers, ANYWHERE it's EVER been tried!

You are a blitherin moron who is completely unblemished by any knowledge of history, economics, logic, and basic common sense.

 

[Dad2three]

I'll note that back in Dad2three's "Golden Age" when The Rich earned a smaller share of national income, The Poor did not have things like:

- Air conditioning
- Flat screen TVs
- Computers
- Cell phones

And very often, they also lacked refrigerator, indoor plumbing, washers and dryers...

No AC, TV's or phones huh? lol


You KNOW conservative policy is a failure when they need to remind US how well OUR poor live compared to 3rd world nations!

 

[Dad2three]

Methinks if Dad2three spent the time he now uses to Whinge about people who have more than he does on productive work instead, he might not be filled with so much jealous rage.

Just sayin'.

Anger and jealousy? lol

Right wingers ONLY have false premises, distortions and lies in their tool boxes, as their policies CONTINUALLY fail for ANYONE but the 1%ers, ANYWHERE it's EVER been tried!

You are a blitherin moron who is completely unblemished by any knowledge of history, economics, logic, and basic common sense.

Right, so you CAN'T actually refute a damn thing from the guy with a minor in history from Cal Poly. Got it

 

[Jarhead]

I'll note that back in Dad2three's "Golden Age" when The Rich earned a smaller share of national income, The Poor did not have things like:

- Air conditioning
- Flat screen TVs
- Computers
- Cell phones

And very often, they also lacked refrigerator, indoor plumbing, washers and dryers...

No AC, TV's or phones huh? lol


You KNOW conservative policy is a failure when they need to remind US how well OUR poor live compared to 3rd world nations!

Interesting response seeing as he did NOT compare our poor to 3rd world nations.

He compared our poor of today to our poor of the past.

Which is exactly what you did, prompting him to comment.

And like it or not, our poor of today have lifestyles must closer to the lifestyle of the middle class than they did in the past.

I know you want to see them scrounging in the dirt looking for ants for protein so you can support your position...

But, alas, they are getting by.

 

[ShackledNation]

Global income inequality is actually falling, so this entire thread is moot.

 

[sealybobo]

World's 85 richest earn more than 3.5 billion poorest: UN
World's 85 richest earn more than 3.5 billion poorest: UN - Business - CBC News

The 85 richest people in the world have as much wealth as the 3.5 billion poorest people, the United Nations said Thursday in a report that highlights the 1.2 billion people who live on less than $1.25 a day.

The UN’s annual Human Development Report notes that overall poverty is declining throughout the world, but says worsening inequality risks reversing the trend to improvements in life span and income.

Canada placed No. 8 on the UN Human Development Index, a measure based on education, income, health and other measures of human well-being. It is among the group of nations considered to have very human development, with Norway at the top of the list.

That is better than last year, when Canada placed 11th, after making the top of the list in the 1990s.

Among the nations considered to have very poor human development are Niger, Congo, Mali, Haiti and Nepal.

Nearly one-third of people are poor or vulnerable to poverty, meaning they are not resilient in the face of natural or human-induced disasters and can slip further behind, according to the report.

Eradicating poverty is not just about "getting to zero, but about staying there," said UN human development head Helen Clark.
Call for universal access to social programs

The report calls for "universal access to basic social services, especially health and education; stronger social protection, including unemployment insurance and pensions; and a commitment to full employment, recognizing
that the value of employment extends far beyond the income it generates."

Is it really good that 85 people have more wealth than half of the population of our planet? I don't think so!

Republicans act like Capitalism is a good ism and communism and socialism are bad. Trust me, unregulated free market capitalism in a country where the rich own our government is just as bad as all the other isms. Capitalism is now corrupted too just like those other isms were eventually fucked up.

At what point will this become a problem? It already is a problem, but will they still defend it when free market capitalism or libertarianism or conservative/tea party policies give the rich 99% of the wealth and the rest of us share the 1% that's left over?

 

[sealybobo]

Global income inequality is actually falling, so this entire thread is moot.

Yea, the gap is getting smaller in 3rd world countries as those citizens are getting the jobs that use to go to Americans.

And if you are unaware, those workers in other countries are mostly unionized. My brother is a VP for a global company. They are constantly negotiating with the unions in Brazil and every other country. He admitted to me if it weren't for unions the workers of the world would be screwed.

Well guess what? They are breaking the unions in America. So while unions are gaining popularity in the rest of the world and their pay is going up, ours is going down.

They told us for 20 plus years UNIONS are the problem. That's because they wanted to break them. American labor is too god damn expensive. They needed to do something about that.

And in the future, corporations will pit workers in America against workers in mexico, china, africa, india, etc. If wages get too high they just have to pick up and ship jobs to the lowest bidder. How do they get away with this? Because the rich own the very governments that should be regulating this.

 

[Toro]

They give almost zero value to US. They are scavenger without much benefit but to a few


“risks being inundated by managers who are gaming the system rather than delivering high returns, which could ultimately lead to a collapse in investor confidence.”

Gaming the System: Are Hedge Fund Managers Talented, or Just Good at Fooling Investors? » Knowledge@Wharton

1990 $38 billion managed

2014 $2.2+ trillion




ABUSE OF STRUCTURED FINANCIAL PRODUCTS:


Misusing Basket Options to Avoid Taxes and Leverage Limits

I. EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

For the last decade, the U.S. Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations has presented case histories showing how financial institutions, law firms, accountants, and others have designed and implemented complex financial structures to take advantage of and, at times, abuse or violate U.S. tax statutes, securities regulations, and accounting rules.



This investigation offers yet another detailed case study of how two financial institutions – Deutsche Bank AG and Barclays Bank PLC – developed structured financial products...., that used them to avoid federal taxes and leverage limits on buying securities with borrowed funds.

The basket option contracts examined by the Subcommittee investigation were used by at least 13 hedge funds to conduct over $100 billion in securities trades, most of which were short term transactions and some of which lasted only seconds. Yet the resulting short-term profits were frequently cast as long-term capital gains subject to a 20% tax rate (previously 15%) rather than the ordinary income tax rate (currently as high as 39%) that would otherwise apply to investors in hedge funds engaged in daily trading

Hearings| Homeland Security & Governmental Affairs Committee

I agree that carried interest should not be taxed as capital gains.

Now, how many hedge funds were bailed out during the Financial Crisis again?

That private markets race for short term profits thing that required Dubya bailing out to 'big to fail"?

Correct.

The answer is "zero."