How the Wealth of the World is distributed

Image source: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Poor_and_rich_in_Thailand.JPG

We know from history that in the past, much of the world’s wealth was held by a few rich and powerful kings and emperors. Has that changed now? Have you wondered how the world’s wealth is distributed in the new modern democratic age where we have rule of the people, by the people for the people. It seems that the emperors may not have gone away. They have perhaps just changed their style and address. Nevertheless as human civilisation advanced inequalities on the whole reduced or moved up and down over the centuries, then something dramatic happened around thirty years ago in 1985, inequalities began to rise again at ever faster rates. See here for precise scholarly data on this and simple ways to fix it. According to a report in the guardian, 

The extent to which so much global wealth has become corralled by a virtual handful of the so-called 'global elite' is exposed in a new report from Oxfam on Monday. It warned that those richest 85 people across the globe share a combined wealth of £1tn, as much as the poorest 3.5 billion of the world's population. The rich 85 are spread across the rich and poor countries of the world and even includes a few Indians, where infant mortality rate and farmer suicides due to financial distress are some of the highest in the world, while many are forced on to the homeless street even in the richest country of the world- America.

These rich of our planet are in numbers a tenth of the one percent of the one percent of the one percent. Considering this fact, it is not surprising that much of whatever wealth that is left after the rich 85, is owned by far less than one percent of the population of the world, leaving the vast majority of around seven billion humans to struggle with the bills and in many cases with even the means to pay for their daily bread. In the new modern economy it does appear that nothing is going to trickle down, because it seems that it is not a trickle down economy anymore, except for the scraps a billionaire may throw around to advertise boldly in the media that he is in fact a philanthropist. You would never hear of the deeds of a real philanthropist because even their left hand may not know what the right is doing.

It is a trickle up economy now. If it was not so, this kind of wealth inequality is a logical impossibility. A few pennies and dollars must be extracted from the hands and mouths of billions to build up such wealth, every hungry child and every desperate mother in the world, every clenched fist soaked with tears of desperation, even from the pockets of the infant sobbing besides his unconscious mother .

as those in Syria that bring profits for the gun manufacturers, yah, the same ones who make the military style assault weapons for the guy who shot the kids at school, the same one who funds rifle associations that fund policy that make all this possible, otherwise the Syrian crisis is fixed easily as described here

"Gee Whiz!," said the tycoon rubbing his hands in glee, "we sure have been able to sell  a lot of guns this year."

Guns are Fun?

The wealth accumulation is built up by pulling out morsels from  millions and billions of  hungry mouths, from every pocket and every hand even from naked tribes struggling to cover their shame and from the pockets of those with tear drenched eyes struggling to find the daily bread for a crying infant, from every family kicked out on homeless street during the last extraction by a gambler on wall street or the last shooting spree in Syria or Sudan.  

Gee whiz, guns are fun, how can they be banned, you silly un? Do you know they even have cute pink ones for the kids to train at the association. They are the real thing, mind you. One kid killed his dad during training the other day. Mind you we have an expense account for the politicians so they - wink wink - talk of the second amendment to make stupid fools of people - LOL- the amendment has a right to be armed with nuclear missiles next, military style assault weapons are a toy in comparison - HaHa LOLOLOLOLOL

Wealth pours in through multiple streams with the guns being just one, through various indirect means, some described in older posts of this blog (through methods such as inflation that amounts to stealing from the poor for the rich here)

If conflicts are stopped how will guns be sold? Should  businesses be made to hurt?

Is this surprising in a world where your elected representatives chosen by you, allow corporate honchos and bankers to walk away with millions in bonuses with a sweet rates of taxation and permit them to become too big to fail so that they can be bailed out with your money; or let old festering wars between nations and within nations continue through provocative measures and UN vetoes for decades rather than impose peace; how else can those lovely mansions by the waterside be procured?  You, I and the thousands of sweet little children of the world that die daily of hunger or war are not important in this heady game. The few have acquired their powers and wealth through wars from the beginning of human civilisation and continue to do so even now in the so called democratic age. The only ray of hope is the open communication that has become available on the internet but its effect will take generations - old habits die hard. We deserve to be taken for a ride seeing that we are going to vote the same lot in again,  and just in case a bank is fined millions for wrong doing as the RBS was in UK, it will be when it does not matter much to bankers who have already left with their handsome severance packages for their mansions in the Bahamas and other exotic locations. You shall help pay the fine because the bank shall be owned by the public because of the bailout as those in UK discovered..

For Heavens sake, if these other folks cannot find bread why do they not have cake instead?

A banker might chip in to add, a robber is such a fool to rob a bank with a gun when it is so easy and so very neat and legal to do it with a bonus. It is only the stupid who break a law, the clever make it. Do you think it is a just law, dear reader, if it has allowed a handful of humans perhaps charged with insane greed or something far more sinister to control most of the world's wealth, over the tears, hunger and misery of billions of others?

“I don't think there is such a thing as an intelligent mega-rich person. For who with a fine mind can look out upon this world and hoard what can nourish a thousand souls.”  ― Kabir 

Yet there are a few among these wealthy rich who acquired their wealth not through lies and perpetuating suffering among fellow humans but because the Lord wished it so.  They serve the Lord rather than the devil. They wait for the time when the Lord ordained that good may prevail on Earth once again and evil assigned to the bottomless pit for a thousand years. Until then they help whoever comes within their sight without making a noise about it.

Reference: http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/jan/20/oxfam-85-richest-people-half-of-the-world

 The Mechanics of Creating Inequalities

On the mechanics of inequality can be read in this small compact book - A Brief Introduction to the Economics of Greed and Exploitation: http://www.amazon.com/dp/1495448193

 Simple Solutions to reduce poverty and fix inequality

For simple solution to reducing inequalities see

http://steamcenter.blogspot.in/2015/01/era-of-inequality-since1978-causes-and.html

Update October 2014

Credit Suisse’s annual Global Wealth Report,  reveals that wealth inequality continues to grow; the top 1 percent now own 48.2 percent of global wealth, up from 46 percent last year. Meanwhile the bottom half of humanity own just 1 percent of wealth.