(Chart Source: Oxfam, January 2016)
In 2015 a historical milestone occurred. According to economic reports released by Oxfam and Credit Suisse, a majority of the world's wealth ended up in the hands of an extremely small minority. And according to the Credit Suisse Report (October 2015), this elite few is just (0.7) percent of the world's population.
(This global wealth pyramid from the Credit Suisse Report documents how this wealth has been distributed.)
The Credit Suisse report makes a particular note of the rise of global inequality since the Wall Street crash of 2008, and relates directly to the stock market boom that followed the bailout of the banks. This was initiated by the Bush Administration, and expanded by the Obama Administration. A key passage reads:
“There are strong reasons to think that the rise in wealth inequality since 2008 is mostly related to the rise in equity prices and to the size of financial assets in the United States and some other high-wealth countries, which together have pushed up the wealth of some of the richest countries and of many of the richest people around the world. The jump in the share of the top percentile to 50 percent this year exceeds the increase expected on the basis of any underlying upward trend. It is consistent, however, with the fact that financial assets continue to increase in relative importance and that the rise in the USD (US dollar) over the past year has given wealth inequality in the United States—which is very high by international standards—more weight in the overall global picture.”
American capitalism is a key catalyst in rising global economic inequality. The United States is also both the wealthiest and most economically unequal country in the world. The U.S. has less than 5 percent of the world's population, but contains 46 percent of the world's millionaires.
So now a wealthy minority owns a majority of the wealth on the globe. But what exactly are they being paid for?
RELATED LINKS
Oxfam Report (1-18-16) Report Press Release
The Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report (October 2015)
Money for Nothing (World Future Fund Report) A report how today's recovery is a result of money printing
Global Debt (World Future Fund Report) As debt continues to grow western governments paper over problems