Reuters — The World's Richest 1% Took Home 82% of Wealth Last Year, Oxfam Says

Four out of every five dollars of wealth generated in 2017 ended up in the pockets of the richest 1%, while the poorest half of humanity got nothing, a report published by Oxfam found on Monday.

As global political and business leaders gather for this week’s World Economic Forum annual meeting in Davos, Switzerland, the charity’s report highlights a global system that rewards the super-rich and neglects the poor....

“The economic model is not working at all,” Oxfam report co-author, Iñigo Macías Aymar, told the Thomson Reuters Foundation. “The way this wealth is being distributed we are really worried, it’s being concentrated in fewer hands.”...

Fortune
The World's Richest 1% Took Home 82% of Wealth Last Year, Oxfam Says

Reuters

Bill Mitchell — The GFC only temporarily interrupted the trend towards rising inequality

The UK Guardian Editorial ran a sub-header yesterday (January 21, 2018) “Democracies will fall under the spell of populists like Donald Trump if they fail to deal with the fallout of globalisation?”, which I thought reflected the misunderstandings that so-called progressive have about ‘globalisation’ and its impacts on the capacities of the sovereign state. The UK Guardian Editorial was responding to the release of the latest Oxfam report (released January 16, 2018) – An Economy for the 99%: It’s time to build a human economy that benefits everyone, not just the privileged few – timed to coincide with the gathering of “billionaires and corporate executives” at Davos this week. The Oxfam report reveals further staggering shifts in inequality across the globe, that the GFC barely interrupted. A major shift in political sentiment on the Left is needed to arrest these trends before they break out in destructive social instability....

Bill Mitchell – billy blog
The GFC only temporarily interrupted the trend towards rising inequalityBill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at University of Newcastle, NSW, Australia

Also

Logo competition

I am launching a competition among budding graphical designers out there to design a logo and branding for the MMT University, which we hope will start offering courses in October 2018.

The prize for the best logo will be personal status only and the knowledge that you are helping a worthwhile (not-for-profit) endeavour.

The conditions are simple.

Submit your design to me via E-mail.

A small group of unnamed panelists will select the preferred logo. We might not select any of those submitted.

It should be predominantly blue in colour scheme. It should include a stand-alone logo and a banner to head the WWW presence.

By submitting it you forgo any commercial rights to the logo and branding. In turn, we will only use the work for the MMT University initiative. It will be a truly open source contribution.

The contest closes at the end of March 2018.

Issac Davis — Rothschild Family Wealth Is Five Times That Of World’s Top 8 Billionaires Combined

Listed below are the 8 billionaires along with their estimated wealth, which combined equals $426.2 billion.

1. Bill Gates – $75 b
2. Amancio Ortega – $67 b
3. Warren Buffett – $60.8 b
4. Carlos Slim Helu – $50 b
5. Jeff Bezos – $45.2 b
6. Mark Zuckerberg – $44.6 b
7. Larry Ellison – $43.6 b
8. Michael Bllomberg – $40 b

**********

At $2 trillion plus [estimated], the family’s reported wealth is closing in on five times as much as the combined wealth of the world’s top 8 individual billionaires, meaning that the Rothschild family alone controls more wealth than perhaps three-fourths or more of the world’s total population.…

But no Rothschild appears on the richest list because the family's wealth is dispersed among the members. Moreover, the actual figures are not public since the bulk of the wealth is privately held and doesn't have to be disclosed publicly.

Now that is a dynasty!

CounterCurrents
Rothschild Family Wealth Is Five Times That Of World’s Top 8 Billionaires Combined

Issac Davis

Jason Hickel — Global inequality may be much worse than we think

It’s familiar news by now. Oxfam’s figures have gone viral: the richest 1% now have more wealth than the rest of the world’s population combined. Global inequality is worse than at any time since the 19th century.

For most people, this is all they know about global inequality. But Oxfam’s wealth figures don’t quite tell the whole story. What about income inequality? And – more importantly – what about inequalities between countries? If we expand our view beyond the usual metrics, we can learn a lot more about how unequal our world has become.

The first thing to say about Oxfam’s numbers is that they present a very conservative picture. Given that the rich hide so much of their wealth in tax havens and secrecy jurisdictions, it is impossible to know how much they really have. Recent estimates suggest that up to $32tn is stored away in tax havens – around one sixth of the world’s total private wealth. If we were to add that to Oxfam’s metrics, inequality would look much, much worse.
But that’s wealth. Many analysts object that we shouldn’t be measuring wealth inequality, but rather income inequality.…

The Guardian
Global inequality may be much worse than we think
Jason Hickel | Lecturer at the London School of Economics and Political Science

ht Don Quijones at Raging Bull-Shit

CTuttle — World’s Richest One Percent Undermine Fight Against Economic Inequality

UNITED NATIONS – The growing economic inequalities between rich and poor – and the lopsided concentration of wealth and power in the hands of the world’s one percent – are undermining international efforts to fight global poverty, environmental degradation and social injustice, according to a civil society alliance.

Comprising ActionAid, Greenpeace, Oxfam and Civicus, the group of widely-known non-governmental organisations (NGO) and global charities warn about the widening gap and imbalance of power between the world’s richest and the rest of the population, which they say, is “warping the rules and policies that affect society, creating a vicious circle of ever growing and harmful undue influence.”

The group identifies a list of key concerns – including tax avoidance, wealth inequality and lack of access to healthcare – as being unduly influenced by the world’s wealthiest one percent.

In a statement released Thursday, on the eve of the World Social Forum (WSF) scheduled to take place in Tunis Mar. 24-28, the group argues the concentration of wealth and power is now a critical and binding factor that must be challenged “if we are to create lasting solutions to poverty and climate change.”....

Peace and prosperity versus poverty and war. Social justice versus neoliberalism, neo-imperialism and neocolonialism.

Firedoglake
World’s Richest One Percent Undermine Fight Against Economic Inequality
CTuttle

Bill Mitchell — Rising inequality – fundamental changes required

Conclusion 

These are among the reforms I would introduce within the Capitalist system. They are all economically feasible in the sense that the currency-issuing government would be able to fund them and sustain them financially. 

At present they are politically infeasible, which is where the progressive argument has to focus. 

But, first, progressives have to overcome their TINA mentality when it comes to macroeconomics and abandon the mainstream ideas that have led to austerity. Claiming that they support a Robin Hood tax (for example) as a fairer way of raising income for governments to spend is not a credible progressive response. 

1. They should be advocating the wiping out of most of the financial sector. 

2. They should be educating the public that a sovereign government is never revenue constrained because it is the monopoly issuer of the currency.

Bill Mitchell — billy blog

Rising inequality – fundamental changes required

Bill Mitchell | Professor in Economics and Director of the Centre of Full Employment and Equity (CofFEE), at the Charles Darwin University, Northern Territory, Australia