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The annual report's goal is to be the "most comprehensive and up-to-date source of information on global household wealth" (or lack thereof for many, if you read it).
The research reveals that total global wealth has reached new heights. In fact, it has doubled since the year 2000. China still accounts for the most "newly created wealth," but growth in newly emerging markets still has not regained "the momentum" it had prior to 2008. The increase in wealth is greatest in North America, with Europe coming in second.
But the rapid growth of overall wealth is not necessarily a good thing, according to this report. Credit Suisse's concern about "wealth inequality" has led it to dedicate this report to that topic and to explore the ramifications of the pervasive and growing "changing distribution of wealth" around the globe, i.e., placing wealth into the hands of a very small number of people while not distributing it to the many who actually do the work and make up markets.
If you lack the energy to read the complete PDF I linked to above, Huffington Post today issued a summary of the report written by Mark Gongloff, its editor of business and technology, and a former employee of the Wall Street Journal and CNN Money (just so you don't take him for a wild-eyed liberal). Key Inequality Measure The Highest Since The Great Depression
As far as the U.S. is concerned, the ratio of wealth-to-household-income, a primary measure of inequality in this country, is the highest it has been since just before the Great Depression. According to Credit Suisse's calculations, the richest 1% of people in the world now own 48% of all the world's wealth — which Credit Suisse determines is "a worrying signal for the global economy." Or, as Mr. Gongloff puts it, "You know inequality is getting bad when it's making a Swiss bank uncomfortable." As I read somewhere else recently, we are now officially living in a new Gilded Age. Gilded Age - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Gangloff adds, "Going back to 1900, wealth has always been at least four times as high as disposable income. But sometimes the country's wealth stockpile surges to even greater heights. Right before the Great Depression, there was seven times as much wealth in the country as disposable income. Right before the dot-com and housing bubbles burst, there was six times as much wealth as income ... Today the ratio is higher than at the peak of the dot-com and housing bubbles. So, yikes."
Discuss and offer suggestions of why and how this should/could be changed. Do we have to have a correction via yet another economic crash, or can we do something to let the air out of the current super-bubble?
There is no simple answer that most would find acceptable. There are simple answers though. Just no one wants to hear them.
I agree, but I can't understand why. It would benefit the vast majority of Americans if we would stand up for fair pay, labor unions, workers rights, etc. Why are Americans so utterly deluded? We are not all going to hit the lottery or become sports or reality TV stars. We have no reason to protect the richest American's desire to become more rich, taking it out of the pockets of people who labor for a living.
Even the Washington Post (mouthpiece for the neocons) reports that America's perception of the pay gap between CEOs and workers is totally out of whack. They covered a new study done at the Harvard School of Business that illustrates this fact.
"Americans believe CEOs make roughly 30 times what the average worker makes in the U.S., when in actuality they are making more than 350 times the average worker. 'Americans drastically underestimated the gap in actual incomes between CEOs and unskilled workers,' the study says. But that underestimation isn't merely drastic—it is also unmatched in the world ... The average Fortune 500 CEO in the United States makes more than $12 million per year, which is nearly five million dollars more than the amount for top CEOs in Switzerland, where the second highest paid CEOs live, more than twice that for those in Germany, where the third highest paid CEOs live, and more than twenty-one times that for those in Poland."
Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont reports that median family income in the U.S. has declined by almost $5,000 since 1999 and over half of the American people have less than $10,000 in savings. Meanwhile, the 400 wealthiest Americans are worth a combined $2.29 trillion. That's up $270 billion from just last year — a 13% increase. These 400 humans now own more wealth than the bottom half of America — over 150 million people.
Most of this wealth is the result of speculation. The ratios will be rearranged after a world wide financial crash as the real values of financial instruments are readjusted to actual values.
Wealth=power..We tend to view wealth as a separate thing from power and therefore become confused when considering any alternatives to the construct that creates wealth. The truth of all things economic lies in the fact that economics as practiced here isn't pure theory at all, but moreover, a rationale for the "system" of finance that has been superimposed on a people. In theory it masquerades as a complex set of rules and absolutes when in practice it merely supports the status quo of a terribly lopsided distribution of benefit.
As for the concentration of wealth it is no surprise that the speculative markets are the playground of those who have the means to profit from the many narrow margins offered that have little chance of earning meaningful returns for the small investor. Manipulation of currencies, manipulations of markets, and manipulations of law, are all part of that construct we call "the economy", it was not set up to create wealth with a large scale of distribution, and in that realization we see that it is working just as it was planned.
Information....It has become the creator of delusion in our country. The constant refrain of the various radio evangelicals who are the paid shills of the system is one of telling the big lie often enough that it becomes part of the belief system. Liberals are blamed for what these shouters call "big government", and the conservatives are blamed for the fact of a corporate ruling class. Not a bad ruse altogether, it IS working, just read these forums to see the polarity of politics as usual in America. Through all of the federal administrations since 1945 we've seen the president's power being a thing of puppeteering, furthering the "cause" of corporate power our presidents do what makes wall street happy.
The fact is that neither true liberals nor true conservatives want this corporate rule, BUT the corporate types certainly do. Big government and all that it implies is the monster created by corporations to deflect the criticism from themselves to that of an entity supposedly ruled by the democratic system that serves the citizenry. But, making the populace think that it is the government who can and should help manage the financial system goes a long ways toward shifting responsibility from those who really rule to those, who think they rule.
Government is the servant of the upper class, period. And that fact is the reason that no citizen input means anything to the government. All of the whining on these boards about the illegal immigration problem in America usually end with a call to action, the deluded simply don't get it. Government HAS TO support ALL forms of cheap labor, from the phony attempts to raise the min wage to the phony attempts to stop the border flow of docile low paid workers. And the two parties in America have had their chance to make things right on both scores but instead side with the upper class who seeks benefit for putting the pols in power. Power rules, and it rules completely in terms of our financial affairs.
jertheber - Unfortunately for most of us the corporations are applying these scams to the entire world not just the USA. Thank you for an excellent and truthful essay. GregW
jertheber - Unfortunately for most of us the corporations are applying these scams to the entire world not just the USA. Thank you for an excellent and truthful essay. GregW
How true, yes the power structure across the globe looks pretty much the same, and one of the reasons for that sameness is the rise of organizations such as the WTO, The World Bank, The International Monetary Fund, The Ex-Im Bank, and a host of other western entities that have been fueling the fires of discontent among American workers and the citizens of their foreign "client states" for a long time.
John Pilger's books on US hegemony efforts abroad beginning in the forties up to the present are an excellent primer for anyone looking for the truth of our financial ills, as well as those in many of the western client states. It's seldom that I can speak with another American with regard to these organizations who portray themselves as "trading entities" when they are in fact the front for an amalgamated western power. Most of my past co workers knew nothing of these people or their agenda, although many were directly affected by these groups policies they usually blamed anyone BUT these groups.
Kept in the dark, fed lies, harboring fierce political party allegiance, this sums up the average American's plight, and the lies are getting bigger, the dark darker still, and party politics at an all time low. How can the average family find the time to dig for the truth when it is being buried deeper every day?
Reward is what drives the vast majority of humans, that is a fact. When you reduce reward, you reduce drive.
But how MUCH of a reward? Does a CEO deserve 350 times the reward another employee of his or her company makes? And what kind of message is being received by the people who have held jobs consistently each and every year, yet are making on average $5,000 less than they were in 1999?
1) It's all just trading life for money - and the money is an illusion established by a financial cartel that determines its value, the USD and other currencies.
2) The illusion is further complicated for US Citizens as we are all somehow held responsible and penalized for the debts incurred by prior generations! Why should I be responsible for "national debt?"
3) Deals of prior generations and between adults I don't even know affect me today: Why should I be responsible for paying for the retirement of others when my own retirement isn't going to be provided for (referring to social security)? Why should I pay taxes for representation that doesn't remotely represent my best interests?
It's all a big scam, most people are still asleep and don't recognize it for that. Then there's people who post replies to immediately rebut posts like these which undermine any revelations. It's sick, it's a shell game, and the people in control have you brainwashed if you don't see it for what it really is. Look up who founded and runs Credit Suisse, look up who founded and currently run the other major world banks! There's a handful of families running this entire "show." The "Federal Reserve" is neither a public nor government entity nor is it a "reserve" by definition! It's just part of the illusionary system. Look up who run MC and Visa... see if you can figure out who really runs those organizations and who owns the interest in them... the financial industry from the Banks to the Credit Companies are just about one thing... modern day slavery serving the interests of those families that happened to get into power first, years ago.
So rather than concern yourself about the "Global Wealth Report" realize there is absolutely nothing you have control of in the financial industry so it is absolutely not worth your time or energy. Buying Gold or Silver won't help you (as it was revealed within the past year how those values are rigged), keeping paper currency in a safe at home won't help you (the currency value is likely to go lower and lower as time goes on), keeping your money invested via the banking system won't help you (the banks are eventually going to either freeze access to your accounts or someone will hit the delete key on them)... all you can really do is go about your lives hoping for the best as the Masters are running the show and you are along for the ride.
Uplifting eh?
Last edited by belovenow; 10-19-2014 at 03:44 PM..
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