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A Good Way To Think About It

Tim Knight from Slope of Hope's picture




 

It was interesting to hear, in the midst of the Davos love-fest where the world's elite get together each year and pat each other on the back for a job well done, that Oxfam released their study stating that by next year the top 1% of humanity would own more than the remaining 99%. (Incidentally, for those interested in the topic of wealth distribution, check out the interesting SocialTrade stack.)

When I first heard this, I kind of shrugged it off, particularly since it was accompanied by a "50/50" pie chart. Then I realized my brain was playing a trick on me. In my head, there was a "split" between the 1% (one side) and the 99% (the other), which matched nicely with the 50/50 pie chart. In other words, my brain was thinking - - 'what's the big deal?"

Then I crudely calculated in my head how many people that is, and I expressed it to myself in a different way: if we assume 7 billion people on the planet, that means 70 million of them will have more wealth than 6.93 billion. Now that got my attention, and, I think, puts things into perspective much better. This is the legacy of Obama, Bernanke, Yellen, Draghi, Kuroda, and all the rest of these clowns. In the name of the working man, they have given away the entire planet to the highest echelon. What a bunch of shameless douchenozzles.

 

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Wed, 01/21/2015 - 11:31 | 5688048 zeropain
zeropain's picture

If you create 6.93 billion zombies, what do think will happen.  

Wed, 01/21/2015 - 10:40 | 5687778 madcows
madcows's picture

the lead is "blame the bankers".

But, i'd really like to blame the politicians for enabling it.  They're the ones that claim to do what is best for us, but really just lie.  They go and make deals with the corporate elite.  The corporate elite finance their campaigns, and the pols let them rewrite the laws.  Fuck you washington.

Wed, 01/21/2015 - 10:32 | 5687745 gmak
gmak's picture

Now, If I were just 1% of the entire planet's population and I wanted to somehow keep the other 99% in line, what would I do?

 

1. Steal all the (underwear ) wealth;

2. Leave IOUs and debt behind for the 99% to pay through my pawns the .gov;

3. Convince the 99% that the planet is dying and that they all have to reduce their standard of living to about 300 years ago;

4. Keep all the tech and innovation for myself as one of the 'shepherds' of the planet so that I and my descendants can live a great life supported by the 99% debt serfs and climate slaves.

 

But that's just total imagination, right?

Sat, 01/24/2015 - 01:52 | 5699131 Niall Of The Ni...
Niall Of The Nine Hostages's picture

You're thinking small. The real goal is to use said "tech and innovation" to make the continued existence of the 6.93 billion strong proletariat quite unnecessary. Drudge work is what robots are for. 

Also, it won't be 70 million people. Maybe 70,000.

Wed, 01/21/2015 - 09:10 | 5687500 Czar of Defenes...
Czar of Defenestration's picture

SCREW OXFAM. 

And their supporters.

Inbred, inveterate whiners.

It's easy to hate wealthy people.

Ignnorance and envy tend to motivate the stupid and lazy into justifying their sloth and evil deeds.

 

You can say some the wealthy didn't "earn" it.

SCREW THAT.

MANY DID.

How 'bout I come to YOUR place, take your stuff and just say, "you didn't earn this"?

(or...you didn't build that...sound familiar?)

After all, WHO ARE *YOU* TO JUDGE WHEN THERE'S SO MUCH POVERTY OUT THERE?!? 

(said with the sanctimony of the Left and the mercy of Robespierre)

 

Oxfam and their scummy ilk can wallow their bitterness and hate.

May they ravage themselves from within first.

Wed, 01/21/2015 - 03:50 | 5687254 XXL66
XXL66's picture

Don't hate them, getting to the 1% is easy, it works exponential, once you are in the 10% it goes damn fast. Only the start is very hard, because the little extra money in the beginning is mostly always invested in the wrong way, shiny cars, bigger house and other things you don't really need. That's why most fail to get there.

 

Wed, 01/21/2015 - 01:26 | 5687127 tumblemore
tumblemore's picture

1) Mass immigration driving down wages

2) Off-shoring

3) Money-lending aka debt-based consumption

All good for the banking mafia and their associates and bad for everyone else.

So yes, hate them. Their greed and betrayal is the problem.

Wed, 01/21/2015 - 01:03 | 5687083 orangegeek
orangegeek's picture

Sheryl Sandberg, big skipper over at facebook.

 

She needs a boob job to match that nose job.

Wed, 01/21/2015 - 00:53 | 5687063 GRDguy
GRDguy's picture

Another way of looking at this is that the Great Red Dragon (Serpent, Snakes In Suits, etc.) is half-way to their stated goal of "owning the earth in fee-simple."  Which is another way of saying "lawful title."  They created money from thin-air to buy financial instruments backed by title.  When those financial instruments fail, for whatever reason, manipulated or not, the holder gets lawful title.

The simplest version is not being able to pay off your mortgage. The bank created your loan out of thin-air money.  They hold your title until the mortgage is completely paid. If you default, they have the title. Even when paid in full, if you're unable to pay your property taxes, the government takes your title and sells it. A good example is Blackstone's ownership of a large number of homes in Phoenix. The "government" sold Blackstone title to these homes that were in default to Fannie or Freddie, and then Blackstone rents them out, probably to renters who lost their homes in the first place.  Blackstone has agents under different company names that do the actual renting, but Blackstone has the title. Just one example. 

So when you see the astronomical funds created by the Federal Reserve, consider the collateral (title) behind those financial instruments they bought. The land, the corporations, the public property, etc.  It cost them nothing to create the funds used to purchased these bonds, so what do they care of the dollar value, or even if the currency should become worthless.  All they care about is "lawful title."  And this old book was pubished in 1889.

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 23:15 | 5686791 zeropain
zeropain's picture

that means that 1% has 6.93 billion.human liabilities.  thats a lot of pich fork risk. 

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 23:04 | 5686749 flacorps
flacorps's picture

They do not retain that wealth if the consensus that their property rights must be respected suffers a breakdown.

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 23:30 | 5686867 me again
me again's picture

It won't. You're dreaming. Property Rights will be respected just fine at the main Gold Depository in Switzerland; virtually none of thiese people don't have their own personal Tonne; minimum.

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 22:12 | 5686523 Creepy A. Cracker
Creepy A. Cracker's picture

But is she good in bed?

Wed, 01/21/2015 - 11:17 | 5687814 zeropain
zeropain's picture

They don't have to be good.  You do. Ownership of responsibility leads to success, especially in sex or get a pro.

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 22:57 | 5686702 me again
me again's picture

The 1%/99% split is characteristic of homo sapiens on this planet for all of Civilized History. The exceptions were the English Citizens in the late 18th. Cent. -end 19th. Century; and the late 19th. Century-early 20th. Century; USA / Canada. These exceptions were the result of new technology; replacing muscle power with hydrocarbon and hydro-electric power, and a social organization featuring small government and free market capitalism. For awhile, the workers actually got a percentage of the profits of the capital enterprise. Various factors worked against this very undesirable situation, from the point of view of the Capitalists. Such as increased population / chronic slack in the supply of workers. The Government helped fuck everyone by many, many, initiatives that had the effect, understood, or un-expected, of making it difficult to start new enterprises. And, finally we have the purchase of the US Govt. by the mega-capitalists; and the initiation of "free trade" or globalism; which is just suicide from the point of view of the working class, and nirvana from the point of view of the Super Capitalist. They are going to kill the goose that laid the golden eggs; but they don't seem to care; serfdom and dictatorship and absolute control over every human have always seemed desirable to the Oligarchs. It doesn't matter to them if the National Product is 1/4 of what it was, and 3/4 of the citizens die; they've already got their Gold.

Wed, 01/21/2015 - 11:08 | 5687912 zeropain
zeropain's picture

Gold makes poor armor.  Gold did not save chineese wealthy during the revolution nor the French revolution.  If you  put too much faith into some thing you will get burned.  In this case literally.  

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 23:47 | 5686924 Squid-puppets a...
Squid-puppets a-go-go's picture

yerp. middle classes are an anomaly

one, perhaps ironically, made possible only by fractional reserve banking. (in combo with industrialisation, to be less reductionist)

Wed, 01/21/2015 - 11:13 | 5687958 zeropain
zeropain's picture

You consider Hunan species large brain to be an anomaly in nature.  In nature how does the distribution of resources work out statistical?  That is the long run.

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 19:30 | 5685899 cynicalskeptic
cynicalskeptic's picture

For 99.9% of the world 'wealth' is created through LABOR.  The top 0.1% are making money off their money - which they get to create out of thin air, using that power to manipulate markets and prices and make MORE money.

 

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 18:02 | 5685597 Duck077
Duck077's picture

It's Bush's fault! Just joking, I don't buy into blaming the top 1% for the ills of the world, which seems all too common on this site.  Most to blame is the location of their birth, their politians, economic system, etc....   How about all the rich liberals/democrats pool all their wealth into one fund and then distribute it to all the worlds poor.  Would that help?

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 17:57 | 5685579 Duck077
Duck077's picture

It's Bush's fault!

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 17:41 | 5685524 Der Wille Zur Macht
Der Wille Zur Macht's picture

Are you assuming that the top 70,000,000 people are uniformly wealthy to arrive at the value of 6.93 billion? That is nonsensical. Wealth is a right-skewed distribution where a disporportionate amount of dough is owned by far end of the spectrum. The 1% of the 1% if you will.

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 19:29 | 5685880 cynicalskeptic
cynicalskeptic's picture

Those at the 1% 'boundary' are FAR closer to the absolute BOTTOM than they are to even the top 1/2%

It's an EXPONENTIAL CURVE with the top 0.01% holding 90% of that 'Top 1%'

 

The 7 Walmart heirs are worth more than 40% of the rest of the US COMBINED.......

SEVEN PEOPLE WHO INHERITED IT ALL  - Those seven make $8 MILLION a DAY from thier Walmart stock while HOW MANY Walmart employees are collecting FOOD STAMPS

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 22:21 | 5686557 RaceToTheBottom
RaceToTheBottom's picture

But I am sure the Walmart genertic lottery winners got it because of merit....

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 16:40 | 5685288 NoPension
NoPension's picture

Who's the chick?
And why would I hate her?

Don't be too snarky now.

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 16:55 | 5685361 Tim Knight from...
Tim Knight from Slope of Hope's picture

Sheryl Sandberg, billionaire CEO of Facebook and good buddy of Larry "I need to lose some weight" Summers.

Wed, 01/21/2015 - 10:26 | 5687728 Silky Johnson
Silky Johnson's picture

Sandberg, is that Irish?

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 16:28 | 5685227 lasvegaspersona
lasvegaspersona's picture

Most of this is paper shuffling. When the dolar collapses all the fantasy welath represented by paper will just go poof.

I'm sure the rich (most of them) will still be fine but the trillions they think they have will be reduced to just the real things of the earth.

That is really all it ever was...it was just over priced for a few decades. Yes it functioned and the rich really do have the ability now to transfer into real things still but pigs get slaughtered. I suspect most will go into the dollar collapse and come out diminished but not ruined.

Wed, 01/21/2015 - 04:20 | 5687274 El Vaquero
El Vaquero's picture

There are some major landowners in my state who don't live int the state.  When the dollar collapses, does anybody think that we, who live here, will give a shit about their paper claim to the land?

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 16:32 | 5685244 Winston Churchill
Winston Churchill's picture

Exactly.

A whole lot of phantom wealth is about to go 'poof'.It was stolen from the future,

and the future wants it back.

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 23:05 | 5686745 me again
me again's picture

According to the World Gold Council 60,000 Tonnes of Gold is in private hands; and only 32,000 in Central Banks. At 39.25 Million a Tonne; virually none of these people will not have a Tonne; miniumum. Onlyl the stupidest will get caught holding .gov promises. Basically, they will be even richer and more powerful than they are now; although that is not emotionally satisfying to you; of course.

Wed, 01/21/2015 - 10:52 | 5687831 zeropain
zeropain's picture

Pitch fork trumps gold when gold is the only money left.

Wed, 01/21/2015 - 10:59 | 5687891 gonetogalt
gonetogalt's picture

When the peasants would charge the knights with pitchforks, they could be formidible. I'm waiting to see the great American masses charge machine guns and worse with X-box controllers....

Wed, 01/21/2015 - 04:49 | 5687286 Global Observer
Global Observer's picture

Basically, they will be even richer and more powerful than they are now

Thanks, in no small part, to all those Zerohedgers betting on gold. 

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 18:56 | 5685790 kaiserhoff
kaiserhoff's picture

Just so, Winston, blank checks drawn on the future, and nothing more.

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 18:01 | 5685604 artless
artless's picture

I will get a giggle when Facefuck goes "poof" and into the trashbin of History leaving The over rated due to the type of genatalia she has Ms, Sandberg alongside the Groupon fool and all the other snake oil salemen who run "companies" that produce nothing.

This inscescent idololtry of these celbutard CEOs as such brilliant masters of the universe is getting a tad boring. Any half with can do what the Sheryls, Tim Cooks, et al have done with their monstrosities. THE CREATIVE PART was handed to them on a silver patter-hard work already done.

She is really no different than a Kardashian.

Oh and don't forget the PR job being laid on about the GM lady. It's ALL for show.

Wed, 01/21/2015 - 00:30 | 5687018 Chipped ham
Chipped ham's picture

I couldn't stomach watching the good cop bad cop stuff tonight. Both O and Joanie talked to us like we are idiots. Singing to us like a brand new waitress serving her first meal. Some folks were patronized tonight.

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 18:55 | 5685782 kaiserhoff
kaiserhoff's picture

Well said.  So many of these "brilliant"  innovations are just hype and arm waving middle men, in areas with no barriers to entry.  How long can that last?

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 20:04 | 5686025 mickeyman
mickeyman's picture

So the top 1% will average 100 x richer than the average peon of the world. Do you know how poor the average peon is?

I've done my part--my net worth has declined by about half a million--mostly when my boat sank

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 16:46 | 5685307 NoPension
NoPension's picture

That's a great line, Winston.

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 20:34 | 5686134 new game
new game's picture

winston-exactly what i was gonna post-they zirped it fwd-now what? huh, duh, deflation a coming...

Wed, 01/21/2015 - 00:22 | 5687001 TeethVillage88s
TeethVillage88s's picture

Hold on help is on the way. Sarc/

- 1,700 Private Jets Fly to Davos to Discuss 'Global Warming'...

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 16:17 | 5685188 Memedada
Memedada's picture

Revolution!

Tue, 01/20/2015 - 23:07 | 5686757 me again
me again's picture

Very amusing.

Wed, 01/21/2015 - 11:24 | 5688008 zeropain
zeropain's picture

Revolution Amusing? I think not.  Natural and painful seems more fitting.l

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