Global Wealth - World Economic Forum Wealth: Having It All and Wanting More Deborah Hardoon, Senior Researcher, Oxfam GB, 19 January 2015 http://www.oxfam.org/en/research/wealth-having-it-all-and-wanting-more
Global wealth is increasingly concentrated in the hands of a small wealthy elite. These wealthy individuals have generated and sustained their vast riches through their interests and activities in a few important economic sectors, including finance and insurance and pharmaceuticals and healthcare. Companies from these sectors spend millions of dollars every year on lobbying to create a policy environment that protects and enhances their interests further. The most prolific lobbying activities in the US are on budget and tax issues; public resources that should be directed to benefit the whole population, rather than reflect the interests of powerful lobbyists. This briefing explains Oxfam’s methodology and data sources and updates key inequality statistics, such as Oxfam’s frequently cited fact in 2014: ‘85 billionaires have the same wealth as the bottom half of the world’s population.’ Paper: http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/file_attachments/ib-wealth-having-all-wanting-more-190115-en.pdf Data and calculations: http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/file_attachments/ib-data-wealth-having-all-wanting-more-190115-en.xlsx Oxfam and World Economic Forum 2015: http://www.oxfam.org/en/tags/world-economic-forum Inequality and climate change: twin challenges of 2015 By Winnie Byanyima, Jan 19 2015 https://agenda.weforum.org/2015/01/inequality-and-climate-change-twin-challenges-of-2015/ https://agenda.weforum.org/ This year, global leadership will be tested like never before. Significant progress has been made in the past decade. Global poverty rates are falling. Child and maternal mortality rates are down, many more children are in school, and the total number of people going hungry in the world is falling – albeit far too slowly. Yet extreme economic inequality is out of control and getting worse. From Ghana to Germany, South Africa to Spain, the gap between rich and poor is rapidly increasing. At the World Economic Forum last year, Oxfam released a statistic that made headlines: 85 rich individuals held more wealth than the poorest half of the world’s population – 3.5 billion people. Now, a year later, that figure has become more extreme – 80 billionaires have the same amount of wealth as the bottom half of the planet. Across rich and poor countries alike, this inequality is fuelling conflict, corroding democracies and damaging growth itself. Not long ago those who worried about inequality were accused of partaking in the politics of envy. In the past year this concern officially became mainstream as voices from the Pope to Christine Lagarde to President Obama cautioned of its impacts. The mounting consensus: left unchecked, economic inequality will set back the fight against poverty and threaten global stability. At the same time, the impacts of climate change are exacerbating this growing divide. As temperatures rise, extreme weather events are becoming more frequent and severe, crops and livelihoods are being devastated, and the efforts of people on low incomes to feed their families are being undone. Those who are least to blame are suffering the most. Rising inequality and climate change: these are the defining challenges for 2015. This is the year when we will have to set a course for action for a sustainable and just world. [...] _______________________________________________ pen-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.csuchico.edu/mailman/listinfo/pen-l
