Rich getting richer, poor becoming poorer

All the economic reviews by the major financial and economic institutions in the world and the Caribbean tell us the same story – economic recovery from the global financial crisis of 2008/9 is slow and painful.{{more}} Very few countries are able to look forward to significant economic growth and development. Countries, developed and underdeveloped, big and small, heavily or scantily populated, are all affected.

But behind the grim macro-economic predictions, there is a stark reality which equally needs to be known – the dominant economic system is such that inequality is growing at an alarming rate and the gap between the world’s super-rich and the dirt-poor is ever widening. In other words, in almost every country on the planet, THE RICH ARE GROWING RICHER AND THE POOR BECOMING POORER.

The World Economic Forum, an annual get-together of the rich and powerful, held in the exclusive Swiss resort of Davos, last month put out a report highlighting this burgeoning inequality. The noted British development agency OXFAM shed further light on this, having conducted a global survey on the state of inequality around the world. It makes shocking news.

According to Oxfam, a mere 85 people, (the crème de la crème, the richest of the rich) own as much wealth as the poorest 3.5 billion, that is the combined wealth of 3,500,000,000 of us all, or as much as half of all the people on this planet collectively own. These 85 super-rich persons represent a miniscule 0.00000001 per cent of the world’s population.

In addition, the top one per cent in the world control US $110 billion, almost half of the world’s wealth and 65 times the wealth of the bottom half (economically) of the global population. Country bycountry, the statistics reveal the same picture, and, not only is there gross inequality, but the income gap is widening. In the USA for instance, the wealthiest 1 per cent captured 95 per cent of all the economic growth since the financial crisis of 2008/9, while the bottom 90 per cent became poorer, losing jobs, homes, pensions etc. In neighbouring Mexico, the billionaire Carlos Slim, one of the richest men in the world, could pay the yearly wages of 440,000 Mexicans with income derived from his wealth.

To crown it off, this wealth is translated into ever greater influence on political and economic policy. Oxfam says, “when wealth captures government policymaking, the rules bend to favour the rich, often to the detriment of everyone else”.

This is the real world in which we live and the revelations are but another SIGN OF THE TIMES…….