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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsWho has all the money?
The numbers are mind-boggling: $70,000 per minute, $4 million per hour, $100 million per day.
Thats how quickly the fortune of the Waltons, the clan behind Walmart Inc., has been growing since last years Bloomberg ranking of the worlds richest families.
At that rate, their wealth wouldve expanded about $23,000 since you began reading this. A new Walmart associate in the U.S. wouldve made about 6 cents in that time, on the way to an $11 hourly minimum.
Even in this era of extreme wealth and brutal inequality, the contrast is jarring. The heirs of Sam Walton, Walmarts notoriously frugal founder, are amassing wealth on a near-unprecedented scale and theyre hardly alone.
The Walton fortune has swelled by $39 billion, to $191 billion, since topping the June 2018 ranking of the worlds richest families.
Other American dynasties are close behind in terms of the assets theyve accrued. The Mars family, of candy fame, added $37 billion, bringing its fortune to $127 billion. The Kochs, the industrialists-cum-political-power-players, tacked on $26 billion, to $125 billion.
So it goes around the globe. Americas richest 0.1% today control more wealth than at any time since 1929, but their counterparts in Asia and Europe are gaining too. Worldwide, the 25 richest families now control almost $1.4 trillion in wealth, up 24% from last year.
To some critics, such figures are evidence that capitalism needs fixing. Inequality has become an explosive political issue, from Paris to Seattle to Hong Kong. But how to shrink the growing gap between the rich and the poor?
If we dont do something like this, what are we doing, just hoarding this wealth in a country thats falling apart at the seams? Liesel Pritzker Simmons, whose family ranks 17th on the Bloomberg list, said in June. Thats not the America we want to live in.
https://www.bloomberg.com/features/richest-families-in-the-world/?utm_source=pocket-newtab
TEB
(12,862 posts)That they pay their fair share of taxes
Ohiogal
(32,010 posts)Great quote, eh?
Isn't the US government subsidizing Walmart by providing food stamps and Medicaid for Walmart workers, too? And gosh darn Walmart isn't the only corporation receiving it. Infuriating!
Me.
(35,454 posts)In a lifetime they couldn't spend even a fraction of that
Calculating
(2,955 posts)They're basically competing with the other billionaires of the world to see who can get a 'higher score' like it's a video game.
virgogal
(10,178 posts)Calculating
(2,955 posts)Maybe we need to do it again today. Such a level of intense greed is just plain wrong on too many levels to count. They make more in a year than a person could spend in 10 lifetimes (hell, they make more in a DAY than someone could spend in 10 lives), while their workers barely scrape by. Seems evil to me.
in2herbs
(2,945 posts)influence and power and he has the communications knowledge to exercise it. His wife is more down to earth (but a Repug) and she told me he's so cheap he turns his underwear inside out to wear twice before laundering. It's sad to watch how someone so smart in one area is so ignorant in all other areas, for instance his health and excessive drinking.