Meet The 80 People Who Are As Rich As Half The World
Jan 18 By Mona Chalabi
Eighty people hold the same amount of wealth as the worlds 3.6 billion poorest people, according to an analysis just released from Oxfam. The report from the global anti-poverty organization finds that since 2009, the wealth of those 80 richest has doubled in nominal terms while the wealth of the poorest 50 percent of the worlds population has fallen.
To see how much wealth the richest 1 percent and the poorest 50 percent hold, Oxfam used research from Credit Suisse, a Swiss financial services company, and Forbess annual billionaires list. Oxfam then looked at how many of the worlds richest people would need to pool their resources to have as much wealth as the poorest 50 percent and as of March 2014, it was just 80 people.
Four years earlier, 388 billionaires together held as much wealth as the poorest 50 percent of the world.
Thirty-five of the 80 richest people in the world are U.S. citizens, with combined wealth of $941 billion in 2014. Together in second place are Germany and Russia, with seven mega-rich individuals apiece. The entire list is dominated by one gender, though 70 of the 80 richest people are men. And 68 of the people on the list are 50 or older.
http://fivethirtyeight.com/datalab/meet-the-80-people-who-are-as-rich-as-half-the-world/
CurtEastPoint
(18,644 posts)Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)polly7
(20,582 posts)Rev Velveteen Sly · Follow · Top Commenter · Madison, Wisconsin
"As a white person, I find it very offensive that photos of Koch Bros and Bill Gates aren't featured. Come on Mona, I know you liked the caption but surely you're aware of how easy it is to find photos of those people and how the one you used is going to pique people's prejudice. Can you possibly re-post this with additional/different photos? That would be really wonderful."
Bethe Change · Wellington, New Zealand
"Any chance of changing the photo? As others have noted, it's racist, unrepresentative, misleading and Islamophobic. How about a photo of Mr Number One - representative of the skewed position of the US, of men, of white people when it comes to greed?"
Jefferson23
(30,099 posts)slanting Arabs and or Muslims...I don't know.
polly7
(20,582 posts)Last edited Wed Jan 21, 2015, 08:21 PM - Edit history (1)
I'm glad the commenters picked up on it, if I hadn't read your link to the actual list I'd have believed myself that the majority were from the ME while really, there are only two on it, and no higher than 30th place. I'd say a deliberate attempt to mislead.