By Cliff Montgomery – Jan. 28th, 2017
A billionaire now sits in the White House.
Another billionaire – Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg – recently employed new algorithms on the social media site to lessen the spread of what’s been called ‘fake news’ … which sounds suspiciously like the potential suppression of any news item that contradicts the political and social biases of Mr. Zuckerberg.
Now a recent report from Oxfam, a leading international anti-poverty group, reminds us that these would-be ‘benevolent billionaires’ often work only to enrich themselves at our expense.
The Oxfam study shows that “since 2015, the richest 1% has owned more wealth than the rest of the planet,” and that a mere “eight men now own the same amount of wealth as the poorest half of the world.”
The study also deftly points out that recent research by well-known French economist Thomas Piketty has shown “that over the last 30 years the growth in the incomes of the bottom 50% has been zero,” even as “incomes of the top 1% have grown 300%.”
“Far from trickling down, income and wealth are being sucked upwards at an alarming rate,” Oxfam points out.
“Our economy must stop excessively rewarding those at the top and start working for all people,” continues the study, for “the very design of our economies … [has] taken us to this extreme, unsustainable and unjust point.”
The Oxfam report thus reveals the inherent dangers of letting billionaires set political policies or decide what you shall read, see or hear.
“Left unchecked, growing inequality threatens to pull our societies apart” as it “increases crime and insecurity, … undermines the fight to end poverty” and “leaves more people living in fear and fewer in hope,” declares the study.
“From Brexit to the success of Donald Trump’s presidential campaign, a worrying rise in racism and the widespread disillusionment with mainstream politics,” continues Oxfam, “there are increasing signs that more and more people in rich countries are no longer willing to tolerate the status quo.”
But “why would they,” asks the study, “when experience suggests that what it delivers is wage stagnation, insecure jobs and a widening gap between the haves and the have-nots?”
“The challenge is to build a positive alternative – not one that increases divisions,” declares the report.
