Richest tenth own 85% of world's assets

From the London Times courtesy of AlterNet:

The richest 2 per cent of adults own more than half the world’s wealth, according to the most comprehensive study of personal assets.

And

Although global income was distributed unequally, the spread of wealth was more skewed, according to the study by the World Institute for Development Economics Research of the UN University.

“Wealth is heavily concentrated in North America, Europe and high-income AsiaPacific countries. People in these countries collectively hold almost 90 per cent of total world wealth,” the report said.

And

In terms of wealth distribution the US was among the most unequal, whereas Japan had one of the lowest levels of inequality. Britain ranked with Russia, Indonesia and Pakistan in wealth inequality.

James Davies, Professor of Economics at the University of Western Ontario, and one of the authors of the report, said: “Income inequality has been rising for the past 20 to 25 years and we think that is true for inequality in the distribution of wealth.

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Contrary to the conventional wisdom, this isn't about jealousy, or the "right people" using wealth in the "right way" in order to expand the economy, or any of the other classic conservative justifications for economic inequality: it's about the ability for an individual to control his own destiny; it's about democracy. That is, there are two kinds of power, political and economic, and, when you get right down to it, there's very little difference between the two because wealth is easily translated into governmental influence. That so few people have so much money stands in utter contradiction to the democratic principles we so greatly value. Freedom and self-government are simply impossible when private power is so intensely concentrated. This situation is intolerable.

Not to mention the fact that so many people worldwide live in squalor while their "betters" live it up in the lap of luxury. That's intolerable, too, but really, I shouldn't even have to point it out. Like my post a couple of days back observes, our economy is sinful.

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