The chasm between the Have Yachts and the Have Nots has
widened even more in the last 365 days. The richest one percent of the world
has more money that the remaining 7 billion combined, says Credit Suisse Global
Wealth Datebook. Crunching even more
numbers, a mere 62 people own as much wealth as the poorest 3.6 billion on the
planet, down from 388 just five years ago and 80 last year, according to a new
report by Oxfam.
The eye popping figures set out in The Economy for the One Percent released
by Oxfam illustrate how far reaching the numbers truly are. While the wealth of
the poorest half of the world fell by a trillion dollars since 2010, the sixty
two richest saw their wealth increase by 542 billion dollars during the same
time period.
What’s even more glaring is that offshore tax havens
shelter 7.6 trillion dollars, meaning governments are not able to generate
desperately needed tax revenues to pay for or enhance social programs for their
society, in particular, poverty-related issues.
This year, just five Canadians have the same wealth as
the bottom thirty per cent of Canadians – more than eleven million people. Canada's
top five billionaires own 55 billion, while the bottom thirty per cent owns 54.97
billion, says Oxfam.
Is there not a more efficient means to which the wealthy
elite can still horde their vast reserves, while allowing the rest of the world
to work, to eat, to sleep in shelter? When a transit busload, literally, of
(mostly) men control so much wealth in the world, the disparity should be
discomforting to all, including those who control the purse strings.
This is why civil disobedience takes root, why violent
clashes erupt, and why governments are toppled. It is why the Occupy movement
exists, why private militias form, and why there are so many guns in the hands
of ordinary people. This is why the corner grocery store is robbed, why
addictive vices surge, and why we possess a worsening, perhaps even apocalyptic,
disposition.
This is a recipe for revolution.
