Tax reform will do nothing when the rich are in a different country than the poor, unless you are proposing some international income redistribution scheme.
Would more money help people in areas where there is nothing to buy? Serious question - are we looking exclusively at “wealth” rather than quality of life, and would giving that “wealth” to the poor improve their situation? How many of the wealthiest 85 people in the world actually have cash or tangible assets which would help the poor half of the world?
I recall seeing this discussed on another forum. It was pointed out that this highlights an important flaw in the old slogan of “eat the rich”; once you divide up 85 people into 3.5 billion parts, there’s not much nutrition left.
But they are in the same country with “the poor”; they don’t all live in Plutocratica, they live in nations that have a great many poor people.
Yes, because if there’s money available people will show up with things to sell. The economy is driven by *consumption.
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A capitalist and a socialist were walking down the road when they spotted a beautiful mansion in the distance. You could see that the mansion had multiple pools on the grounds, and the driveway had several spectacular cars parked in it.
The capitalist immediately thought “Everybody should live like this”.
The socialist immediately thought “Nobody should live like this”.
It will be interesting to see whether this exchange will become “how do we improve the lives of those 3.5 billion poor people” or “how do we take away the money of those 85 rich people”.
I’d like to see a cite for that. For instance, how many Americans fall in the category of the 3.5B poorest individuals on earth? If I had to guess, I’d say ZERO. Ditto for Western Europe, Japan, Australia, NZ…
But it wouldn’t surprise me too much if a few ultra-wealthy people live in desperately poor countries, and I suspect a few of them will be Chinese and Indians.
So, it might be true that some are in the same countries with the poor, but the distribution is going to be skewed.
Do you find the trend that there are a lot less abjectly poor people today as a percentage of the overall world population than at any time in the past as well?
Is it tougher on them than it was, say, 100 years ago? How about 1000? What about 10,000?
Well, you could take all of the rich peoples money away from them and give it to the poor…and then we could all go back to the good old days when this disturbing trend hadn’t happened yet.
How would you push for major tax reform across the globe? Are you going to impose a one world government on everyone and THEN push for tax reform?
I see that my husband and I, solid middle class by US standards, are in the top .10% for income in the world (after taxes), and about the 6.5 millionth in the world. Woot! I feel better.
I just used that site, and found that if you live in the USA and are working for minimum wage (currently $7.25/hr) then you’re in the top 8.7% in the world for income. To my fellow USA residents: don’t expect any of that worldwide redistributed wealth anytime soon.
To get to the bottom half worldwide, you’d have to be living on an income of $1,300/year in the USA.
Are we talking truly about people having the wealth as their own disposable income, or do they own some company or have it invested in some real enterprise?
A company’s wealth is tied up in its business. Such wealth is different then having money invested that you can spend any time you like to buy Picasso paintings as fuel for your private jet plane.
That’s a really good point. All this pointing at the top .000001 percent should not make us forget that the rest of the world points to us as the top 5 percent of the world. All Dopers are filthy rich.
Yes, you too, (not Antinor especially, anyone reading this).
Generally these days, though, the capitalist immediately thinks “I should live like this; if I can’ bribe someone to lower my taxes and lay off a few of my minimum wage workers, I’ll be able to afford it for a summer home.”
We’re talking about people, not companies. Bill Gates could, in fact, sell off all of his Microsoft stock to buy Picassos and similar luxuries. The offices in Richmond would still be full of servers and computers and employees churning out the next version of Windows, but that makes no difference at all to Bill Gates personally.
I would like to believe that all these rich folk are currently giving a fair percentage of their wealth to causes to make the world a better place. I have no data on which to base this. But, I feel good believing it.
I agree with you. And there are numbers to back it up. The 116 members of the Giving Pledge are billionaires who have pledged to donate half of their wealth to charitable causes.
No cite, but I believe Gates has given away billions and plans on giving away more. IIRC, his own kids are only set to inherit a modest sum (a couple million, again IIRC) with the bulk of the money being donated or used for other such purposes.
What’s obscene about it? But for the 85, the 3.5 billion would have no jobs, would they?
As for the hopeless jobless, where there’s a will there’s a way.
What a pity he makes a role model for anyone but his peers (i.e. the most wealthy).