LA Times
October 20, 2013
The richest 1% own nearly half of all global wealth.
Let’s get our heads around that. Only a tiny fraction of the roughly 7 billion people in the world accounts for 46% of the estimated $241 trillion in money, property and other material resources available.
The richest 10%, meanwhile, can claim 86% of global wealth, leaving 90% of the world’s population to divvy up whatever’s left.
These extraordinary figures were included in a report this week from Credit Suisse Research Institute. It found that the gravy train is chugging along, but with relatively few passengers.
Former Labor Secretary Robert Reich has been sounding the alarm over wealth inequality for years. He’s at the center of a recent documentary, “Inequality for All,” which explains the problem in frightening detail.
“When so much of the purchasing power, so much of the economic gain, goes to the very top,” Reich told me, “there’s simply not enough purchasing power in the rest of the economy.”
That has profound implications. In the United States, consumer spending accounts for about 70% of all economic activity. If most consumers are getting by with less, the inevitable outcome is that they’ll have fewer dollars to pump into the economy.
Reich noted that wealth inequality was greatest in this country in 1928 and 2007. In both years, the top 1% represented about a quarter of total income.