"This paper has provided a first estimate of the world distribution of household wealth. It
is evident that the distribution is highly concentrated—in fact much more concentrated than the world distribution of income, or the distribution of wealth within all but a few of the world’s countries. While the share of the top 10 percent of wealth-holders within a country is typically about 50 per cent, and the median Gini value around 0.7, our
figures for the year 2000 using official exchange rates suggest that for the world as a whole the share of the top 10 per cent was 85 per cent and the Gini equalled 0.892." Discussion Paper No. 2008/03, The World Distribution of Household Wealth
World wealth shares
Top 10% owns 85.2% of the worlds wealth
Top 5% owns 70.7% of the worlds wealth
Top 1% owns 40.1 of the worlds wealth
Bottom 1% owns 0%
Bottom 2% owns 0.1%
Bottom 3% owns 0.2%
Bottom 4% owns 0.3%
Bottom 5% owns 0.5
Carlson Slim - "Based on the 2015 Forbes billionaire data, with a net worth of $77.1 billion (equal to 6.1% of Mexico’s GDP), Mexican telecom mogul Carlos Slim Helú kept his #2 position in the world’s billionaires rankings for the second consecutive year. In 2014, Slim lost the richest-person-on-the-planet title to Microsoft founder Bill Gates who, according to Forbes, has held the title for 16 of the past 21 years." Forbes, Mar 3, 2015,With Carlos Slim Leading The Way, Mexico's Billionaires Have A Better Year
"Under its sway we shall have an ideal state, in which the surplus wealth of the few will become, in the best sense the property of the many, because administered for the common good, and this wealth, passing through the hands of the few, can be made a much more potent force for the elevation of our race than if it had been distributed in small sums to the people themselves. Even the poorest can be made to see this, and to agree that great sums gathered by some of their fellow-citizens and spent for public purposes, from which the masses reap the principal benefit, are more valuable to them than if scattered among them through the course of many years in trifling amounts through the course of many years" , Andrew Carnegie’s essay “The Gospel of Wealth"
"The real truth of the matter is, as you and I know, that a financial element in the large centers has owned the government ever since the days of Andrew Jackson" Franklin D. Roosevelt November 21st 1933 to Edward Mandela House, FDRs Personal Letters 1928-45, Page 373
"I spent thirty- three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle- man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism… I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912 (where have I heard that name before?). I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested" Smedley Butler on Interventionism
"There has to be a big reshuffling of the deck in terms of global governance,” he told me. “I mean, you cannot have a UN Security Council that represents the victors of the 1945 war. As a result, one thing I would say, by 2045 they will no longer be there in those roles, because between now and 2045 the world is going to change profoundly … it has already changed profoundly … And it is simple: If the changes are not going to happen, they will lose their legitimacy. The core question is who are they speaking on behalf of?… By the year 2050, three of the four largest economies in the world will be Asian: (1) China, (2) United States, (3) India, (4) Japan. How can you exclude them from appropriate ownership or leadership of the IMF or World Bank? How can you exclude some of the biggest countries in the world from meaningful roles in the UN Security Council or coordinating mechanisms like the G7?” Kishore Mahbubani, former Singaporean ambassador Kishore Mahbubani, interview with the author, November 2006.
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