With '1 Percenter' Wealth Set To Surge, '99 Percenters' Should Rejoice

[JonLP24]

t’s hardly news at this point, but a new report from British anti-poverty charity Oxfam predicts that the world’s richest 1 percent will soon enough amass wealth that will be greater than half of the world’s total. If so, those not among the 1 percent (including this writer) should all be giddy with excitement.

Simply put, when the wealth gap widens, the lifestyle gap shrinks.

What’s unfortunate about the report is that rather than celebrating the rewarding of enterprise on the way to global plenty, Oxfam Executive Director Winnie Byanyima seeks “urgent action” to reduce the inequality. Adding her voice to a chorus of economists offering evidence-free assertions about inequality being the cause of poverty, Byanyima has said that “Failure to tackle inequality will set the fight against poverty back decades.” She adds that “The poor are hurt twice by rising inequality – they get a smaller share of the economic pie, and because extreme inequality hurts growth, there is less pie to be shared around.”

Readers can relax. What Oxfam presumes about inequality is belied by simple history. What we’ve actually seen is that inequality and the economic growth that lifts all boats go hand in hand. Of course they do.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/johntamny/2015/01/25/with-1-percenter-wealth-set-to-surge-we-99-percenters-should-all-rejoice/'

I stumbled on this trying to find some recent income gap data, I couldn't help but laugh at this as the headline seemed like it was stolen from The Onion. Especially the "evidence-free" assertions. The Forbes editorial page is something else, I love when they're fondling the oil industry & their impassioned defense of the tax breaks they receive and WTF is the "lifestyle gap"? Monopoly has been achieved thanks to years of union busting, free trade (though this was more conducive to the wealth gap increase than monopoly) tax breaks, and slashing safety nets. I'm looking forward to this upcoming bump in lifestyle gap

I wonder if he drinks from his own kool-aid. The paragraphs posted "giddy with excitement" looks like satire, I can't help but laugh as I would reading an Onion article.

[IronLionZion]

1. Don't worry, they'll trickle down all over us

[AngryDem001]

2. There's only one thing that trickles down,

and it ain't water.

[Enthusiast]

3. Advocates of the extreme wealth gap should watch Dr. Zhivago.

You know, where the people, the state, confiscates all private property.

This isn't the kind of equality I would advocate. But it could be the logical conclusion if we continue down the path of extreme wealth inequality. Those that don't learn from history are doomed to repeat it.

[JHB]

4. Why do these people think a tide rises from the top down?

Oh, right, because that view makes avarice into a virtue.

[deutsey]

5. From "The Grapes of Wrath"

If you who own the things people must have could understand this, you might preserve yourself. If you could separate causes from results, if you could know that Paine, Marx, Jefferson, Lenin, were results, not causes, you might survive. But that you cannot know. For the quality of owning freezes you forever into "I," and cuts you off forever from the "we."

[JEB]

6. There it is. Stated simply and yet they still don't get it.

[AllyCat]

7. Because that is what has happened in all those poor

Nations all over the globe. See? They are getting richer by the century.