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EIGHT MEN OWN the same amount of wealth as the combined wealth of the poorest half of the planet.
Ahead of the World Economic Forum in Davos this week, research from Oxfam has put the vast global income inequality into focus.
The charity also found that, since 2015, the richest 1% has owned more wealth than the rest of the planet.
It’s also been estimated that over the next 20 years, 500 people will hand over $2.1 trillion to their heirs – a sum larger than the GDP of India.
Other stark comparisons show that a FTSE-100 CEO earns as much in a year as 10,000 people working in garment factories in Bangladesh.
Oxfam says that such inequalities “threaten to pull our societies apart” with Oxfam Ireland’s CEO Jim Clarken saying that political consequences are already being felt.
“Public anger is already creating political shockwaves across the globe with inequality cited as a significant factor in the election of Donald Trump in the US and Brexit in the UK,” he argues.
People are tired of a system which seems rigged against them, where big business and the super-rich use their money and connections to ensure government policy works for them.
Corporate tax avoidance
Oxfam has also sought to address the causes of inequality and has said that tax avoidance by major corporations is having a major effect on developing economies.
The report points to the case of Apple which it says paid a tax rate on its European profits of just 0.005% in 2014.
On a national basis, Oxfam pointed to the case of Kenya. The report claims that Kenya, for example, is losing $1.1 billion every year in tax exemptions for corporations, nearly twice its budget for health.
Oxfam Ireland says politicians here must continue to do their part.
“The Irish government has made efforts to reform the tax system especially in relation to tax dodging by wealthy individuals. We need to tackle aggressive tax planning by corporations,” Clarken argues.
“Ireland needs to continue supporting international tax transparency and should back a proposal to create a global tax body to oversee necessary reform.”
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So what. Saudi Arabia is supporting Hillary, and donating money to her. I’d take Russia over an Islamic fundamentalist state any day, and it amazes me that liberals simply don’t care
@Homer’s imp son: I care but its stupid that it has to come down to these two eejits. There are other candidates out there better than Trump or Clinton, maybe not the best but better than these two, all people have to do is vote for them if they weren’t such sheep.
After America rejected the only half sane candidate Bernie Sanders, and his followers were mocked, I think it’s perfectly clear that the American people are beyond redemption
Makes sense, Hillary and her backers will go to war with Russia if she gets elected. Trump wants to improve relations. Its a no brainer ffs!
@Chris: Hillary works for the military complex financial squad anyway, make Russia the enemy and then sell more weapons to NATO countries?
Whether you like it or not America is s Republic, and as such the people have chosen the candidates. There are five names on the ballot, that’s four more than in Russia
I think Putin knows the Military Industrial Complex are backing Clinton and they are gunning for Russia.
There’s a reason the neo-con warhawks are backing her.
Well she did say Putin was the new Hitler in an interview last year….Neocons are wetting their pants at the thought of her in charge although saying that Trump is a complete clown so the options are both FUBAR.
They (Neo Zio/ Cons) hate Christian Russia and the fact that Putin outsmarted them in Ukraine and Syria.
@alan
@Alan Tright: Yes to create the same situations that caused WW1…
Alois, Are you saying that the Americans are going to assassinate the Archduke?
The whole situation is absurd, it’s like a school yard game of ‘whose side are you on?’.
Well if anyone knows what is best for America it’s Vladimir Putin. I’m sure he has the Americans best interests at heart.
Putin is a man of few words and many deeds. Trump is a man with a big mouth and nothing else.
That’s not true… Trump also has small hands.. and we all know what that means… small gloves…
At the end of the day the planet is safer with a trump and putin then a hitlery at the helm.. the neo cons are just waiting to get going’ as one of them said ‘on nukes’ “what’s the point of having them if you can’t use them”.. and with theresa may saying nukes are not off the table and would us em’ hitlery and may together would be an absolute disaster… interesting times ahead
Clinton didn’t have any issues with potentially closer relations with Russia when she was leading the ill-fated Russian Reset: “On 6 March 2009 in Geneva, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton presented Sergei Lavrov with a red button with the English word “reset” and the Roman alphabet transliteration of the Russian Cyrillic alphabet word “peregruzka”. It was intended that this would be theRussian word for “reset”.”
Later found to be a very poor translation. In any case the fact that Clinton as Secretary of State tried to thaw relations is hardly news or an issue. Putin didn’t play ball, he started to assert Russian ‘power’ again and the attempt failed. Nothing wrong with trying to warm relations but we all know what Russia is really like now and that Trump is at least somewhat tied to the worst aspects of the regime there and in the Ukraine.
@Gerard McAuliffe: Ukraine is full of neo Nazis who have issues with Stalin and blame this generation of Russians for him as they ethnically cleanse anyone in Ukraine with Russian blood using neo Nazi symbols on their uniforms, far right paramilitaries and money from the IMF to buy weapons?
We would all take Putin over Hillary you know it’s true!!
@Alex Jones: Why don’t you try living in Russia for a while before you commit to browntongueing that little runt of a dictator?
Putler could certainly give Trump a lot of good advice about acquiring wealth by abusing power; it is estimated that he and his family have creamed off at least $20 billion of the wealth of Russia, a country where millions live in or close to outright poverty. Even if Trump is worth half the billions he claims to have, he is only trotting after the Russian dictator.
On the other hand, although he was – and still is at heart – a KGB thug, there is really little that Putler could teach Trump about mendacity, duplicity, bigotry, disregard for human rights and respect for other countries’ sovereignty.
Come on Fintan, name one leader who’s been financially impoverished by power. They are all corrupted by it even at small nation and local levels. It’s a lot of pots calling a lot of kettles black-arsed.
As for Putin, I think we can safely call him a dictator, and doesn’t seem perturbed by morals. He is however one of the most capable and pragmatic world leaders in a long time, the sufferings he has caused is a lot less numerous than those caused by the war on terror and similar western campaigns of the same era. So both ‘sides’ need to condemned together. The only real difference is that Putin, while benefitting himself, has been openly acting as a ruthless champion for his own nations interests whereas the US/EU leadership have been covertly championing the interests of ‘the (their) market’, regardless of the people.
@Greg Blake: Can no one see how evil Hillary and Obama is, Obama will spend 1 trillion dollars on new nukes in the next 10 years, why???
Obama is out of office in 4 months. How exactly will he achieve this spending? Must be a really nice pension.
@Dave O Keeffe: Obama is war mad, the military financial complex mad.
http://fortune.com/2016/09/13/us-israel-military-aid/
I just want to know what trump and putin are smoking lol jees louise it must be some strong stuff lol
“His remarks were a clear allusion to Trump” Sounds more like paranoia to me. Hillary and Obama are only using Russia and Putin to blacken Trump because they can’t say what was great about Obama’s reign as president because Obama and Hillary belong to the same party and to the same government?
So Hillary can’t condemn herself or Obama or say what she is going to do because it will be the same as Obama’s but she can be racist towards Russia, call the half of America who supports Trump as traitors and anti American, she spreads muck and uses her pals in the media to spin the muck, just like the McCarty Trials all over again…
“We are carefully watching what is happening in the United States and we, of course, view with sympathy those who publicly state that it is necessary to build a relationship with Russia, on basis of equality,”
If you were a leader of a country would you want the candidate like Hillary that says she would start a war with you and Iran or a candidate that wants peace, what would you want?
You have an awful happen of ending statements with question marks.
@Dave O Keeffe: Yes I do but what do people want, peace or war with Russia as Hillary said she would attack Russia and Iran, vote for Hillary and she probably start WW3. Is that what people want.
Then you ask a question and use a full stop.
have your say