First the bad news–this statistic: 85 > 3,000,000,000
What that means is the world’s 85 richest individuals hold the net wealth equivalent of 3 billion people, or over half the world’s population. That is staggering. Somewhere Robin Hood must be rolling over in his grave.
But this week’s Oxfam briefing paper is it’s not all lousy news. While wealth inequity is definitely on the rise, and most of all here in the United States as the middle class continues to get hollowed out, there is a small glimmer of good news in the fact that global poverty reduction is also on the rise. Since 1970, the global poverty rate has dropped by 80%.
Read more here. And maybe it’s time we really start talking about balancing the US tax code.