The top 1% of households own 43% of global wealth, 10% owns 81%, while the bottom 50% have just 1%.

by michael roberts




The top 1% of households globally own 43% of all personal wealth while the bottom 50% have only 1%. The 1% are all millionaires in net wealth (after debt) and there are 52m of them. Within this 1%, there are 175,000 ultra-wealthy people with over $50m in net wealth – that’s a miniscule number of people (less than 0.1%) owning 25% of the world’s wealth!

This information comes from the 2020 Credit Suisse Global Wealth report which has just been released. The report remains the most comprehensive and explanatory analysis of global wealth (not income) and of the inequality of personal wealth. Every year the CS global wealth report analyses the household wealth of 5.2 billion people across the globe. Household wealth is made up of the financial assets (stocks, bonds, cash, pension funds) and property (houses etc) owned. And the report measures this, net of debt. The report’s authors are James Davies, Rodrigo Lluberas and Anthony Shorrocks. Professor Anthony Shorrocks was my university flatmate, where we both graduated in economics (although he has the much better mathematical skills!).

According to the 2020 report, total global household wealth rose by USD36.3 trillion during 2019. But the COVD-19 pandemic cut that 2019 increase by nearly half (USD17.5 trillion) between January and March 2020. However, because stock-markets and property prices then rebounded, thanks to government and central bank credit injections, the Credit Suisse researchers reckon that total household wealth was still slightly up by mid-2020 compared to the level at the end of last year, although wealth per adult was slightly down.

By mid-2020 global household wealth was USD 1 trillion above the January level, a rise of 0.25%. As this is less than the rise in adult numbers over the same period, average global wealth fell by 0.4% to USD 76,984. In comparison to what would have been expected before the COVID-19 outbreak, global wealth fell by USD 7.2 trillion, or USD 1,391 per adult worldwide.

The most adversely affected region was Latin America, where currency devaluations reinforced reductions in dollar GDPs, resulting in a 12.8% reduction in total wealth in dollar terms. The pandemic also eradicated the expected growth in North America and caused losses in every other region, except China and India. Among the major global economies, the United Kingdom has seen the biggest relative erosion of wealth.

Most shocking is the still huge inequality of household wealth globally. As shown by the wealth pyramid graphic below, inequality remains stark, both geographically between the 'rich north' and 'poor south'; and between households within countries.



At the end of 2019, North America and Europe accounted for 55% of total global wealth, with only 17% of the world adult population. In contrast, the population share was three times larger than the wealth share in Latin America, four times the wealth share in India, and nearly ten times the wealth share in Africa.

Wealth differences within countries are even more pronounced. The top 1% of wealth holders in a country typically own 25%–40% of all wealth, and the top 10% usually account for 55%–75%. At the end of 2019, millionaires around the world – which number exactly 1% of the adult population – accounted for 43.4% of global net worth. In contrast, 54% of adults with wealth below USD 10,000 (ie pretty much nothing) together mustered less than 2% of global wealth.

The researchers reckon that the worldwide impact on wealth distribution within countries has been remarkably small given the substantial pandemic-related GDP losses. Indeed, there is no firm evidence that the pandemic has systematically favoured higher-wealth over lower-wealth groups or vice versa. In 2019, the number of millionaires worldwide soared to 51.9 million, but has changed very little overall during the first half of 2020.

At the apex of the wealth pyramid, the report estimates that at the start of this year there were 175,690 ultra-high net worth (UHNW) adults in the world with net worth exceeding USD 50 million. The total number of UHNW adults rose by 16,760 (11%) in 2019, but 120 members were lost during the first half of 2020, leaving a net gain of 16,640 in UHNW membership since the start of 2019.

During the first half of 2020, the number of millionaires shrank by 56,000 overall, just 1% of the 5.7 million added in 2019. Membership has expanded in some countries and some have lost significant numbers. The United Kingdom (down 241,000), Brazil (down 116,000), Australia (down 83,000) and Canada (down 72,000) all shed more millionaires than the world as a whole.

It seems that wealth inequality declined within most countries during the early 2000s. The fall in inequality within countries was reinforced by a drop in “between-country” inequality, fuelled by rapid rises in average wealth in emerging markets. The trend became mixed after the financial crisis of 2008, when financial assets grew speedily in response to quantitative easing and artificially low interest rates. These factors raised the share of the top 1% of wealth holders, but inequality continued to decline for those below the upper tail. Today, the bottom 90% accounts for 19% of global wealth, compared to 11% in the year 2000. In other words, there was a concentration of wealth towards the top 1% (and even more to 0.1%), but with some dispersion among the remaining 99%.

The researchers conclude that the small decline in wealth inequality in the world as a whole “reflects narrowing wealth differentials between countries as emerging economies, particularly China and India, have grown at above-average rates. This is the main reason why global wealth inequality fell in the early years of the century, and while it edged upward during 2007–16, we believe that global wealth inequality re-entered a downward phase after 2016.”

In short, what the report shows is billions of people have no wealth at all after debts and that the distribution of global personal wealth can be described as a few Gulliver giants looking down on the mass of Lilliputians.

VENEZUELA WINS SIMPLY BY HOLDING AN ELECTION

By Vijay Prashad and Carlos Ron, People's Dispatch.

December 4, 2020




https://popularresistance.org/venezuela-wins-simply-by-holding-an-election/





NOTE: I am in Venezuela currently to serve as an international election observer and will report on the elections and more. – MF
The Upcoming Legislative Elections In Venezuela Are Going To Be Held In A Context Of Great Adversity Are An Important Step In The Democratic Recuperation Of The Country’s Institutions From The US-Backed Opposition.

On December 6, the Venezuelan people will vote for a new National Assembly. Ordinarily, there is nothing unusual about this, nor would this be newsworthy outside Venezuela. Ever since the election of Hugo Chávez to the presidency in 1998, the Venezuelan people have been used to more than one national election each year (this legislative election is the 25th in 21 years); these have been the presidential elections, the legislative elections, and the referendums to strengthen the 1999 Constitution. On the surface, this is just another one of these elections that has served to deepen the meaning of democracy in Venezuela.

But, these days, even the holding of an election is a contest between the Venezuelan people and the United States government. Since Chávez became the president, the United States government and its allies have tried to destabilize Venezuela’s government, including by direct efforts at regime change. When it became clear that Chávez and the Bolivarian Revolution, which he led, had strong popular support and could not be defeated at the ballot box, the US government and its allies pushed to delegitimize Venezuela’s political sovereignty.

Strong disagreements mark the Venezuelan political arena, where the oligarchy maintains its own political platforms and continues to attempt to undermine and defeat the Bolivarian Revolution. These forces—now called the opposition—have contested elections since 1998, with some gains no doubt, but without being able to prevail. In 2015, for instance, the opposition was able to win a majority in the National Assembly elections and has controlled the Assembly over these past five years. The very fact that the opposition won in 2015 shows that there is a robust electoral system in the country. At that time, there was no complaint about fraud.
An Opposition Made In Washington

Rather than undertake their constitutional duty to govern alongside President Nicolás Maduro, sections of the opposition decided to operate as a wing of the US Embassy in Caracas. One of the legislators, Juan Guaidó (who had won his seat from the state of Vargas), allowed himself to be made the instrument of a US-attempted political coup after the presidential election of 2018. The opposition to the Bolivarian Revolution has always been divided and has not been able to find a unity of purpose. One of the most important divides is along the axis of whether or not to subordinate itself to the United States government. People like Guaidó were quite happy to be an instrument of Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo, while others made it clear that this was an unpatriotic, even treasonous, approach. Since 2015, the opposition has faced an existential crisis around this question of the level of US support for its political process; Guaidó’s entire influence relied on his support from Washington, rather than from his own constituents or from the opposition.

The Venezuelan Constitution requires an election to the National Assembly before January 5, 2021, when a new group of legislators have to be sworn in. That is why the election is being held on December 6. Some sections of the opposition that derive their power from Washington—such as Guaidó’s camp—had decided early on to boycott the election by alleging that it would be fraudulent. They have not provided evidence for these claims; the North Atlantic media required no evidence to repeat them, nor did this media address the simple matter of the National Assembly elections in 2015 having favored the opposition. Rather than contesting power through democratic means of elections or proposed legislation, the Guaidó opposition seeks to seize power by undemocratic means. Winning the election seems less important than delegitimizing the electoral and democratic process.
US Interference In The Elections

The United States government—with bipartisan support from both Republicans and Democrats—has actively intervened in Venezuela’s 2020 National Assembly election. In September, the US Treasury Department sanctioned four officials of the Venezuelan government: Reinaldo Enrique Muñoz Pedroza (the attorney general), David Eugenio De Lima Salas (a former governor), and two officials of the National Electoral Council (Consejo Nacional Electoral)—Indira Maira Alfonzo Izaguirre and José Luis Gutiérrez Parra. Indira Alfonzo is the president of the National Electoral Council and a well-respected former judge with long-standing ties to the opposition. The US government claimed—without providing evidence—that these officials were part of an “election interference scheme to prevent free and fair parliamentary elections from taking place in December 2020.” The US government’s interference continued later that month with its subsequent sanctioning of five opposition leaders who decided to participate in the elections; the US State Department sanctioned them for their “complicity” in the elections.

Opposition politicians who face this pressure from Washington also face a disgruntled base in Venezuela that has been fighting against this policy of abstention and boycotting. Many of the party members from these opposition groups have sued their leaders, demanding that they participate in the election. They are fed up with the strategy of attrition by Guaidó and by Guaidó’s subservience to the US State Department.

For that reason, there are more than 14,000 candidates from 107 political organizations, with 98 of them identified as opposition parties. They will contest the 277 seats (increased from 165 to better reflect population growth and more ability for democratic input).

Venezuela’s National Assembly has been stalled ever since it was made an instrument for regime change by Washington. Now, with this election, it is hoped that the legislative process can resume. A new National Assembly would be able to appoint key officials and would be able to discuss legislation to address the pandemic; it should become a place for healthy dialogue between the government and the opposition, which has been hijacked by Washington and by Guaidó. More than anything else, this National Assembly would provide a legal challenge to governments and banks in Europe and the United States that have frozen at least $6 billion of Venezuelan funds and confiscated assets such as Citgo; they will no longer have Guaidó’s alleged interim government to use as an excuse for their actions.

Venezuela wins just by holding an election. That’s the bottom line.

'One Person Standing in the Way': Abysmal Jobs Report Puts New Pressure on McConnell for Covid Relief

"Instead of passing a relief bill, Senate Republicans have been confirming judge after judge—filling the federal bench while Americans fill hospitals across the country."

Jake Johnson, staff writer



https://www.commondreams.org/news/2020/12/04/one-person-standing-way-abysmal-jobs-report-puts-new-pressure-mcconnell-covid-relief




The Labor Department's release Friday of an abysmal jobs report showing that U.S. hiring slowed dramatically in November served as another occasion for Democratic lawmakers, progressive advocacy groups, and economists to demand that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell end his months-long obstruction of a desperately needed coronavirus relief package.

Devoid of any "silver linings", the fresh jobs numbers further undercut the Kentucky Republican's argument just last month that the economy is trending in the right direction and therefore requires less stimulus to drag it out of recessionary territory. According to Friday's report, the U.S. added just 245,000 jobs in November, down from 610,000 in October and the fifth consecutive month hiring has slowed.


"The unemployment rate edged down to 6.7%, but for the 'wrong' reasons as 400,000 people left the labor force," Gould noted in an analysis of the new figures. "The number of workers unemployed 27 weeks or more—the long-term unemployed—shot up to 3.9 million in November. Now, over one-third (36.9%) of the total unemployed are long-term unemployed."Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute, warned that with key federal unemployment programs set to expire at the end of December and coronavirus infections on the rise nationwide, "millions of workers and their families are in for an even harsher winter" unless Congress takes decisive action.

The alarming numbers came at the tail end of week in which coronavirus relief talks, previously stagnant for weeks, appeared to progress slightly, with Democratic congressional leaders and President-elect Joe Biden throwing their support behind a $908 billion bipartisan stimulus framework despite its serious inadequacies.

"We'll take the time we need and we must get it done," House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) told reporters Friday, voicing optimism that lawmakers can strike a deal on a relief package before both chambers depart for Christmas recess. "We cannot leave without it."

In a tweet Friday, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) said that "this latest jobs report shows the need for strong, urgent emergency relief is more important than ever."

"Senator McConnell must hear the pleas of the millions of struggling American families," Schumer added.





McConnell has not backed the bipartisan plan, circulating his own proposal earlier this week that would gift corporations sweeping immunity from coronavirus-related lawsuits while providing no boost to weekly unemployment benefits, direct stimulus payments, or aid to state and local government.

The bipartisan framework also includes a liability shield, but one far more limited than McConnell's.

"Senior Democrats have balked at that measure [in the bipartisan plan] despite embracing the broader bill," the Washington Post's Jeff Stein reported Thursday. "A number of Republicans have made clear that no stimulus package will pass without including the measure."


"Mitch McConnell is apparently ready to ruin the holidays and the economy for working families and small businesses unless he gets his way," Jeremy Funk, spokesperson for government watchdog group Accountable.US, said in statement Friday. "His plan to shower corporations, millionaires, and CEOs with more handouts while giving virtually nothing to struggling workers and their families is beyond unacceptable."McConnell's proposal was so paltry and stuffed with poison pills, including a 100% tax deduction for business meals, that critics warned the Republican leader is intentionally trying to keep the economy mired in recession to sabotage the incoming Biden administration.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) tweeted Friday that "Congress knows how to help workers and families. It knows how to prevent the looming recession."

"One person is standing in the way," Wyden said. "Mitch McConnell's political games are costing lives and livelihoods."

With November's meager hiring in the books, the U.S. economy currently has 9.8 million fewer jobs than in February, when the coronavirus began spreading rapidly across the United States. Now, as coronavirus infections, hospitalizations, and deaths are soaring to new heights, Rep. Don Beyer (D-Va.) warned Friday that "we are heading into a situation that may be even worse than the spring."

"Christmas is in three weeks, rent was due a few days ago, and millions of Americans are on the verge of hunger and homelessness," said Beyer. "However, instead of passing a relief bill that the Federal Reserve Chair and economists say is sorely needed, Senate Republicans have been confirming judge after judge—filling the federal bench while Americans fill hospitals across the country."

"The leader of their party has been doing even less than they have—sulking and seeking revenge for an election he lost definitively, while Americans pay with their lives and livelihoods," Beyer continued. "Workers and their families, as well as businesses and state and local governments, need relief now—especially as many federal relief programs are set to expire at the end of the year."

Capitalism’s winter of death

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2020/12/04/pers-d04.html?pk_campaign=newsletter&pk_kwd=wsws




Immediate action is necessary to save hundreds of thousands of lives!

Statement of the Socialist Equality Party
4 December 2020







A tragedy of unprecedented proportions is unfolding in the United States. More than 13,000 people have died over the past week alone, including 2,918 yesterday, the highest daily death toll since the pandemic began. More than 218,000 people tested positive for the virus yesterday, another record.

A staggering 283,000 people have died in the United States. At yesterday’s rate, 400,000 people will be dead by the end of this month, and more than 450,000 will be dead by the end of January. The milestone of half a million dead will be reached by the middle of February, without taking into account the expected surge in deaths. Centers for Disease Control Director Robert Redfield said this week that the coming months “are going to be the most difficult time in the public health history of this nation.”

In an extraordinary statement, President-elect Joe Biden said Wednesday, “I don’t want to scare anybody here, but understand the facts—we’re likely to lose another 250,000 people dead between now and January.”

Biden made this statement with the implication that these deaths are inevitable, as though it were a cosmic event that simply cannot be stopped. He made no proposal for urgent actions to prevent the deaths of a quarter-million people. Indeed, he followed his comment with the declaration: “We no longer have to shut down.” These remarks echoed his statement from last month: “I’m not going to shut down the economy, period.”

The president-elect knows full well that the vast majority of these deaths can be prevented by shutting down nonessential production and closing schools in the United States, with full compensation for lost wages. Dr. Michael Osterholm, the most eminent member of Biden’s COVID-19 task force, urgently called for a nationwide shutdown last month, a position that was immediately repudiated by the Biden transition team.

Nearly a year into the pandemic, the effectiveness of public health measures is not in dispute. Every country that has closed businesses and schools has had a fall in cases and deaths. And every country that has eased restrictions has had an increase. Even now, if a national closure of nonessential production and schools was ordered, there is no doubt that it would save hundreds of thousands of lives.

Yet the entire US political establishment refuses to take the most basic measures necessary to contain the pandemic. Instead of closing businesses and schools, the remaining restrictions are being eliminated, and schools, as in New York City, are being reopened. Instead of providing financial assistance to workers, Congress refuses to provide even the most basic aid for the unemployed.

Trump is using his position as president to do whatever he can to develop his fascistic conspiracies, which have been centered on the demand for the removal of all restraints on the spread of the virus. The ongoing death toll is not even mentioned by the gangster in the White House. Biden, the incoming president and de facto head of the Democratic Party, has nothing fundamentally different to propose.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, all of government policy has been subordinated to the profit interests of the corporations and the wealth of the ruling class. Trillions have been handed out to Wall Street, with markets soaring to new heights every day as the rich feast on death and social misery.

The September 11 terror attacks, which killed 2,977 people, were used to launch wars costing some $6 trillion and to implement sweeping attacks on democratic rights, all on the basis of a supposed national emergency. Now that the equivalent of a 9/11 is happening every day, death on such a massive scale is effectively treated by the US political establishment as inevitable. And amidst the greatest social crisis since the Great Depression, there is supposedly nothing that can be done to alleviate mass impoverishment.

Emergency measures must be taken immediately! While the roll-out of vaccines is proceeding rapidly, there is no reason to believe that it will be handled any better than the way the ruling class has responded to the pandemic itself. Even in the best of circumstances, at the present rate hundreds of thousands of people will die before a vaccine is widely available.

The ruling class, represented by both the Democrats and Republicans, refuses to take the necessary actions. That is why the movement to stop the pandemic must be initiated by the working class—in neighborhoods, factories and workplaces. It is necessary for workers to take matters into their own hands.

The Socialist Equality Party advances the following demands:
The immediate shutdown of all production at nonessential workplaces and schools. While public health experts have warned, correctly, that traveling during the pandemic poses massive risks, the fact is that America’s factories and schools are just as dangerous as its airports. And yet the outbreaks at workplaces and schools are systematically covered up and ignored.


The provision of a monthly income to all families, in an amount sufficient to guarantee a decent standard of living until a return to work is possible. The provision of relief to small businesses, at an amount sufficient to maintain the economic viability of the enterprise and the wages and salaries of its employees until its operations can be resumed.


The allocation of trillions of dollars to accelerate the production and distribution of vaccines free of charge and to expand the public health infrastructure, including for testing and contact tracing.

The claim that there is no money for such emergency measures is a lie. According to a recent study from the Institute of Policy Studies, a group of just 10 billionaires has increased its wealth by 42 percent since the start of the pandemic. The wealth of these oligarchs is generated by the workers who risk their lives every day in factories and warehouses.

All funds handed over to Wall Street and corporations as part of the bipartisan CARES Act must be reclaimed, and a massive increase in taxes on the rich levied to meet urgent social need. All large financial and corporate institutions must be converted into democratically controlled public utilities, with their operations redirected to stop the pandemic.

With COVID-19 ripping through factories, it is urgently necessary for preparations for strikes and walkouts to begin now. The Socialist Equality Party has spearheaded the fight to form rank-and-file committees, independent of the corporate-controlled trade unions, to organize the necessary actions to save lives, including walkouts and strike action to shut down nonessential production. These committees must be expanded and developed in every workplace and factory.

The offensive by workers in the United States must be connected to struggles of workers in Latin America, Europe, Asia and throughout the world. The criminal policy of the ruling class in the United States is the most extreme expression of a policy that is being carried out in every country. The pandemic is a global crisis that requires a global response by the working class.

The interests and lives of hundreds of thousands of people cannot be secured through the existing political parties and institutional structures of the capitalist class. This requires the independent political mobilization of the working class in the fight against capitalism.

The capitalist order has set itself at war with society, demanding the sacrifice of another quarter-million lives for the enrichment of the capitalist class. This sacrifice is unacceptable, and it is capitalism that will have to go. The Socialist Equality Party is leading the fight to stop the pandemic and save countless lives by building a mass movement of the working class to take political power, expropriate the financial oligarchy and build a socialist society.

We call on all workers and young people to join the Socialist Equality Party and take up this fight.

Prof. Richard Wolff: India's Historic General Strike

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1xGT611Z_A&ab_channel=TheZeroHourwithRJEskow

Wolff Responds What to Expect from Janet Yellen as Treasury Secretary

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVgKt3TSGnE&ab_channel=RichardDWolff

Pandemic lesson: We must consider the social structure along with the science

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lTUIbY_KtDo&ab_channel=DemocracyAtWork