Ending world poverty

[tinfoilhat]

No one has mentioned the elephant in the room which is the vast wealth of the super rich.

I'm sure someone can supply the right figures for the '70% of wealth owned by 5%' of the population' or some such.

 

We ordinary folk simply cannot imagine the figures involved. Some of these people have personal wealth that outstrips the finances of some countries, while some folk still have no access even to clean drinking water.

 

As someone once wrote, you can only sleep in one bed at night, and eat a certain amount of food. Who needs such excess?

 

I do. You do.

 

The super rich will remain at the top of the pyramid unless we quite literally put them against a wall and shoot them. Russia did something similar less than one hundred years ago. Currently Russia (not including former soviet states ) has 111 billionaires.

[firemanbob]

No one has mentioned the elephant in the room which is the vast wealth of the super rich.

I'm sure someone can supply the right figures for the '70% of wealth owned by 5%' of the population' or some such.

 

We ordinary folk simply cannot imagine the figures involved. Some of these people have personal wealth that outstrips the finances of some countries, while some folk still have no access even to clean drinking water.

 

As someone once wrote, you can only sleep in one bed at night, and eat a certain amount of food. Who needs such excess?

 

Its been mentioned and if we take the wealth of the top 8.3 million people from around the world and split it equally between the 5 billion poorest people they will have £6000 each and after a year most will be back to having nothing.

 

If we take the wealth from the top 1% that's 70,000,000 people and divide it between the poorest 5 billion people they could have £22000 each and after a year most would be back to having nothing.

 

World's richest 1% own 40% of all wealth, there combined wealth is $110 trillion.

 

So if we distribute all global wealth equally every man women and child will have $39285, or £24186 each, making us all poor.

Edited September 15, 2014 by firemanbob

[Anna B]

Its been mentioned and if we take the wealth of the top 8.3 million people from around the world and split it equally between the 5 billion poorest people they will have £6000 each and after a year most will be back to having nothing.

 

If we take the wealth from the top 1% that's 70,000,000 people and divide it between the poorest 5 billion people they could have £22000 each and after a year most would be back to having nothing.

 

World's richest 1% own 40% of all wealth, there combined wealth is $110 trillion.

 

So if we distribute all global wealth equally every man women and child will have $39285, or £24186 each, making us all poor.

 

I'm not talking about distributing it evenly among the population, but using it to build the infrastructure every country needs to grow their own wealth.

 

It's obscene to me to think that when we can put men on the moon and build lakes and waterfalls in Las Vagas, and giant green golf courses in the middle of the desert, we can't provide everyone with clean water to drink.

 

Surely that is a basic human right and not a luxury.

[firemanbob]

I'm not talking about distributing it evenly among the population, but using it to build the infrastructure every country needs to grow their own wealth.

 

It's obscene to me to think that when we can put men on the moon and build lakes and waterfalls in Las Vagas, and giant green golf courses in the middle of the desert, we can't provide everyone with clean water to drink.

 

Surely that is a basic human right and not a luxury.

 

Africa was occupied by Humans for thousands of years before the UK was occupied by humans, they have had plenty of time to build their own infrastructure with their own resources. We can't even afford to maintain the infrastructure we have and you think we should cut what we spend so that we can build infrastructure for other people.

[chem1st]

How much of a cut in living standards are you prepared to take?

 

Most people would be due a massive increase in living standards with fairer distribution, primarily of land ownership.

 

There's enough land for 6 acres each.

 

1 person owns as much land in acres as there are people. If we redistributed that land among the global population, everyone could have an acre each. There would still be 5 acres per person left over and it's ownership unchanged.

 

The person with nearly 7 billion acres will die soon of natural causes due to old age brought about by the mere passing of time.

 

We could 'nationalise' the majority of the land that they own and distribute it fairly around the globe. Collect the rent from the land and use it to fund a global citizen's income. Allow it to be traded, held and even inherited.

 

Allow for land to be inherited as long as the parcel of land does not exceed one's global fair share of land. Anything over that share is to be 'nationalised' and used to fund the global welfare state.

 

Do the same with money and other assets. Apply inheritance tax of 95% to sums of £1million or more. Apply IHT of 99% to sums of £1billion or more. Apply IHT at a rate of 100% to any sum over £1 trillion.

 

Allow the bands to increase at only one third the rate of inflation. So that with 100% inflation, 100% IHT would apply to sums equating to £666billion in real terms today.

 

Over time, we would become much more equal and society would still allow for inequality, but it would allow for inequality in a meritocratic way. People would have to work and generate income to gain wealth, instead of inherit it, wealth would not be able to dominate labour as it does today.

Land would not be able to dominate capital, and capital would not be able to dominate labour.

 

People would receive the fruits of THEIR labour. Inequality would be much more just, as those who worked hard would be rewarded, rather than those who can levy the highest rents upon workers.

[tinfoilhat]

Most people would be due a massive increase in living standards with fairer distribution, primarily of land ownership.

 

There's enough land for 6 acres each.

 

1 person owns as much land in acres as there are people. If we redistributed that land among the global population, everyone could have an acre each. There would still be 5 acres per person left over and it's ownership unchanged.

 

The person with nearly 7 billion acres will die soon of natural causes due to old age brought about by the mere passing of time.

 

We could 'nationalise' the majority of the land that they own and distribute it fairly around the globe. Collect the rent from the land and use it to fund a global citizen's income. Allow it to be traded, held and even inherited.

 

Allow for land to be inherited as long as the parcel of land does not exceed one's global fair share of land. Anything over that share is to be 'nationalised' and used to fund the global welfare state.

 

Do the same with money and other assets. Apply inheritance tax of 95% to sums of £1million or more. Apply IHT of 99% to sums of £1billion or more. Apply IHT at a rate of 100% to any sum over £1 trillion.

 

Allow the bands to increase at only one third the rate of inflation. So that with 100% inflation, 100% IHT would apply to sums equating to £666billion in real terms today.

 

Over time, we would become much more equal and society would still allow for inequality, but it would allow for inequality in a meritocratic way. People would have to work and generate income to gain wealth, instead of inherit it, wealth would not be able to dominate labour as it does today.

Land would not be able to dominate capital, and capital would not be able to dominate labour.

 

People would receive the fruits of THEIR labour. Inequality would be much more just, as those who worked hard would be rewarded, rather than those who can levy the highest rents upon workers.

 

I've missed these posts, I really have.

 

Over time these newly minted land owners will give up their land for beer a new telly etc etc. that or ruin it completely because they might not be cut out for subsistent farming. And this is before we get to massive, nay catastrophic environmental impact.

[chem1st]

Its been mentioned and if we take the wealth of the top 8.3 million people from around the world and split it equally between the 5 billion poorest people they will have £6000 each and after a year most will be back to having nothing.

 

If we take the wealth from the top 1% that's 70,000,000 people and divide it between the poorest 5 billion people they could have £22000 each and after a year most would be back to having nothing.

 

World's richest 1% own 40% of all wealth, there combined wealth is $110 trillion.

 

So if we distribute all global wealth equally every man women and child will have $39285, or £24186 each, making us all poor.

 

If we take land wealth from the wealthiest from the 0.0000000167% of the worlds greatest landowner when they cease to exist and use it form a global welfare fund, we could provide a small but considerable citizens income to the entire global population.

With progressive land inheritance tax we could vastly reduce inequality.

 

When you talk of 'wealth', do you consider land? Or just capital and currency?

 

If there were two people and one had all the money and land and you gave all his money to t'other. So that one had t'land and t'other t'money, then t'one wi't'land could charge t'one wi't'money enough to recall all of the money in a day so that t'other might use just a bit of t'land in order to ensure his survival for a mere day... The following day, one would have all of the money and land again.

 

Redistribution can be useless.

 

No point trying to possess an iron filing when your immediate neighbour has a big **** off supermagnet.

[firemanbob]

Most people would be due a massive increase in living standards with fairer distribution, primarily of land ownership.

 

There's enough land for 6 acres each.

 

 

Its actually 5.25 but 57% of it is uninhabitable which means we could have 2.25 acres of habitable land each.

 

For the UK to achieve 2.25 acres of habitable land each, we would have to kick more than half the people out of the country.

 

For England to achieve 2.25 acres of land each we need to kick 39,000,000 people out of the country.

Edited September 15, 2014 by firemanbob

[Halibut]

Its been mentioned and if we take the wealth of the top 8.3 million people from around the world and split it equally between the 5 billion poorest people they will have £6000 each and after a year most will be back to having nothing.

 

If we take the wealth from the top 1% that's 70,000,000 people and divide it between the poorest 5 billion people they could have £22000 each and after a year most would be back to having nothing.

 

World's richest 1% own 40% of all wealth, there combined wealth is $110 trillion.

 

So if we distribute all global wealth equally every man women and child will have $39285, or £24186 each, making us all poor.

 

Are you hard of thinking or something? To the estimated 1.1 billion children in the world living in poverty, your claim that this would make us all poor is as selfish and stupid as it is offensive.

[chem1st]

I've missed these posts, I really have.

 

Over time these newly minted land owners will give up their land for beer a new telly etc etc. that or ruin it completely because they might not be cut out for subsistent farming. And this is before we get to massive, nay catastrophic environmental impact.

 

The land would be owned on the behalf of the people and the rental income it generates distributed to them equally as a citizens income.

 

Eventually we would all be renting land from a global council rather than a monarch or dictator.

 

Environmental impact could be massively reduced with more equal land distribution, it could also be increased, it could also remain the same.

 

To provide the basics for all would be far less damaging, than providing far more than the basics to more than all, but denying it to a large proportion of them, then producing, more than people need for a select few.