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Sunday, 16 February 2014

The Rich Get Rich and the Poor Stay Poor - That's how it goes

I know this news is a little old now - and it is only very indirectly relevant to Turkey. It appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald while I was celebrating my birthday with my daughter and her family camping at a place called Bendalong on the NSW coast south of Sydney. Well, that's no excuse, I know. Still, you may have missed the item, so I wanted to draw it to your attention.

It refers to an Oxfam report released on 20 January:

Eighty-five people control the same amount of wealth as half the world's population. That is 85 people compared with 3.5 billion.

A new report from Oxfam has been published in time for the World Economic Forum in Davos this week. It shows the world's ultra-wealthy have not only recovered from the global financial crisis, they have positively blossomed. The report shows the wealth of the 1 per cent richest people in the world is worth about $US110 trillion, 65 times the total wealth of the bottom half of the world's population. It also shows the world's richest 85 people control about $US1.7 trillion in wealth, equivalent to the bottom half of the world's population. And far from hindering the wealthy, the political response to the global financial crisis - including the actions of central banks and the austerity measures introduced by national governments - has made the rich fabulously richer. Read more . . . .

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