Global Ruling Class: Billionaires and How They ‘Made It’...

[bridgit]

'Even as the world's billionaires grew in number from 793 in 2006 to 946 this year, major mass uprisings became commonplace in China and India. In India, which has the highest number of billionaires (36) in Asia with total wealth of $191 billion, Prime Minister Singh declared that the greatest single threat to 'India's security' were the Maoist-led guerrilla armies and mass movements in the poorest parts of the country. In China, with 20 billionaires with $29.4 billion net worth, the new rulers, confronting nearly a hundred thousand reported riots and protests, have increased the number of armed special anti-riot militia a hundred fold, and increased spending for the rural poor by $10 billion in the hopes of lessening the monstrous class inequalities and heading off a mass upheaval.

The total wealth of this global ruling class grew 35 per cent year to year topping $3.5 trillion, while income levels for the lower 55 per cent of the world's 6-billion-strong population declined or stagnated. Put another way, one hundred millionth of the world's population (1/100,000,000) owns more than over 3 billion people. Over half of the current billionaires (523) came from just 3 countries: the US (415), Germany (55) and Russia (53). The 35 per cent increase in wealth mostly came from speculation on equity markets, real estate and commodity trading, rather than from technical innovations, investments in job-creating industries or social services.'

http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=PET20070323&articleId=5159

[Richard Steele]

1. K&R

[sutz12]

2. K&R

:kick:

[DrunkenMaster]

3. Shhhh...

people might actually learn something important....

[bridgit]

4. got'cha...

mum'z da woid ;)

[Jcrowley]

5. K&R n/t

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

6. which shows how dead this system is

a system where the wealthiest don't work on innovation or plowing funds back into job creation will die. Even during the "robber baron" era, you had billionaires building libraries, giving inventions to the world, and helping whole towns. Milton Hershey would be sad to know what has happened to his Chocolate Town--the one where he didn't lay off anyone during the Depression, but rather put the workers on jobs to build a municiple swimming pool, etc.

[DaveJ]

7. Real Estate Trading

Gee, they became billionaires trading real estate.
And the way it appears, I'll never own any real estate.
That's fair, I'm sure they deserve pretty much everything, and I deserve nothing.
That's just fine.
:sarcasm:

[jaksavage]

8. Wealth tax

Our society idolizes these folks and strives to look like them
encouraged by the media and enabled by the credit industry

[earth mom]

9. Too many people in this country think that someday they, too, will be rich...

and so they turn a blind eye to how the corporate stranglehold on this country and the planet is killing us all.

But the reality is is that those filthy rich bastards are the enemy of the average joe which most of us are and always will be.

They need to be cut off at the knees and stopped. :grr:

[AliceWonderland]

10. K&R

[Joanne98]

11. Globalization! It's time to kill the beast!

[Amonester]

12. They R the new Marie-Antoinette's, and they buy all the "politicians"

by putting lot's of zero$ on checks, for those "politicians" to take the peoples' tax-money and buy guns, depleted-uranium bullets, laser-pointing devices, tanks, antipersonel mines, cluster bombs, planes, ultra-secret sattelites, nuclear warheads, and on, and on...

So when will we, the ordinary people of this planet (the own-nothing taxpaying-peasants in their eyes...) get our forks and hammers together, and rush their Bastille?