17 Mar 2014
13 Jun 2013
The Shocking Amount of Wealth and Power Held by 0.001% of the World Population
Many now know the rhetoric of the 1% very well: the imagery of a small elite owning most of the wealth while the 99% take the table scraps.
In 2006, a UN report revealed that the world’s richest 1% own 40% of the world’s wealth, with those in the financial and internet sectors comprising the “super rich.” More than a third of the world’s super-rich live in the U.S., with roughly 27% in Japan, 6% in the U.K., and 5% in France. The world’s richest 10% accounted for roughly 85% of the planet's total assets, while the bottom half of the population – more than 3 billion people – owned less than 1% of the world’s wealth.
29 Apr 2013
C.I.A. Delivers Cash to Afghan Leader’s Office
For more than a decade, wads of American dollars packed into suitcases, backpacks and, on occasion, plastic shopping bags have been dropped off every month or so at the offices of Afghanistan’s president — courtesy of the Central Intelligence Agency.
All told, tens of millions of dollars have flowed from the C.I.A. to the office of President Hamid Karzai, according to current and former advisers to the Afghan leader. “We called it ‘ghost money,’ ” said Khalil Roman, who served as Mr. Karzai’s deputy chief of staff from 2002 until 2005. “It came in secret, and it left in secret.”
The C.I.A., which declined to comment for this article, has long been known to support some relatives and close aides of Mr. Karzai. But the new accounts of off-the-books cash delivered directly to his office show payments on a vaster scale, and with a far greater impact on everyday governing
Persistent allegations of corruption aimed at Hamid Karzai's family are undermining Western efforts in Afghanistan and feeding the Taliban-led insurgency, Washington policy-makers have warned.
Read more on Rawa.org
19 Apr 2013
Avoiding Economic Collapse
As the Cyprus fiasco focuses attention once again on the faltering Euro, the public is finally questioning the value of the money in their wallets and bank accounts. But as the issue of monetary reform gains currency amongst the public, a vast array of complementary currencies are already helping people facilitate transactions without the central bank administered fiat money. Find out more in this week's GRTV Backgrounder on Global Research TV.
11 Feb 2013
21 Nov 2012
Tolkien Estate Sues Warner Bros. Over 'Lord of the Rings' Slot Machines
Mere weeks before the release of the first film in the long-anticipated big-screen adaptation of The Hobbit, the estate of author J.R.R. Tolkien has sued the film's producers, claiming they are overstepping their rights when it comes to merchandising the property and The Lord of the Rings.
In an $80 million lawsuit filed Monday in U.S. District Court in Los Angeles and obtained by The Hollywood Reporter, the Tolkien estate and its book publisher HarperCollins claim that Warner Bros., its New Line subsidiary and Rings/Hobbit rightsholder Saul Zaentz Co. have infringed the copyright in the famous books and breached a contract. The crux of the suit is the estate's contention that a decades-old rights agreement entitles the studio to create only "tangible" merchandise based on the books, not an "online slot machine" or other digital exploitations that the estate calls highly offensive.
30 Sept 2012
17 Sept 2012
Billionaires Getting Richer
Many millionaires got poorer in the last year, but billionaires did just fine, using their heavyweight money management teams to ride out market and economic turmoil that hit the lesser rich, research company Wealth-X said on Monday.
The ranks of people with at least $30 million edged up to 187,380 but their total wealth fell 1.8 percent to $25.8 trillion -- still a sum bigger than the combined size of the U.S. and Chinese economies, Wealth-X said in a report.
Hardest hit globally were those in the $200 million to $499 million range, whose numbers dropped 9.9 percent and whose fortunes shrank 11.4 percent, the World Ultra Wealth Report said, using data for the year through July 31.
But the really, really rich got even richer as the number of billionaires rose 9.4 percent to 2,160 people and their wealth grew 14 percent to $6.2 trillion.
22 Jul 2012
£13tn: hoard hidden from taxman by global elite
A global super-rich elite has exploited gaps in cross-border tax rules to hide an extraordinary £13 trillion (€11tn -$21tn) of wealth offshore – as much as the American and Japanese GDPs put together – according to research commissioned by the campaign group Tax Justice Network.
James Henry, former chief economist at consultancy McKinsey and an expert on tax havens, has compiled the most detailed estimates yet of the size of the offshore economy in a new report, The Price of Offshore Revisited, released exclusively to the Observer.
He shows that at least £13tn – perhaps up to £20tn – has leaked out of scores of countries into secretive jurisdictions such as Switzerland and the Cayman Islands with the help of private banks, which vie to attract the assets of so-called high net-worth individuals. Their wealth is, as Henry puts it, "protected by a highly paid, industrious bevy of professional enablers in the private banking, legal, accounting and investment industries taking advantage of the increasingly borderless, frictionless global economy". According to Henry's research, the top 10 private banks, which include UBS and Credit Suisse in Switzerland, as well as the US investment bank Goldman Sachs, managed more than £4tn in 2010, a sharp rise from £1.5tn five years earlier.
The detailed analysis in the report, compiled using data from a range of sources, including the Bank of International Settlements and the International Monetary Fund, suggests that for many developing countries the cumulative value of the capital that has flowed out of their economies since the 1970s would be more than enough to pay off their debts to the rest of the world.
More on The Observer - The rise of the overclass on The Telegraph
23 Jan 2012
19 Dec 2011
US CEO pay jumps 36.5%
Who says American salaries are stagnating.
After two years of lower pay packages, chief executives at the nation's major companies enjoyed a 36.5% jump in pay last year, according to a leading survey of CEO compensation.
The average pay hike is for the top executive at each of the Standard & Poor 500 companies, according to GMI, the research group formerly known as the Corporate Library. A broader survey of CEO pay at 3,000 companies posted an average 27% increase.
Paul Hodgson, senior research associate at GMI, said the sharp rise in pay was out of line with the relatively modest improvement that companies typically achieved in profits or share price during 2010.
The most lucrative sector for CEO pay was health care.
26 Oct 2011
Vatican Inc.
Earlier this month, the Vatican, the sovereign papal state at the heart of Rome, introduced new rules to clean up its financial system. At the heart of that system is the Vatican's own bank, the Institute of Religious Works (IOR), a notoriously secretive organisation.
22 Oct 2011
21 Oct 2011
Money Madness New Louisiana Law Bans Cash Transactions
It's absolute insanity! When we end up in a cashless society the banks, which are currently being protested worldwide, will have their greedy fat fingers in every single transaction that takes place.
And second hand goods? Many people buy second hand goods because they can't afford to buy them new, because they're poor. Many of us are becoming poorer everyday, which is also why more and more of us are SELLING our used goods.
It may become a new form of discrimination against people without checking accounts, debit cards, or credit cards. Believe me, they want every last one of us in that system, and they want it bad.
23 Sept 2011
Capitalism
Twenty-five of the 100 highest paid U.S. CEOs earned more last year than their companies paid in federal income tax, a pay study by a Washington think tank said on Wednesday.
At a time when lawmakers are facing tough choices in a quest to slash the national debt, the Institute for Policy Studies said it also found many of the companies spent more on lobbying than they did on taxes.