© John Berkeley/The Economist
It's hardly a secret that there was an
abrupt increase in income disparity pretty much all across the globe in the period from 1980 to 2017, as it has been recently confirmed by a report released by World Inequality Lab (WIL).
Pretty much the same conclusion was voiced by a group of international analysts led by prominent French economist, Thomas Piketty. The report's findings could easily be
described as shocking. Upon
compiling the World Wealth and Income Database, Thomas Piketty and his colleagues revealed today the
global level of income disparity fell to levels seen back in 1913!In November, the Global Wealth Report of Credit Suisse bank revealed that
the level of global welfare increased by 6.4% in the period from mid-2016 to mid-2017, while adding that half this increase would benefit the notorious 1% of the world's inhabitants. Last year alone, the number of
millionaires across the globe increased by 2.3 million people.A recent study by the University of Michigan revealed that in the time since the 2008 crisis,
the richest part of American society managed to recover from all of their financial losses suffered during the recent global crisis, unlike the rest of society. Last year, the most financially successful Americans were
24 times richer than the average American family, which constitutes a significant increase over the level of 2007, when the gap didn't exceed 16.5 times.
Among the most important conclusions that most modern economists would make upon analyzing the data available is that
we're witnessing the "parasitic" nature of modern capitalism. Over the last four decades that have passed since the ultra-liberal reforms of Thatcher and Reagan, there has been
a visible increase in speculative enrichment across the West,
where incomes from short-term capital investments would outpace investments in productive labor.It was precisely speculative profits that were behind the growing inequality of recent decades.
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