The ‘One Percent Club’

National capitalist predators are co-opted by global predators to grab power, establish hegemony to steal resources and wealth

Oxfam’s global inequality results in 2014 make for horrific reading.

The richest one percent own 48 percent of the world’s wealth

46 percent wealth is owned by the richest fifth

The remaining 80 percent people share the leftover, just 5.5 percent of global wealth and have an average income of $3,851 per adult, which is 1/700^th of the average wealth of the one percent

What else could so starkly underline the failure of the human race? It defies reason, beggars excuses. Things will get worse in 2016. So this is God’s greatest creation? Potentially it is, because He has put the greatness gene in all human beings, but collectively that greatness potential has been totally submerged by the greed gene. Satan laughs all the way to his Wall Street bank.

Last week I talked about states preying on weaker states to establish dominion and hegemony and take control of their policies and national resources. Such a hegemonic relationship of predation exists within subordinate states too, between capitalism-driven governments and the people in all states weak and strong, though western countries wear the cloak of ‘democracy’, ‘justice’ and ‘welfare’ to divert attention from predation.

Shocking that the richest one percent will own more than the rest of the world by 2016. ‘The Rest’, who are human beings by the way and born with equal rights with ‘The Best’, will have to exist – if existence it is – on the remaining 48 percent. Look, we are talking of nearly eight billion people for god’s sake. No wonder, ‘Inequality’ became the theme at Davos where alarm bells rang but with style, not hysteria, that such grave inequity and inequality will retard economic growth and worsen the human condition, retard consumer purchasing power and the wealth of the one percent richest will consequently retard with it too. The survival instinct kicked in as the one percent and their enablers realised this danger, for it would also almost certainly lead to acute social and political unrest that no country, least of all the developed, can afford at this time of multi-faceted, multi-dimensional turmoil as human financial models of gross exploitation increasingly fail. Though the failure surfaced in October 2008 it took many years in the making after the gold standard was dropped, making the US dollar the reserve and benchmark currency and the US driven global economy was handed over to Wall Street banksters. Then came the experiment with a fatherless currency called the ‘Euro’ to financially formalise Germany’s hegemony over Europe that Hitler couldn’t achieve militarily. But this ‘experiment’ isn’t working either because of no fiscal and political union. The results are before you. Banksters went on the rampage as they became regulators and finance ministers too and active players in the deep states of western countries.

Says Oxfam: “…the richest one percent have seen their share of global wealth increase from 44 percent in 2009 to 48 percent in 2014 and at this rate will be more than 50 percent in 2016. Members of this global elite had an average wealth of $2.7 billion per adult in 2014. Of the remaining 52 percent of global wealth, almost all (46 percent) is owned by the rest of the richest fifth of the world’s population. The other 80 percent share just 5.5 percent and had an average wealth of $3,851 per adult – that’s 1/700th of the average wealth of the one percent.”

What else could so starkly underline the failure of the human race? It defies reason, beggars excuses. Things will get worse in 2016

Oxfam revealed that the 85 richest people on the planet have the same wealth as the poorest 50 percent (3.5 billion people). That figure is now 80 – a dramatic fall from 388 people in 2010. The wealth of the richest 80 doubled in cash terms between 2009-14.”

Wrap your mind around this and feel ashamed as a member of the human race. Because we have excommunicated the spiritual from the secular and handed over religions masquerading as the spiritual to obscurants and the secular to worshipers of the Golden Calf, our world has lost balance, the fulcrum of Creation and Faith.

Said Oxfam’s Winnie Byanyima at Davos: “The scale of global inequality is quite simply staggering and despite the issues shooting up the global agenda, the gap between the richest the rest is widening fast. In the past 12 months we have seen world leaders from President Obama to Christine Lagarde talk more about tackling extreme inequality but we are still waiting for many of them to walk the walk. It is time our leaders took on the powerful vested interests that stand in the way of a fairer and more prosperous world. Business as usual for the elite isn’t a cost free option – failure to tackle inequality will set the fight against poverty back decades. The poor are hurt twice by rising inequality – they get a small share of the economic pie and because extreme inequality hurts growth, there is less pie to be shared around.”

Yes, frighten the rich that inequality retards growth and shrinks demand that will retard their wealth. But like always they find a new bone to the poor to retard downfall, so beware of their nostrums when they come.

Added Lady Lynn: “Oxfam’s report is just the latest evidence that inequality has reached shocking extremes, and continues to grow. It is time for the global leaders of modern capitalism, in addition to our politicians, to work to change the system to make it more inclusive, more equitable and more sustainable.”

Problem is, western politicians are controlled by the capitalist syndicates of the richest while Third World politicians are controlled by the global hegemon and are corrupt predators themselves, many amongst the richest 1 percent.

Continues Lady Lynn Forester de Rothschild: “Extreme inequality isn’t just a moral wrong. It undermines economic growth and it threatens the private sector’s bottom line. All those gathering at Davos who want a stable and prosperous world should make tackling inequality a top priority.”

Tim Sorrell of the ‘One Percent Club’ says, “You cannot punish success”. Success? Success? If western states hadn’t become domestic and international predators, if western banksters hadn’t defrauded billions, would they have achieved ‘success’? This ‘success’ comes from living in predatory states that create conditions for the few in the First World (admittedly some very bright) to become wealthy because they have the brains to take advantage of the situation that they helped create and are presented with.

Oxfam is calling on governments to adopt and implement a seven-point plan to tackle inequality. Pious indeed, for governments and capitalists hardly ever take heed. The seven points are:

1. Clamp down on tax dodging by corporations and rich individuals

2. Invest in universal, free public services such as health and education

3. Share the tax burden fairly, shifting taxation from labour and consumption towards capital and wealth

4. Introduce minimum wages and move towards a living wage for all workers

5. Introduce equal pay legislation and promote economic policies to give women a fair deal

6. Ensure adequate safety nets for the poorest, including minimum income guarantee

7. Agree a global goal to tackle inequality

A pipedream if ever there was one and I’m not being cynical please. Governments won’t do it willingly; the people will have to grab the agenda by force. The prey has to break the hand of the predator, the oppressed of the oppressor, the slave of his owner, people of the tyrant. More violence, but it might become logically unavoidable when there is no other option left except to submit. It is not in Man’s nature to submit for he is born free; he knows that tyranny may exist for a while but it can never endure.

In Pakistan, many top ‘wealthy’ own private jets while over 350 children have died of hunger and disease in Tharparkar

In the Third World – two thirds of the world’s people – the ratios would be much worse. Most billionaires there are rich because their governments create economic apartheid that favours rulers and there cronies who steal wealth under the guise of privatisation pushed by the IMF and contracts hugely padded for kickbacks and abnormal profits. Governments and business have formed cartels to loot. Those burdened by morality are ‘failures’ if money be the measure and, shamefully, it has become the only measure. Other yardsticks are scoffed at as excuses of ‘failures’. Thus the great philanthropist Abdur Sattar Edhi and Dr Adeeb Rizvi who raises money for free give free kidney treatment and transplants haven’t joined the One Percent Club are ‘failures’ by this capitalist measure of success, well-meaning fools, while Nawaz Sharif, Asif Zardari and cronies who have risen from rags to riches through limitless corruption are called ‘successful’, toasts of the town for whom we vote again and again. What a shameless people we are. Now you know why we are underlings with no independence, sovereignty, pride or self-esteem? We deserve what we have. It is going to get worse before it gets better and there is no guarantee that it will get better after it gets worse.

In Pakistan, many top ‘wealthy’ own private jets while over 350 children have died of hunger and disease in Tharparkar, Sindh, and rising, while the province is being ruled by a mummy from Egypt and the country is being led by a moron from Kashmir. Ironic isn’t it: we set out to conquer Kashmir but Kashmiri settlers have conquered us.

Oil, not intellect, is the source of wealth for many Arab countries, oil that has been captured by Arab ruling families and their cronies. Their wealth doesn’t fall out of the sky but rises out of the earth that belongs to God and is for all human beings equitably. Do you think He made some more equal than others?

Mankind comforts itself in the belief that it has made great progress. What good such progress when the 80 percent staggering majority of human beings exist on only 5.5 percent of the world’s wealth? Hang your head in shame, God’s greatest creation. You have let your Creator down.

Look at Pakistan where 76 percent of the population of 200 million lives in poverty: that’s 152 million, while 54 percent of the total live below the poverty line like scavengers – that’s 108 million. There are only some 1500 politically empowered families that have become rich. At an average of seven people per nuclear family, it comes to 10,500 people. The business and feudal rich are around the same figure. That makes 21,000 people or about 0.1 percent. Add that to 152 million people living in poverty and you have 150,221,000, leaving 49 million from the upper to the lower middle class category. The lower middle class is borderline poor. Of these, I guess some 30 million have purchasing power beyond survival needs. And this country was made to improve the condition of the Muslims of India? Forsooth. If Mr Jinnah were alive today he would declare Pakistan a shocking failed. The worse condition of Muslims in India is not a measure of Pakistan’s success. Such comparisons are facetious.

Money is the yardstick of success for morons. If money and wealth it is the solution is to raise the ‘unsuccessful’ up by creating equalities in opportunities from birth onwards. End Neanderthal ‘Free For All Market Capitalism’. This sort of capitalism is a throwback to the legalised pelf system of ancient times now made acceptable by the confusing jargon of economists and banksters that has little depth. The rich of the world are now divided between oligarchs that work within the system because the system is geared to making them ‘successful’ and oligarchs that work outside the system or because their countries have no system at all, only the facade of it, like in Pakistan where there is no concern for conflict of interest and regulatory bodies are hollow shells. Any wonder that none of our most ‘successful’ businessmen find it easy to succeed abroad except in Africa, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka and other Third World countries where regulation and oversight are as weak as in Pakistan and cronyism and corruption as rampant.