At the highest level, 1% of the richest people in Spain have as much as 70% of Spanish citizens and 3 individuals in Spain accumulate wealth that doubles the poorest 20% of the population.
In March of 2013 alone, the 20 largest fortunes in Spain snatched wealth totaling $1.14 billion dollars (http://www.oxfam.org/en/campaigns/even-it-up).
From the onset of the economic crisis in 2008, the number of billionaires in the world has more than doubled, from 793 in 2008 to 1,645 in 2014.
Currently, in sub-Saharan Africa there are 16 people with a fortune of billions, living with 358 million individuals subsisting in extreme and dire poverty, while inequality in South Africa is now higher than during apartheid (http://www.cateconomica.com/Articulo/El-numero-de-mil-millonarios-se-duplica-mientras-la-desigualdad-crece).
The richest one percent of the world's population now control 48.2% of global wealth, up from 46% in 2013; this according to the most recent global wealth report issued by Credit Suisse, the Swiss-based financial services company.
What this means is that hypothetically, if the growth of inequality were to proceed at last year's rate, the richest one percent would for all intents and purposes control all the wealth on the planet within 23 years (http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2014/10/17/ineq-o17.html).
As an example of what this means, Bill Gates, if he chose to exhaust his fortune spending $1 million a day, would take 218 years to do so. (http://www.dcestrategia.com/dccp/blog/politica/la-riqueza-de-millonarios-alimenta-la-desigualdad/).
Tax Havens for the richThere is no published register of trusts or offshore holdings, but the rich appear to have been able to discreetly avoid taxes, particularly inheritance tax, using tax havens in ways far too expensive and complex for the majority of people. By doing so, they have left a deracinated global population, hemorrhaging world-wide inequality, violence and war.
According to James S. Henry, former chief economist at consultancy McKinsey and professor at the Centre for Sustainable International Investment at Columbia University:
"There are about $21 trillion dollars hidden in tax havens. This wealth is in the hands of a small elite. Half of the $21 trillion found in deposits in tax havens is in the hands of the 91,000 richest people in the world; this is 0.001% of the world population and they control a third of all global wealth. This allows us to calculate that about 8.4 million people, in essence 0.14% of the population, have 51% of global wealth" (http://www.bbc.co.uk/mundo/noticias/2014/05/140513_economia_riqueza_invisible_desigualdad_en).
Latin America and the Caribbean, despite the advances in recent decades, remain the most unequal regions in the world; it is here where the richest individuals and corporations capture an average of almost 50% of total revenues, while the poorest citizens receive only 5%.
In a period of one year (between 2012 and 2013) the number of billionaires in Latin America and the Caribbean increased by 38%, higher than any other territory in the world (http://www.cateconomica.com/Articulo/El-numero-de-mil-millonarios-se-duplica-mientras-la-desigualdad-crece).According to Oxfam, companies in Latin America and the Caribbean recorded tax evasion levels ranging from 46% in Mexico to 65% in Ecuador; all without sufficient sanctions (http://policy-practice.oxfam.org.uk/publications/even-it-up-time-to-end-extreme-inequality-333012).
Latin America's rich have around $2 trillion in tax havens.
Don't tell that to the most ardent advocates of extreme neo-liberalism. For them, there is no "capital flight" or "tax haven". Capital does not flee borders because the owners have the right to place their money where it suits them.
The rhetoric 'tax haven', according to the purveyors of capitalism and Wall Street filchers, is simply the 'existence of states' that offer better conditions for a specific deposit or investment.
All of this fustian rhetoric is enveloped in the pious platitudes of the plutocracy regarding 'choice', 'free markets', 'the work ethic' and 'savings'.
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