Number Of Billionaires Hits Record High....Thanks To The United States

http://www.nbcnews.com/business/economy/number-billionaires-hits-record-high-2014-thanks-u-s-n205131

The world economy is going through a rough patch, yet the world's billionaire population is at an all-time high. A new survey shows that 155 billionaires were minted this year, pushing the total population to a record 2,325 – a 7 percent increase from 2013. Credit goes to the United States – home to the most billionaires globally – where 57 new billionaires were recorded this year, according to the Wealth-X and UBS Billionaire Census 2014 released on Wednesday. Asia and Latin America and the Caribbean were also large contributors, with 52 and 42 new entrants, respectively. In Africa, billionaires' total wealth grew, but the overall number of billionaires decreased, due primarily to volatile socio-political conditions. A similar situation occurred in the Middle East.

The combined wealth of the world's billionaires increased by 12 percent to $7.3 trillion, higher than the combined market capitalization of all the companies that make up the Dow Jones Industrial Average. The average billionaire is 63 years old, with a net worth of $3.1 billion, according to the report. Almost 90 percent of male billionaires are married, 6 percent are divorced, 3 percent are single and 2 percent widowed. Sixty-five percent of female billionaires are married, 10 percent divorced, 4 percent single and 21 percent widowed.







85 people in the world have as much wealth as the poorest half of the population. That's 3.5 billion people. There's something very wrong with whichever systems allow that to happen. 12,000+ children die each day from starvation or forms of mal nutrition. Why does mankind obtain 50 times what he can ever spend and continue to take the food from the mouths of the poor?

 

There is indeed something very wrong. There ought to be a lot more billionaires. We need to do something about excessive government regulations to empower entrepreneurship rather than trying to hound it out of existence.

 

Bitter and jealous people don't see it that way.

 

Reaganomics - a dismal FAIL and that is 100% TRUTH

 

What pisses me off is the outright hypocrisy of the Republican party. They cut taxes for the rich, continue to spend like drunk sailors thus putting money borrowed from foreign banks directly into the pockets of the wealthiest people in the country then continue to thump their bibles which teaches that a rich man has as much chance to going to heaven as a camel to pass through the eye of a needle:

LUKE 16:

19 “There was a rich man who was dressed in purple and fine linen and lived in luxury every day. 20 At his gate was laid a beggar named Lazarus, covered with sores 21 and longing to eat what fell from the rich man’s table. Even the dogs came and licked his sores.

22 “The time came when the beggar died and the angels carried him to Abraham’s side.
25 “But Abraham replied, ‘Son, remember that in your lifetime you received your good things, while Lazarus received bad things, but now he is comforted here and you are in agony. 26 And besides all this, between us and you a great chasm has been set in place, so that those who want to go from here to you cannot, nor can anyone cross over from there to us.’The rich man also died and was buried. 23 In Hades, where he was in torment, he looked up and saw Abraham far away, with Lazarus by his side. 24 So he called to him, ‘Father Abraham, have pity on me and send Lazarus to dip the tip of his finger in water and cool my tongue, because I am in agony in this fire.’


27 “He answered, ‘Then I beg you, father, send Lazarus to my family, 28 for I have five brothers. Let him warn them, so that they will not also come to this place of torment.’

29 “Abraham replied, ‘They have Moses and the Prophets; let them listen to them.’

30 “‘No, father Abraham,’ he said, ‘but if someone from the dead goes to them, they will repent.’

31 “He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”

 

Horse crap. Through venture capitalism Mr. hanauer has helped to create more jobs than all the government programs that ever were. The fact that he fails to realize this only shows his level of economic illiteracy. Guy that already have their money don't generally give a crap how heavily you tax new money but that where wealth is generated. And tax codes only effect new money. That is money earned in the current year.

 

Okay how many more billionaire's should there be?


Six billion or so?

 

Lol. Now you think a venture capitalist is economically illiterate? This new money tax notion is utter bunkum.

 

Yes yes I do. Why because his skill set has nothing to with economics and everything to do with backing the right horse one time in 50. Tell me where n the tax code you are asked to pay taxes on money you made two years ago that you've already paid taxes on if you're still alive.

 

And Democrats keep telling us they and their President are for the little guy. Does Wall Street love Obama or what?

 

FACTS: Hanauer was born a multimillionaire, and his TED talk on wealth inequality was deemed so biased and partisan that even left-leaning TED wouldn't publish it. He has 0 credibility in holding forth on the economy due to very obvious bias. He is the perfect example of a limousine liberal.

To the topic, what a great world we live in where the masses are so obscenely wealthy that they can create more and more billionaires due to purely voluntary market transactions in which relatively tiny amounts of money buy miracles that we ALL, rich and poor, have access to. Throughout 99% of human history, the .000001% owned 100% of the wealth, and if you weren't born into that tiny elite, it was almost impossible to enter it. Not so today, and we have the bounty of capitalism and the remnants of free markets to thank for that. The only thanks government deserves is for stifling mobility, waste, graft, corruption and creating a permanently immobile dependent class.

Wealth inequality is only marginally related to tax policy, real factors in the economy dwarf the tax policy of this or that administration, yet because the gov-edu-union-contractor-grantee-lawyer-MSM Complex makes its bread and butter on taxes, regulations and redistribution, well of course it's "all about" those factors. Transparent.

 

Hell, and here I thought Barack Obama's been president for the last 6 1/2 years!
More than enough time to make a difference, so much for hope and change for the envy class.

 

That giant sucking sound you hear coming from the top? That's capitalism.

 

It's a parasitic Complex of direct and indirect government dependents "you hear." Parasites, you see, don't ask the hosts' permission before making that sucking sound. They suck by force, at the end of gun barrels, unlike free capitalist markets.

 

Lol nonsense you're just jealous of his success and annoyed that he doesn't agree with your right wing rubbish

 

Fact; the man had been involved in a number of successful business ventures. His ted talk want included because they felt it was 'partisan' even after having numerous actual politicians speak at the same event - therefore they just didn't like the message.

To the topic what a wonderful world we live in where so many people can create the wealth these billionaire people enjoy. But you're right to the extent that real factors are more fundamental than tax policy. Those real factors are however directly influenced by government's who are the reason we enjoy such effective capitalism

 

Government is the reason there is anything to suck on. Look around tthe world

 

>>>MOD EDIT RULE 2<<<

After Herbert Hoover's Republican depression when all the banks failed and then locked their doors FDR came along with government money and put our nation back together. The first regular paycheck my Dad ever had was working as a timekeeper on the WPA. You ****** Right Wing asses think it's good to cut tax rates for the wealthy, go into debt with foreign banks to cover the shortfall and run up the national debt. You're not fooling anybody who has one eye and half sense. You've been found out:

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The Republicans never have seen a tax cut for corporations and the rich they didn't like but never have quit spending for their pet projects and war machine:

These figures came from the bureau of the debt....they're easily verified:


......................................................Total U S Debt......................................................

09/30/2009 $11,909,829,003,511.75(80% Of All Debt Across 232 Years Borrowed By Reagan And Bushes)

09/30/2008 $10,024,724,896,912.49(Times Square Debt Clock Modified To Accommodate Tens of Trillions)

09/30/2007 $9,007,653,372,262.48
09/30/2006 $8,506,973,899,215.23
09/30/2005 $7,932,709,661,723.50
09/30/2004 $7,379,052,696,330.32

09/30/2003 $6,783,231,062,743.62(Second Bush Tax Cuts Enacted Using Reconciliation)

09/30/2002 $6,228,235,965,597.16

09/30/2001 $5,807,463,412,200.06(First Bush Tax Cuts Enacted Using Reconciliation)

09/30/2000 $5,674,178,209,886.86(Administration And Congress Arguing About How To Use Surplus)

09/30/1999 $5,656,270,901,615.43(First Surplus Generated...On Track To Pay Off Debt By 2012)

09/30/1998 $5,526,193,008,897.62
09/30/1997 $5,413,146,011,397.34
09/30/1996 $5,224,810,939,135.73
09/29/1995 $4,973,982,900,709.39
09/30/1994 $4,692,749,910,013.32
09/30/1993 $4,411,488,883,139.38 ( Debt Quadrupled By Reagan/Bush41)
09/30/1992 $4,064,620,655,521.66
09/30/1991 $3,665,303,351,697.03
09/28/1990 $3,233,313,451,777.25
09/29/1989 $2,857,430,960,187.32
09/30/1988 $2,602,337,712,041.16
09/30/1987 $2,350,276,890,953.00
09/30/1986 $2,125,302,616,658.42
09/30/1985 $1,823,103,000,000.00
09/30/1984 $1,572,266,000,000.00
09/30/1983 $1,377,210,000,000.00

09/30/1982 $1,142,034,000,000.00(Total Debt Passes $1 Trillion)((Reagan Slashed Tax Rates To Pre Depression Levels)

09/30/1981 $997,855,000,000.00

 

Great, another "progressive" quoting from the Bible he has not read.

Matthew 19:24-26
23 Then Jesus said to his disciples, &#8220;Truly I tell you, it is hard for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of heaven. 24 Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for someone who is rich to enter the kingdom of God.&#8221; 25 When the disciples heard this, they were greatly astonished and asked, &#8220;Who then can be saved?&#8221; 26 Jesus looked at them and said, &#8220;With man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.&#8221;

It does not mean that no rich man can go to heaven, it means that Christianity trumps the earthly temptations. A Christian goes to Heaven whether he is rich or poor. The path to salvation is not through worldly wealth but through Jesus.

 

You assume a lot!!

By the time I was four or five years old my maternal grandmother was already working hard on my brainwashing. If I did something a little naughty or against her personal belief she would tell me, "Old Scratch Will Get You!" Old Scratch being her name for Satan. She would walk over a mile in the snow to make church services on a Wednesday evening or Sunday Morning.

In grammar school, 3rd and 4th grades my west TN teachers would begin each day with the pledge of allegiance and the Lord's Prayer. On Mondays they assigned each student a bible verse to memorize and recite back to the class on Thursday or Friday. I read the bible and the book of Mormon through while I was still in my teens. I had read the new testament no less than ten times while I was in my twenties. I was baptized in a Baptist church before a congregation of nearly a thousand on a Sunday morning in the spring of 1957. I was a Sunday school teacher, a member of the building committee and the Brotherhood. I worked with RA Boys and coached one of their baseball teams. I was a substitute usher. I spoke with personal testimony in nearby small churches. I visited the sick on Tuesday evenings and twice a year we visited a prison or a jail. We tithed our gross.

I used to sit in the sanctuary on Sunday mornings and look around at the faces of others and wonder if they doubted the way I did. I was two-faced until I was over sixty years old. After I retired I made a major decision. I did not want to keep living a lie.....I never believed all that malarkey. Two of my three children are heavy into the church stuff but one of my daughters is exactly like me about such things.

I had most of the new testament memorized chapter and verse while I was still in my twenties and 90% of Christians don't know (*)(*)(*)(*) about the bible. Most have a few favorite verses and listen to the self serving messages from a preacher when they go to church but that's usually it. I love to see the look on their faces when I lace them with a couple of verses which absolutely states the opposite of something they have declared.

The good news is that primitive beliefs are on the way out. The organized brainwashing of young, innocent, gullible children by their adult church goers is the reason that after 2000 years it's still alive. You can teach a child anything. For thousands of years tribes of cannibals taught their young to consume human flesh as a religious ritual. Ironically they were converted from their faith to another one which consumes a cracker and some grape juice to simulate eating flesh and drinking blood. It's all such a load of (*)(*)(*)(*) written by primitive sheep herders who believed in witches and thought the earth was flat. Again....I've turned 80. I've seen a lot during the last 75 years. The thing that pleases me most is the results of studies like this one. There's still hope:

http://religion.blogs.cnn.com/2012/10/09/survey-one-in-five-americans-is-religiously-unaffiliated/

Survey: One in five Americans has no religion

By Dan Merica

Washington &#8211; The fastest growing "religious" group in America is made up of people with no religion at all, according to a Pew survey showing that one in five Americans is not affiliated with any religion.

The number of these Americans has grown by 25% just in the past five years, according to a survey released Tuesday by the Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life.

The survey found that the ranks of the unaffiliated are growing even faster among younger Americans.

Thirty-three million Americans now have no religious affiliation, with 13 million in that group identifying as either atheist or agnostic, according to the new survey.

Pew found that those who are religiously unaffiliated are strikingly less religious than the public at large. They attend church infrequently, if at all, are largely not seeking out religion and say that the lack of it in their lives is of little importance.


"I cannot imagine a God who rewards and punishes the objects of his creation, whose purposes are modeled after our own--a God, in short, who is but a reflection of human frailty. Neither can I believe that the individual survives the death of his body, although feeble souls harbor such thoughts through fear or ridiculous egotism. It is enough for me to contemplate the mystery of conscious life perpetuating itself through all eternity, to reflect upon the marvelous structure of the universe which we can dimly perceive, and to try humbly to comprehend even an infinitesimal part of the intelligence manifested in nature."
~Dr. Albert Einstein~

"The day will come when the mystical generation of Jesus, by the supreme being as his father in the womb of a virgin will be classed with the fable of the generation of Minerva in the brain of Jupiter. But we may hope that the dawn of reason and freedom of thought in these United States will do away with all this artificial scaffolding"
~Thomas Jefferson~ (excerpt from a letter to John Adams... April 1823)

 

The idea that rich people are rich because they take from the mouths of the poor is such complete BS.

Go to Iraq, Libya, Sudan, or any of the many nations overflowing in poverty and try to help those people - that is if you can get past the corrupt governments and dictators and warlords and Islamic jihadists.

The good political systems create wealth, even the people in "poverty" in the Western nations have food, shelter, clothes, and money. The bad political systems create poverty and death. If you want to save all those poor dying people, change their form of government, get rid of the dominating governments and dictators, then the people can become rich.

 

None of that matters, you still got Matthew completely wrong.

 

OK....what about this?

Matthew 5:

17"Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill. 18"For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished. 19"Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.…


And This? A man could be put to death for fartin' at the dinner table!!!

Old Testament Death Penalty Sins:

•Murder - Gen. 9:6; Ex. 21:12-14,20,23; Lev. 24:17,21; Num. 35:16-34; Deut. 19.
•Failing to circumcise - Gen. 17:14; Ex. 4:24,25.
•Eating leavened bread during feast of unleavened bread - Ex.
•2:15,19.
•Smiting Parents- Ex. 21:15.
•Kidnapping - Ex. 21:16; Deut. 24:7.
•Cursing Parents - Ex. 21:17; Lev. 20:9.
•Negligence with animals that kill - Ex. 21:28-32.
•Witchcraft - Ex. 22:18.
•Bestiality - Ex. 22:19; Lev. 18:23-29; 20:15,16.
•Idolatry - Ex. 22:20.
•Making holy anointing oil - Ex. 30:33.
•Putting holy anointing oil on strangers - Ex. 30:33.
•Making the holy perfume - Ex. 30:38.
•Defiling the Sabbath - Ex. 31:14.
•Working on the Sabbath - Ex. 35:2.
•Eating the flesh of the peace offerings in
•uncleanness - Lev. 7:20,21.
•Eating the fat of sacrifices - Lev. 7:25.
•Killing sacrifices other than at the door of the tabernacle - Lev. 17:1-9.
•Eating blood - Lev. 17:10-14.
•Incest - Lev. 18:6-29; 20:11-22.
•Eating sacrifices at the wrong time - Lev. 19:5-8.
•Consecration of children to idols - Lev. 20:1-5.
•Spiritualism - Lev. 20:6,27.
•Adultery - Lev. 20:10; Deut. 22:22-30.
•Sodomy/Homosexuality - Lev. 20:13.
•Relationship with a menstruous woman - Lev. 20:18.
•Whoredom - Lev. 21:9; Deut. 22:21,22.
•Sacrilege - Lev. 22:3.
•Refusing to fast on day of atonement - Lev. 23:29.
•Working on atonement - Lev. 23:30.
•Blasphemy - Lev. 24:11-16.
•Failure to keep the Passover - Num. 9:13.
•Presumptuous - Num. 15:30,31.
•Gathering firewood on the Sabbath - Num. 15:32,36.
•Failure to purify self before worship - Num. 19:13,20.
•False prophecy - Deut. 13:1-18; 18:20.
•Leading men away from God - Deut. 13:6-18.
•Stubbornness and rebelliousness - Deut. 21:18-23.
•Gluttony - Deut. 21:20-23.
•Drunkenness - Deut. 21:20-23.
•Backbiting - Deut. 17:2-7.
•False dreams and visions - Deut. 13:1-18.

 

Yeah, Finley tells a lot of lies on this board...this particular one being a lie of omission.

 

The Old Testament is the Covenant between God and the Jewish people. The New Testament is the Covenant between God (through Jesus) and all people including Jews if they wish.

I am not familiar with all of your examples, and I'm not going to look them up, but many do not incur the death penalty , such a Lev 7:18, 7:20-21, 7:24.

I don't know where you did your cut and paste, but it is certainly not a list of "Old Testament Death Penalty Sins".

Once again, you are completely wrong in your "understanding" of the Bible.