Thu Jan 23, 2014 at 09:16 AM PST
This wealthy mogul thinks that rising income inequality is fantastic, celebratory stat
.jpg)
The following exchange occurred on his Canadian show the Lang & O’Leary Exchange:
Amanda Lang: The wealth, that’s according to Oxfam, of world’s 85 richest people is equal to the three and a half billion poorest people.There should be context to every dialogue. That snippet seems to give the impression that Kevin O’Leary is an unfeeling and callous person. When taken into context with the rest of the interchange something becomes more obvious. Follow me below the fold for that context.
Kevin O’Leary: It’s fantastic. And this is a great thing because it inspires everybody. They get the motivation to look up to the one percent and say I want to become one of those people. I am going to fight hard to get up to the top. This is fantastic news and of course I applaud it. What can be wrong with this?”
Stunned Amanda Lang: Really?
Kevin O’Leary: Yes really.
Amanda Lang asks if O’Leary believes some poor kid wakes up in Africa
thinking about being the next Bill Gates. He replies that income
inequality creates the motivation that everybody needs. Lang made the
most important statement that simply flew over his head. She asserts
that one cannot pull up their socks if they don’t have any.
O’Leary immediately plays the redistribution card. “Don’t tell me that you want to redistribute wealth again,” O’Leary said. “That’s never going to happen, okay?” He further says the stat on income inequality is “a celebratory stat,” O’Leary said. “I am very excited about it. I am wonderful to see it happen.”
A few days ago I wrote this blog post titled “Most Of The Rich Are Undeserving Of Their Wealth & Income.” It received some pushback from a few people. O’Leary’s sentiment is currently codified in an ideology that prevents the poor in the aggregate, access to success.
The ideology that says “I did it and therefore you can too” is flawed in the context of opportunity. O’Leary's dismissal of Lang’s statement about the poor person not having a sock to pull up in the first place is where those that think like O’Leary fail. There are exceptions where some, because of sheer luck and brawn, are able to supersede their environment and condition. However in the aggregate one’s station is static and one’s upward mobility is very low. Increasing income inequality makes this worse.
The following snippet from the referenced Oxfam report should be heeded.
O’Leary immediately plays the redistribution card. “Don’t tell me that you want to redistribute wealth again,” O’Leary said. “That’s never going to happen, okay?” He further says the stat on income inequality is “a celebratory stat,” O’Leary said. “I am very excited about it. I am wonderful to see it happen.”
A few days ago I wrote this blog post titled “Most Of The Rich Are Undeserving Of Their Wealth & Income.” It received some pushback from a few people. O’Leary’s sentiment is currently codified in an ideology that prevents the poor in the aggregate, access to success.
The ideology that says “I did it and therefore you can too” is flawed in the context of opportunity. O’Leary's dismissal of Lang’s statement about the poor person not having a sock to pull up in the first place is where those that think like O’Leary fail. There are exceptions where some, because of sheer luck and brawn, are able to supersede their environment and condition. However in the aggregate one’s station is static and one’s upward mobility is very low. Increasing income inequality makes this worse.
The following snippet from the referenced Oxfam report should be heeded.
Given the scale of rising wealth concentrations, opportunity capture andO’Leary’s joy in increasing levels of income inequality is at best ignorant. He fails to understand that all forms of capitalism are at risk. The increasing instability that will increasingly come about with exploding income inequality is unstoppable by him or any army. He disregards it at the peril of his own wealth and the world’s current order.
unequal political representation are a serious and worrying trend. For
instance:
This massive concentration of economic resources in the hands of fewer people presents a significant threat to inclusive political and economic systems. Instead of moving forward together, people are increasingly separated by economic and political power, inevitably heightening social tensions and increasing the risk of societal breakdown.
- Almost half of the world’s wealth is now owned by just one percent of the population.
- The wealth of the one percent richest people in the world amounts to $110 trillion. That’s 65 times the total wealth of the bottom half of the world’s population.
- The bottom half of the world’s population owns the same as the richest 85 people in the world.
- Seven out of ten people live in countries where economic inequality has increased in the last 30 years.
- The richest one percent increased their share of income in 24 out of 26 countries for which we have data between 1980 and 2012.
- In the US, the wealthiest one percent captured 95 percent of post financial crisis growth since 2009,while the bottom 90 percent became poorer.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Please leave a comment-- or suggestions, particularly of topics and places you'd like to see covered