Wealth of the 85 richest people equal to more than half of the world

The world's richest man and the founder of Microsoft, Bill Gates, earns about $230 in a second. His 5,000-square-meter house, built in over seven years, cost $113 million. This is not a case of hiding behind the proverb, "The rich man's wealth tires the poor man's jaw." Currently, it's not just the poor man's jaw that is tired but also his body, as 2.5 billion out of more than 7 billion people try to survive on less than $2 a day, and 1 billion people work for less than $1 a day. In other words, one can earn the same amount of money that 230 people earn working under hard conditions in a single second. While 1 million people face the risk of famine, and 20,000 children under five lose their lives because of famine every day, the ultra-rich earn $500,000 a minute. This is a very well-known fact, as everything is out in the open.

It is possible to follow the reports of a few institutions concerned about famine and poverty in the world that document the rich getting richer and the poor getting poorer, including the United Nations, World Bank, International Labour Organization, UNICEF, the World Health Organization, UNDP, UNESCO, Oxfam and many other NGOs, which publish reports shedding light on this sad fact. However, neither these reports nor steps taken at Davos meetings by world leaders and the rich who will never experience trying to survive on less than $2 a day are helpful in this respect. Famine, unhealthy living conditions, malnutrition, child labor, illnesses and unfair distribution of income are ongoing in many places around the world, and illustrated by statistics in reports. Unfortunately, all the graphics published are not enough to show the magnitude of this drama, as graphics fail to show the tears.

British anti-poverty organization Oxfam's report published last week was enough to demonstrate the scale of income inequality and the bias that results. Accordingly, the wealth of 85 of the richest people in the world increases by $668 million every daily. This daily increase greatly surpasses the gross national income of many countries in the world. The report further highlights that how the ultra-rich earn such large amounts of money is another issue to focus on. According to the report, "If Bill Gates turns all his assets into cash and spends $1 million a day, it would take 218 years to consume all of his wealth. In reality, he will never run out of money because even if he invests his cash in an instrument with a low rate of return – of around 2 percent – he would still earn $4.2 million a day just from interest." The report also points out that the gap between the rich and the poor, which began increasing in 1980 and sped up in the 1990s, continues to increase every day. Moreover, the number of billionaires in the world doubled this year, reaching 1,645, while the poverty of 358 million people living in Sub-Saharan Africa increased.

According to Oxfam's report, the wealth of the world's richest 1 percent increased by 48.2 percent in 2014, and if this trend continues, the share of that 1 percent will equal the share of the remaining 99 percent in 2016.

The wealth of the richest 85 is astonishing, as it is equal to the wealth of half the world's population, and next year, this amount will completely eclipse the majority of the world's inhabitants in terms of wealth owned. One proposed solution that could be a viable one as well would be to impose a global 1.5 percent welfare tax on the rich, which would save the lives of 23 million people living in the poorest 49 countries in the world. Looking at this horrifying picture, it is easy to say that either the world is smaller than 85 people or 85 people are bigger than the world.