Oxfam said that the wealth of the poorest 50% dropped by 41% between 2010 and 2015, despite an increase in the global population of 400m. In the same period, the wealth of the richest 62 people increased by $500bn (£350bn) to $1.76tn.

Further, Goldring said: “We need to end the era of tax havens which has allowed rich individuals and multinational companies to avoid their responsibilities to society by hiding ever increasing amounts of money offshore.”

I really think this dangerous development. We are now beyond 1929 wealth gaps. We are developing two economies: “There are two economies: one for the rich, and the other for everyone else.” Just like Thomas Pikkety’s “Capital in the Twentieth Century” confirms it.

In “Wealth, War and Wisdom,” former Morgan Stanley global strategist Barton Biggs saw the “possibility of a breakdown of the civilized infrastructure.” He warned the super rich to get prepared for a post-apocalypse era: “Your safe haven must be self-sufficient and capable of growing some kind of food … well-stocked with seed, fertilizer, canned food, wine, medicine, clothes, etc. Think Swiss Family Robinson.”

Are we heading towards a second storm on the Bastille? We are certainly experience a storm on fortress Europe. People are flooding into Europe as the conditions in other countries must be unbearable. I can not blame them, but the signs are out there that we will enter a new age soon if we do not distribte wealth more equally and start making sure that every human on this planet has access to education, shelter, clean water and enough food.

If we keep ignoring the signs, a second French revolution is in my opinion, inevitable. The storming of the Bastille in 1789 is around the corner.

Just a reminder of the Pentagon’s famous 2003 prediction: “As the planet’s carrying capacity shrinks, an ancient pattern of desperate, all-out wars over food, water, and energy supplies will emerge … warfare will define human life on the planet by 2020.”

Savings accounts are the way to go in most European countries. The Dutch stashed away 335 billion euro in savings accounts.

This is good news you might think. It is good that people save money. It earns interest and compound interest. Just one catch since the central banks began their qunatative easing war – the interest rates hit an all time low. And they are below the inflation rate. That means that your money does not compound – it is actually getting less.

Germany inflation is currently 2,2 – the interest rate on your savings account is 0,4%. Every year you are losing 1,8%. That means the Germans are losing thirty-six billion every year. Gone forever.

It gets worse when the central bank is declaring war on the people like in Sweden. They lowered the interest rate to -0,35% (MINUS 0,35%). No mistake here. The current Swedish interest rate Riksbank (base rate) is –0.350 % Riksbank. The Swedish central bank is the oldest bank in the world and is also called Sveriges Riksbank or the Bank of Sweden.

The current inflation rate in Sweden is about 0,1%. That would mean if you are saving in Sweden – you would be losing 0,45%. Still better than the Germans, but in Sweden banks will start charging you for storing money save in bank accounts. That is why Swedes will start hording cash.

That is why people in Sweden are starting to hoard money in cash at home. You can’t combat inflation but at least you are not paying the banks to hold your money. Crazy times. I am very curious how “The Great Negative Rates Experiment” in Sweden will turn out. In the end, it is just money and nowadays it is only 0 and 1 stored somewhere in computers.

Happy new year BTW. Hope you all will have a nice 2015 and had a good Christmas wityh your family and friends. I did!

Here is my new years story/ Christmas tale for 2014:

People in Russia might not have such a good Christmas. The ruble tanked and the story behind it is quite fascinating. I am not in the mood to write it all down in detail, so the short version: the OPEC decided that it will sabotage the fracking industry in the United States and very OPEC unlike they open all pipelines and pump more oil than ever into the economy. Saudi Arabia, the most powerful member in the OPEC pushed all members for this decision. result: we all can get the cheapest gas since 8 years at the gas station. Crude oil fell below USD 50 even sometime last week. What a nice Christmas present from our Saudi friends! You would think a oligopoly is there to push up prices but they want to stop the United States to go on with fracking (which is a method to win oil from soil). It is costly and only profitable when the oil price is somewhere north of 80 – 100 USD a barrel. So Our Saudi Kings send the oil price south. What does this have to do with Russia? The oil price and gas prices are tied to each other and Russia is the main gas exporter in the world, making us Europeans feel warm and cosy during strong winters. Those winters are not happening anymore as we all polluted the air and caused global warming, so Russia was exporting much less gas this winter anyway and because of the Saudi Kings being very pushy to destroy the  US home made oil business, the gas prices were also going south. Russia’s state budget is very dependent on that income and the Finance minister maybe drank to much vodka so he forgot to look into his crystal ball which might have warned him that if the oil price tanked, the gas price tanked and his budget would not be future proof. The budget deficit is huge and investor confidence in Russia was not as expected. All investors went out of the ruble as result and send the ruble north as well. This resulted in French investment bankers who quit their job to work in Russia to flee the country, other foreign workers from Indonesia being stuck in Russia with no money to return home and many sad Thai hotels who were missing their yearly main income as all the Russians stayed home this year.

Welcome to the global economy. You want to see the guy responsible for it?  Here is a picture. God bless him as he got our cars fuel for 50% of what we used to pay the last 8 years.

It might be just a warning to us. In a few weeks he brought down a whole country with the oil price. If OPEC turns the decision and get the oil price to let’s say USD 150 or USD 200, we might be facing Russia’s fate in Europe and the US. When the fracking business has died long time ago…..

” …As it stands, the company paid cash taxes of $3.3 billion around the world on its reported profits of $34.2 billion last year, a tax rate of 9.8 percent….

…Robert Promm, Apple’s controller in the mid-1990s, called the strategy “the worst-kept secret in Europe.”…

…However, tax experts say that strategies like the Double Irish help explain how Apple has managed to keep its international taxes to 3.2 percent of foreign profits last year, to 2.2 percent in 2010, and in the single digits for the last half-decade, according to the company’s corporate filings. ”

Getting depressed that such an awesome company refuses to pay the same tax rate as all of us? Well, a new study found that in fact, corporate tax dodging has gone so out of control that 25 major U.S. corporations last year paid their chief executives more than they paid Uncle Sam in federal income taxes. They researched 100 U.S. corporations that shelled out the most last year in CEO compensation. 25  of them the bill for chief executive compensation actually ran higher than the company’s entire federal corporate income tax bill. BAM. How much are we talking about? Tax havens are costing the federal treasury, by one estimate, $100 billion a year.

You read the study here. Be warned it is quite shocking material for everybody who pays taxes.

Ready for the finish? Here are a ultra-high-resolution NASA computer model that has given scientists a stunning new look at how carbon dioxide in the atmosphere travels around the globe.

Like my father always said: Two things in life you can not avoid: paying taxes and taking a shit. Apparently not true. Should be: Two things in life you can not avoid: paying taxes & cooperations and their CEOs just laughing out loud at us.

I work with data all day and his analysis of a century of (income) data makes it very clear what we all see around us:  unregulated capitalism naturally widens the wealth gap between rich and poor, and will continue to do so.

According to Piketty, we live in a “Belle Époque” — defined by the incredible rise of the “one percent.”

His works put the fear right to the bones of all conservatives: James Pethokoukis of the American Enterprise Institute warns that Mr. Piketty’s work must be refuted, because otherwise it “will spread among the clerisy and reshape the political economic landscape on which all future policy battles will be waged.”

I guess you should read this and this discussion by Paul Krugman.

Another thing is also funny, the conservatives try to downrate his work on Amazon via 1 star reviews, but reading them makes me just laugh. They are pretty hilarious. Paul Krugman quotes: “The really striking thing about the debate so far is that the right seems unable to mount any kind of substantive counterattack to Mr. Piketty’s thesis.” If you read the 1 star reviews, you will have a pretty good laugh.

I downloaded them for this Huffington Post article.

I am full of hope as there are economists  now supporting my views about income & wealth inequality the result will be a feasable solution. Not for me in person, but for my little boy and all other children on this planet. Do not want him to grow up in a world I can only imagine being something like what I have seen in the movie the Hunger Games.

And as result, the wrong kinds of wealth — today, that’s mostly financial assets — are valued and pursued. And just like those bubbles from centuries ago, when the current asset boom goes bust, the value of paper wealth will vaporize.

In contrast, those holding tangible productive assets or real money will fare much better on a relative basis.

James and co-author John Rubino (of DollarCollapse.com) have recently published a new book covering the details of this prediction called The Money Bubble: What To Do Before It Pops. Within it, they delve into the reasons for why the world is destined for what Ludwig von Mises termed a “crack up boom”.

More Russel Brand below. My favorite quote from the video:

“The only reality that is relevant is: we have this planet, there are this many people on the planet, there are these resources. Any system that is in conflict with the even distribution of the resources to the people, is a disingenuous and illusionary system.”

Then read this very powerful statement of the pope about inequality here. Some for the inpatient.

And then President Obama on the issue of inequality.

Where are the actions if a spiritual leader and the most powerful world leader and great economist/ Nobel laureate  agree we have a problem?

The bankers are greedy. They do everything to forge the system to get their bonus. Who would not use all available methods to get rich quick and receive a super high bonuses. When I was studying business administration it was the holy grail for many fellow students to get rich quick and join the financial elites in London and New York. Drive big cars, work long hours and retire and look 20 years older the they were at 40 including a too young trophy model girlfriend and a big penthouse overlooking central park in NYC.

I wonder how people now look at this kind of career and if young students still want to join the financial elite?

Greed is human. Greed is instututionalised. Politics are poor in handling greed. Today the news in Holland were that many semi government housing cooperations who made very very unusual investment choices in the past 10 years. The thing is The Netherlands is denslyn populated and the cooperations have one goal: provide affordable housing for people who can not afford a cheap place to live. Housing prices in the free market are unaffordable. they have bunked a lot a cash as they were for along time run very conservative. During the boom years the last ten years many of them have made very very risky investment. There were many case of fraud. The top is still filling their pockets. They recently raised their salaries. The politicians are in uproar today.

And then, one thing strikes me about our general culture. Many people are busy with how they look and that they must look beautiful even after a pregnancy. A selfie of a Norwegian semi celeb caused uproar today. She posted a selfie of herself how good she looks 3 days after giving birth.

What kind of society have we created? A society were everybody thinks about themselves and wants to show off what they have how good they look and how rich they are? No wonder that Facebook causes major depression en envy with the average people.

Who controls the narrative? The rich and powerful tell us that if we put our heads down and work hard, we can overcome the odds and join the ranks of the victors — the wealthy and privileged few. However, it’s increasingly clear that the game is rigged, and that we have an important role to play: At best, we are the loyal consumers. At worst, we are the ones who slip through the cracks.

And that’s why we’re taking back the narrative. The Hunger Games explores numerous themes that are relevant to the imbalances that exist in our world. In Catching Fire, Katniss Everdeen solidifies her role as a symbol for change and sets the resistance in motion. Thus, the release of the Catching Fire film represents a perfect opportunity to establish a dialogue about our own problems and set the wheels in motion for positive change. Instead, Catching Fire is being used as an opportunity to sell makeup and fast-food sandwiches.

And we have a very simple response to that: Not on our watch.