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Did you know that the top 1% has more wealth than the rest of the planet combined? And just 62 ultra-wealthy members of the elite have as much money as the poorest 3.5 billion people on the entire planet. These brand new numbers come from a shocking report that was just put out by Oxfam, and they show that income inequality continues to grow at a very rapid pace all over the world. As you will see below, the total wealth of the poorest half of the global population has plunged by 41 percent since 2010 while the wealth of the elite has continued to surge upward. The debt-based financial system that now has the entire planet in its grip funnels wealth to the very top, and the global elite are more than happy to hoard as much of it as they possibly can.

In our world, money is power, and the elite are continually becoming more powerful. The following comes from the Independent, and I think that these numbers truly speak for themselves…

Wealth inequality has grown to the stage where 62 of the world’s richest people own as much as the poorest half of humanity combined, according to a new report. The research, conducted by the charity Oxfam, found that the wealth of the poorest half of the world’s population – 3.6 billion people – has fallen by 41 percent, or a trillion US dollars, since 2010. While this group has become poorer, the wealth of the richest 62 people on the planet has increased by more than half a trillion dollars to $1.76 trillion.

Back in 2010, 388 members of the elite had as much wealth as the poorest half of humanity. But since then that number has been steadily falling and now it is down to just 62. At this pace, Oxfam is projecting that in just a few years a single person will have as much money as the poorest half of the global population combined.

As I mentioned above, a big reason for this trend is the financialization of the global economy. All over the world, governments, businesses and individuals have been trained to binge on debt, and all of this debt is systematically impoverishing us. Whenever we borrow money, we always have to pay back more than we borrow, and this funnels wealth to the very top of the pyramid.

Since the last financial crisis, the total amount of debt in the world has absolutely exploded. At this point it is sitting at more than 200 trillion dollars, and all of that debt enriches the ruling class. The more money they get, the more they are able to impose their will on the rest of us, and that is not a good thing.

You may think that you can change your destiny at the ballot box, but history has shown that this is a rather fruitless exercise. The candidate with the most money almost always wins, and so the elite just buy and sell politicians like trading cards. And most politicians are members of the elite anyway. In the end, it is very rare to see a true “outsider” have any sort of sustained success in the political arena.

Unfortunately for the elite, the massive global financial bubble they have created is beginning to burst, and this could have very serious consequences for them. As USA Today is reporting, many of the elite are in a rather glum mood as they gather in Davos, Switzerland for their yearly confab…

Among the elite 2,500 executives and world leaders slouching toward Davos by train, Mercedes limo and helicopter this year, there is a single, depressing refrain — at least it’s not 2008. There’s nothing to focus the mind of the collective corporate aristocracy like a markets crisis, and January 2016 hasn’t failed to deliver. While European markets were stable Monday after last week’s brutal sell-off, oil continued to fall as Iran prepares to dump 500,000, sanction-free barrels a day on world markets.

I talked about the nightmarish oil crash that we are witnessing in my latest article on The Economic Collapse Blog. This oil crash has pushed markets all over the world into bear market territory, and panic is spreading like wildfire. The following list from Wolf Richter shows just some of the major stock markets that have now fallen more than 20 percent from the peak…

France: -20.6 percent

Germany: -23.3 percent

Sweden: -24.0 percent

Singapore: -27.0 percent

Canada: -27.5 percent

Spain: -28.5 percent

Hong Kong: -32.7 percent

Brazil: -37.5 percent

China (Shanghai Composite): -43.7 percent

Italy: -45.1 percent

Saudi Arabia: -50.4 percent

If the damage stopped here, it would still be a major crisis. But at this point there are many analysts that are forecasting that this new crisis will ultimately turn out to be far worse than what we experienced in 2008. One of those analysts is Albert Edwards of Societe Generale…

Albert Edwards, an analyst from french bank Societe Generale, predicts global deflation is going to wipe out 75 percent of the value from the S&P 500. Edwards’ warning comes on the heels of last weeks drastic and ongoing devaluation of the Chinese currency, tanking oil prices, and major stock selloffs throughout the worlds markets. In his stark investment note to clients Friday, Edwards blamed the present market turbulence on the Federal Reserve and its British and European central bank counterparts for introducing Quantitative Easing (QE) schemes to their markets, which first began the inflation in prices globally.

If Albert Edwards is right and we do see a 75 percent decline of the S&P 500, the global economy will plunge into a full-blown depression. Big financial institutions will implode left and right, and we will experience a “credit crunch” far greater than what we witnessed in 2008 and 2009. The banks that survive won’t want to lend to one another or to anyone else, and economic activity will grind to a standstill.

What that will mean for ordinary people is this – millions of jobs will be lost and millions of families will no longer be able to pay their bills. Poverty and homelessness will absolutely explode, and economic despair will be everywhere.

The elite will suffer too, but it is during times of great crisis that the elite make their boldest moves. They love to create order out of chaos, and they love to offer us “solutions” for problems that they originally had a hand in creating.

As bad as things are right now, the truth is that they are about to get a lot worse. And the eventual “solutions” that we will be offered will inevitably result in even more power and more money ending up in their hands.

The game is rigged and the elite are running the show.

But when the wheels of the bus come off this time, will the elite be able to retain control?

Only time will tell…