Why the rich need to learn to share

SO here’s the problem. Rich people just keep getting richer while much worse off people are stuck in a revolving door of poverty and lack of opportunity. 

Common statistics reveal that the wealthiest 2 per cent of the world’s population own at least 50 per cent of global riches. 

And the reason this 2 per cent of the world’s population are so rich is because they earn gargantuan incomes, therefore leaving the remaining 98 per cent poor. Millionaires and billionaires create poverty.

In fact, the majority of people are poor in the world simply because they are exploited by a rich minority.  And sadly our current form of capitalism supports and encourages this to happen. 

A shining example of this popped up in the newspapers this week, when it was reported that CEOs earn 354 times more than the average worker.

The study undertaken in the USA, shows that Chief Executives of America’s largest companies earned an average of $12.3 million (€9.41 million) in total pay last year, or 354 times more than a typical American worker. 

Topping the pay-packet money charts last year in the US was Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, who took home $96.1 million (€73.5 million) in pay. Other big-time earners took home salaries in excess of $50 million (€38.24 million)

While CEO’s may have built up successful companies, nobody deserves to take home such ridiculous amounts, especially when the majority of the working population is struggling.

Often, big CEO’s end up being nothing more than paper-pushers, while the ground force are the ones that do the real hard labour.

Yet the average worker still struggles to make ends meet, their wages are stagnant and their companies try to take away their health care and pensions, just so that one or two people can get even richer. 

It’s time to spread the wealth more evenly amongst workers. The discrepancy between high-wage-earners and low-wage-earners is beyond madness.

It’s simple mathematics that the average worker is being taken for a ride!