Report: Eight Men Own the Same Amount of Wealth as the Poorest Half of the World���s Population

Oxfam, the popular confederation of global charities that has as its central mission the alleviation of poverty around the world, issued a report on Monday that identifies eight individuals, all men, who together own as much wealth as that owned by the poorest half of the world���s population.

The eight named by the group are: Microsoft���s Bill Gates; Amancio Ortega, founder of Spanish multinational clothing giant Inditex; legendary investor Warren Buffett; Mexican telecom tycoon Carlos Slim; Amazon head Jeff Bezos; Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook; Larry Ellison, co-founder of Oracle; and Michael Bloomberg, founder of the global financial services and mass media company that bears his name, as well as the former Mayor of New York City.

Economic inequality has become a more concerning topic in recent years, as the distance between the ���haves��� and the have-nots��� continues to grow ever-wider. The increasing means of so-called elites���such as the eight men identified by Oxfam as owning so much of the world���s wealth���has brought the issue of globalism front and center. Moreover, it has helped to energize what has become an outright populist revolt in many nations of the developed world, nations long considered to be in the camp of those supportive of something that resembles a one-world government.

���We see a lot of hand-wringing - and clearly Trump's victory and Brexit gives that new impetus this year - but there is a lack of concrete alternatives to business as usual,��� said Max Lawson, Oxfam's head of policy, commenting about the existing challenges to changing the trend.

���There are different ways of running capitalism that could be much, much more beneficial to the majority of people,��� Lawson said.

By Robert G. Yetman, Jr. Editor At Large