Just to nit pick the 80 richest people own as much as the poorest 50%, not half the world's wealth. Having said this Marx is looking more like a prophet and less like a fool every day.
"My niece, who just got her first 50 cents in pocket money, has more money than the poorest 2 billion people in the world combined."
http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2014/04/04/stop-adding...
The poorest person in the world is the rogue trader Jerome Kerviel - he owes $6B. He's vastly poorer than a homeowner who owes $500k on a mortgage, and this person in turn is vastly poorer than a homeless person who owes no one anything. Donald Trump has gone bankrupt a few times - it's quite possible he was the poorest person in the world at that point.
Jerome is far from the poorest person in the world since he is not starving - hundred of millions of people would swap places with him in an instant if they could.
As for Jerome Kerviel, take it up with the folks pushing this silly statistic. It's their methodology that counts him as the poorest person in the world.
It is defiantly a hard problem to know how to best compare wealth between groups, but as long as you keep the method the same then the delta does tell you something interesting. There does seem to be a massive increase in wealth concentration at the top, which I don’t think is a good thing.
This is why most people buy houses with a mortgage: because they'd rather live in a house today and pay it off for 30 years, than save up for 30 years (while living where?) and buy it in cash at the end. Lending is generally a good thing.
I'm not sure what to do about the cost of lending to the poor. Perhaps there should be government aid of some kind to help them find jobs or start a business. Ultimately, every person needs to make the decision for themselves about whether it's better to save and buy the things they need in cash, or take a loan to buy those things now.
Anyway, his theory on capital accumulation is based on a completely flawed framework, and completely useless for understand what's happening today. (Not a hard criticism of Marx, as most economists were using the same framework by the time - but a hard criticism of anybody that insists on pushing his theories around today.)
Correct.
US distribution of wealth
http://www.oxfam.org/sites/www.oxfam.org/files/bp-working-fo...
If there is a problem of wealth accumulation (there is on my country - but I have no idea about the global situation), the worse thing one can do is describe the problem using outdated models that are known to give very incorrect solutions for this exact problem.
Sorry but you've never read marx if you're saying that. Also check what a former national security advisor has to say on the matter.
"capitalistic accumulation itself... constantly produces, and produces in the direct ratio of its own energy and extent, a relatively redundant population of workers"
On the spying...
The (mass surveillance) by the NSA/others and abuse by law enforcement is just more part and parcel of state suppression of dissent against corporate interests. They're worried that the more people are going to wake up and corporate centers like the US and canada may be among those who also awaken. See this vid with Zbigniew Brzezinski, former United States National Security Advisor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7ZyJw_cHJY
Brezinski at a press conference
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWTIZBCQ79g
Major powers, and imposing control over the awakened masses.