Who Says the Age of Monarchy is Dead?

It's not dead. It's just under new management.

Today's monarchs, about 62 in total, own more wealth than half of the world's population. That's 62 versus 3.6 billion. That's 62 monstrously rich motherfuckers.

An Economy for the 1%, a report by anti-poverty NGO Oxfam, said although the number of people living in extreme poverty halved between 1990 and 2010, the average annual income of the poorest 10 percent has risen by less than $3 a year in the past quarter of a century.

An even starker figure was the charity's finding that just 62 people — 53 of them men — own as much wealth as half the world's population. This figure has fallen from 388 five years ago.

The wealth of the poorest half of the world's population — more than 3.6 billion people — has fallen by a trillion dollars (41 percent) since 2010. Meanwhile the value of the richest 62 people has increased by more than half a trillion dollars to $1.76 trillion.

"Far from trickling down, income and wealth are instead being sucked upwards at an alarming rate," the report said.

It's not just the great unwashed who are being fleeced. The middle class are also falling prey to vampire economics, the vast unearned transfer of wealth out of the working classes and into the bank vaults of the ultra wealthy.

And the best part. All that will stop the day your government stops making it happen. What, your government is responsible for most of this? Yeah, that's right. If you don't get it, talk to Joe Stiglitz and if you can't reach Joe, read his books.