Oxfam  international published an article “Working for the Few” in  January 2014. Here is an extract:

“In November 2013, the World Economic Forum released its ‘Outlook on the Global Agenda 2014’, in which it ranked widening income disparities as the second greatest worldwide risk in the coming 12 to 18 months. Based on those surveyed, inequality is ‘impacting social stability within countries and threatening security on a global scale. Take a look at this:
– Almost half of the world’s wealth is now owned by just one percent of the population.
– The wealth of the one percent richest people in the world amounts to $110 trillion. That’s 65 times the total wealth of the bottom half of the world’s population.
– The bottom half of the world’s population owns the same as the richest 85 people in the world.
– The richest one percent increased their share of income in 24 out of 26 countries for which we have data between 1980 and 2012.
– In the US, the wealthiest one percent captured 95 percent of post-financial crisis growth since 2009, while the bottom 90 percent became poorer.
This massive concentration of economic resources in the hands of fewer people presents a significant threat to inclusive political and economic systems. Instead of moving forward together, people are increasingly separated by economic and political power, inevitably heightening social tensions and increasing the risk of societal breakdown…”

As the rich increase in number, the poor also increase and the gap widens.
I feel that many times when we talk about the poor and poverty many people do not understand what we are talking about.

Poverty is not about numbers, it’s about people. It’s about families and communities. People who do not have food to eat, cloths to wear or a place to sleep. Parents who have children but do not know how long they would live because they can’t feed them or  pay the hospital bills or buy drugs for their illnesses. That’s what poverty is… it takes everything away from you.

When the world calls for empowerment of the poor, all people think about is how to throw money at them. Giving them little change to feed as if they are beggars. Has this solved the problem? I ask you. Will it solve the problem?

Even if all the money of the rich is given to the poor, will it solve the problem of increasing economic inequality? No,it won’t. You know why? It’s because the rich have 2 things the poor do not have.
A wealth mindset and Financial Education.

A wealth mindset keeps your eye focused on the money and you see money making opportunities almost everywhere even in a financial crisis as the millionaires in US showed us after their own crisis.

Financial Education is important because this helps you preserve the wealth. This type of education is not taught in regular schools but it helps you create, manage and multiply your money.

Rather than a focus on Poverty and trying to fight it wouldn’t it be better to have a focus on Personal Finance and Wealth. Rather than Poverty Summits and Workshops to Eradicate Poverty can’t we have Wealth Creation Workshops and Personal Financial Education Courses. Rather than find ways to weaken the rich so the poor could be strengthened which is a system that will fail would it not be better to ask the rich in addition to their philanthropy to teach people how to acquire, manage and multiply wealth that way both parties will be empowered and their economic gap closed.

Ignorance can only be helped by enlightenment.Enlightenment comes from Education. The more financially educated people are the more they can help their communities and other people. An education in personal finance is a sure way to eradicate poverty if we are serious about it.