A NEW report by Swiss Bank Credit Suisse announces that the richest one per cent of the world’s population own half of the world's wealth.

The study, Global Wealth Report, also shows that the global banking crash has assisted, not impeded, the accumulation of obscene wealth by the one per cent super-rich.

Its proportion of the world's wealth has risen from 42.5% at the time of the crisis to 50.1% today.

No "austerity" for them then.

Given the revelations in the Paradise and Panama papers about the super-rich hiding their inordinate wealth from the taxman, these shocking figures are almost certainly underestimates.

Still more significant is this study’s estimate that the world's wealthiest 10% own a staggering 87.8% of global wealth.

Here we have the statistical, underlying reason and explanation for world poverty, social inequality, crime, drug and alcohol abuse, homelessness, and a whole host of other socio-economic problems in the capitalist world.

As long as almost 90% of the world's cake is being eaten by the voracious super rich the masses of the world will continue their subsistence existence on the crumbs from the remaining ten per cent.

James Roberts, Wallasey