Designed by the rich for the rich, the national and international rules of our world are stacked against the poor, and they are falling ever farther behind. Our politicians keep telling us that the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) are the greatest concerted effort against poverty in the history of humankind and have lifted hundreds of millions of people out of poverty. The truth is far less inspiring. Instead of taking pride in slight improvements, we should be ashamed of the massive persistence of severe poverty that is today so easily avoidable through small reductions in global inequality. The richest 1% of humanity now own 48.2% of global private wealth; the poorer half own just 0.7%, as much as the world’s 66 richest billionaires.