4 ms·

Just 8 men own same wealth as half the world

26 points by wowsig 9y ago

coleifer 9y ago
For that reason we should all be grateful that money doesn't buy happiness.
- Consultant32452 9y ago
  https://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2013/05/10/money-does-buy-happiness-says-new-study/#2d4c36d56150 https://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2013/05/10/money-doe... Money does buy happiness. In the US, though, only up to about $75k/yr.
kolbe 9y ago
I was under the impression about half the world had zero or negative wealth. Is this one of those statements where you could also say someone with $1000 net worth also has more than half the world, but they chose the billionaires to be more inflammatory? Or was the 50% line chosen because the 45% of the world has zero/negative wealth, and 8 billionaires happen to have more than than sliver of 5% in between?
- dogma1138 9y ago
  If you go just by the statement of current accounts then the poorest half isn’t who you think they are. If you live in some underdeveloped country and live on 1 dollar a day you also often don’t have debt because you are unable to acquire it. That said it’s also hard to claim that some middle or lower middle class family in a western county with 100-150,000 dollars in long term debt e.g. because of a mortgage is poorer than some poor guy in Bangladesh that would not be able to be in any institutionalized debt in their life because of just how poor they are. Negative wealth is arguably a privilege of the lucky.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
rvern 9y ago
Do they consume as much as half the world? If the money is invested, where's the problem? Wealth inequality only matters for the well-being of the poor insofar as it affects consumption inequality. Why not talk about how much more they consume than everyone else instead of how much more wealth they have? Because talking about wealth makes for better rhetoric: wealth is understood as an indicator of social status and Oxfam doesn't think the very rich should have that much social status. It has nothing to do with the economic well-being of the poor. http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/07/xxxxxxx.html http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/07/xxx...
- dpwm 9y ago
  The assets of those eight are almost certainly going to be invested, so it's not really as if they can spend all the money without changing the value of the assets that make up their wealth. However, absence of evidence of a consumption inequality comparable match the wealth inequality does not imply there is no consumption inequality -- something which really cannot be denied -- it just won't be as horrific a ratio as with wealth, but it could still be quite eye-opening. For what it's worth, I very much doubt the eight wealthiest are the top eight consumers.
dagw 9y ago
This again. This comes out every year and is equally misleading each time. Here's an article from 2014 going into exactly why it's misleading http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26613682 http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26613682
- dpwm 9y ago
  That reference you give cites two people. The first makes the point that low wealth does not mean you are poor, citing students in debt in western countries as an example. Some would disagree with the assertion that having a net worth of less than zero does not make you poor, but that's beside the point. There's a lot of subtlety that is conveniently ignored in the analysis of the article you linked to. If you're in a Western country you benefit from goods made in countries where wages are very low and the cost of living is low. People of these countries cannot access many of the commodities that westerners can, such as oil, which generally has a worldwide price floor. That is, despite the price of food fluctuating between countries, the price of oil does not. That oil represents a natural resource that many in the west can enjoy, but the bottom 10% on < $2 per day cannot. How much of our development, how much of our lifestyles in the West are dependent upon being able to afford oil? Does an entrepreneur in Central African Republic have the same access to cheap manufacturing (relative to their earning ability) in the same way that an entrepreneur in the West does. No. The second person used in the article to "explain" why the figure is misleading, despite having a career made largely on the back of denying wealth inequality as a problem and the link being to a website called "cafe hayek", merely divides $17.5 trillion by the population of the world at the time and gets approximately the same as what I do. What, precisely, did the top eight do that was so great a service to humanity that it entitles them to the same* purchasing power of natural resources as the poorest half of the world, especially given that the more valuable resources accumulated over millions of years? There's at least three of those figures whose vehicles of wealth accumulation are not universally worshipped in this community: Bill Gates (Microsoft), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) and Larry Ellison (Oracle). *ignoring asset liquidity, which is arguably a big problem when discussing the assets of the super rich. EDIT: to "debunk" this claim -> to "explain" why the figure is misleading
  - 9y ago
rglullis 9y ago
These Oxfam reports always go for the sensationalist headline, but it is utterly meaningless. By their measure, some middle-class family with a mortgage (which implies access to credit markets, jobs, stability and all of the comforts of a healthy economy) is in worse situation than some homeless person and no debt.
- dpwm 9y ago
  Wealth is wealth. Income is income. Here's an analysis of income of the wealthiest by Oxfam: https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2013-01-19/annual-income-richest-100-people-enough-end-global-poverty-four https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2013-01-19/...

26 points by wowsig 9y ago

coleifer 9y ago

For that reason we should all be grateful that money doesn't buy happiness.

Consultant32452 9y ago
https://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2013/05/10/money-does-buy-happiness-says-new-study/#2d4c36d56150 https://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2013/05/10/money-doe... Money does buy happiness. In the US, though, only up to about $75k/yr.

kolbe 9y ago

I was under the impression about half the world had zero or negative wealth. Is this one of those statements where you could also say someone with $1000 net worth also has more than half the world, but they chose the billionaires to be more inflammatory? Or was the 50% line chosen because the 45% of the world has zero/negative wealth, and 8 billionaires happen to have more than than sliver of 5% in between?

dogma1138 9y ago
If you go just by the statement of current accounts then the poorest half isn’t who you think they are. If you live in some underdeveloped country and live on 1 dollar a day you also often don’t have debt because you are unable to acquire it. That said it’s also hard to claim that some middle or lower middle class family in a western county with 100-150,000 dollars in long term debt e.g. because of a mortgage is poorer than some poor guy in Bangladesh that would not be able to be in any institutionalized debt in their life because of just how poor they are. Negative wealth is arguably a privilege of the lucky.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

rvern 9y ago

Do they consume as much as half the world? If the money is invested, where's the problem? Wealth inequality only matters for the well-being of the poor insofar as it affects consumption inequality. Why not talk about how much more they consume than everyone else instead of how much more wealth they have? Because talking about wealth makes for better rhetoric: wealth is understood as an indicator of social status and Oxfam doesn't think the very rich should have that much social status. It has nothing to do with the economic well-being of the poor. http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/07/xxxxxxx.html http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/07/xxx...

dpwm 9y ago
The assets of those eight are almost certainly going to be invested, so it's not really as if they can spend all the money without changing the value of the assets that make up their wealth. However, absence of evidence of a consumption inequality comparable match the wealth inequality does not imply there is no consumption inequality -- something which really cannot be denied -- it just won't be as horrific a ratio as with wealth, but it could still be quite eye-opening. For what it's worth, I very much doubt the eight wealthiest are the top eight consumers.

dagw 9y ago

This again. This comes out every year and is equally misleading each time. Here's an article from 2014 going into exactly why it's misleading http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26613682 http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26613682

dpwm 9y ago
That reference you give cites two people. The first makes the point that low wealth does not mean you are poor, citing students in debt in western countries as an example. Some would disagree with the assertion that having a net worth of less than zero does not make you poor, but that's beside the point. There's a lot of subtlety that is conveniently ignored in the analysis of the article you linked to. If you're in a Western country you benefit from goods made in countries where wages are very low and the cost of living is low. People of these countries cannot access many of the commodities that westerners can, such as oil, which generally has a worldwide price floor. That is, despite the price of food fluctuating between countries, the price of oil does not. That oil represents a natural resource that many in the west can enjoy, but the bottom 10% on < $2 per day cannot. How much of our development, how much of our lifestyles in the West are dependent upon being able to afford oil? Does an entrepreneur in Central African Republic have the same access to cheap manufacturing (relative to their earning ability) in the same way that an entrepreneur in the West does. No. The second person used in the article to "explain" why the figure is misleading, despite having a career made largely on the back of denying wealth inequality as a problem and the link being to a website called "cafe hayek", merely divides $17.5 trillion by the population of the world at the time and gets approximately the same as what I do. What, precisely, did the top eight do that was so great a service to humanity that it entitles them to the same* purchasing power of natural resources as the poorest half of the world, especially given that the more valuable resources accumulated over millions of years? There's at least three of those figures whose vehicles of wealth accumulation are not universally worshipped in this community: Bill Gates (Microsoft), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) and Larry Ellison (Oracle). *ignoring asset liquidity, which is arguably a big problem when discussing the assets of the super rich. EDIT: to "debunk" this claim -> to "explain" why the figure is misleading
- 9y ago

rglullis 9y ago

These Oxfam reports always go for the sensationalist headline, but it is utterly meaningless. By their measure, some middle-class family with a mortgage (which implies access to credit markets, jobs, stability and all of the comforts of a healthy economy) is in worse situation than some homeless person and no debt.

dpwm 9y ago
Wealth is wealth. Income is income. Here's an analysis of income of the wealthiest by Oxfam: https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2013-01-19/annual-income-richest-100-people-enough-end-global-poverty-four https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2013-01-19/...