7 ms·

This line does more than almost anything else I've read to explain the wealth disparity between the 1%ers and the rest of the world: > "Those are stakes of rou

This line does more than almost anything else I've read to explain the wealth disparity between the 1%ers and the rest of the world: > "Those are stakes of roughly $600,000 per minute, or $36 million per hour. (That nearly matches the 2017 gross domestic product of Tuvalu: $40 million.)"

forrestthewoods 8y ago
> wealth disparity between the 1%ers and the rest of the world To make the Global Top 1% you have to earn $32,400. [1] Being a billionaire puts you in the top .00003% of human. There are ~2200 billionaires out of 7.55 billion people.
- cyborgx7 8y ago
  Really puts in perspective how bad it has gotten.
  - barry-cotter 8y ago
    Indeed, we all long for the days, before 1800 or so, the overwhelming majority of human history, when the people living on more than $2 a day were a vanishingly small minority. The expansion of health, wealth, education and prosperity since WW2 has been particularly revolting. Education and lifespan have increased on every continent and wealth per person has increased on every continent bar Africa. This is not the wretched poverty, suffering and disease, the death in childbirth, the children dying in their droves in infancy that we deserve.
    - cyborgx7 8y ago
      Are you denying that the income and wealth disparity between the poor and the rich is currently widening?
      - beaconstudios 8y ago
        You're just sat in the 1%, looking up at the .01% and decrying the immorality of their success. Worldwide, the number of people living in extreme poverty has IIRC halved since the 90s. Fatal diseases in third world countries are being prevented. Things are getting better for the most vulnerable people but everyone is focused on how unjust it is that Warren Buffett or Jeff Bezos makes more than them. Why care?
        cyborgx7 8y ago
        I'm not in the 1%. The reason I care is because the primary reason for still so many people living in poverty, is the people hoarding money and doing what they can against anything that could change that.
        IncRnd 8y ago
        The people in the article aren't hoarding money. They are paying the salaries of many people with their gaming.
        cyborgx7 8y ago
        And afterwards they will still have thousands of times what regular people have.
        beaconstudios 8y ago
        so what? Should we all have the same, or similar? I would've thought the focus would be on lifting up the poorest, not bringing down the richest. If you bankrupted every billionaire in the world you could give everyone on the planet about $1000, and that's presuming that a) net worth estimates are accurate and b) liquidating a billionaire's net worth would actually result in that amount of cash (it wouldn't). Ultra-rich individuals hoarding money aren't exactly emptying out the economy.
        8y ago
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
- cyberferret 8y ago
  I originally phrased that sentence as "the 1% and the remaining 99%" but I changed it to "the 1%ers". I realised it isn't a 1-99% of the global population, but my understanding of the term "one percent-ers" is that it described the elite rich amongst even the elite rich, i.e. the multiple billionaires that are few and far between in society.
- toofy 8y ago
  > To make the Global Top 1% you have to earn $32,400 It always troubles me when people throw this global piece into it. This global number is absolutely meaningless outside of a regional and often even city based economy. The quality of life someone can purchase for their family with a $34,000 salary if we live in SF is a terrible and incredibly rough quality of life. When people speak about the 1%, they are typically speaking colloquially about the 1% from any given region. The quality of life one can purchase for their family with a $34,000 salary in NYC is still just awful when compared to quality of life of the richest people in China or the richest people in India.
  - mjfl 8y ago
    You'd still be living way better than the global 90%, who are living off rice and sleeping on dirt floors. I get your comment though, it's really inconvenient when people make you consider reality.
  - nostrademons 8y ago
    Anyone living on $34K in NYC has the option of living like a peasant in China, India, or even poorer countries. If you don't want to emigrate, you can do Peace Corps or other volunteer work and have all your expenses paid for, as well as still knowing that your American citizenship and all your assets will still be here when you get back. Relatively few people take advantage of this option. A very, very large number of people living in those countries are willing to risk everything for a shot at immigrating to the U.S. and living on a lot less than $34K in NYC. That should tell you something about the relative desirability of these lives for most people, even if the dollar amounts are unreliable. (BTW, the richest people in China and India are very rich, oftentimes richer than their counterparts in the U.S. - the article said that 50% of the occupants of the Boulevard Penthouses were from China. So that's not really a fair comparison. Take a population of 2.5B and compare it with a population of 300M and even if the means of the former are much lower, the outliers are likely to be higher.)
    - toofy 8y ago
      > Anyone living on $34K in NYC has the option of living like a peasant in China, India, or even poorer countries. If you don't want to emigrate, you can do Peace Corps or other volunteer work and have all your expenses paid for, as well as still knowing that your American citizenship and all your assets will still be here when you get back. Relatively few people take advantage of this option. A very, very large number of people living in those countries are willing to risk everything for a shot at immigrating to the U.S. and living on a lot less than $34K in NYC. Using an entire paragraph to simply restate the old saying "If you don't like the US of A, you can just get the hell out" doesn't make the argument any more compelling than it is as a simple sentence. Some of us would prefer to rather than point at the worst nations and say "Welp, guess we should stop asking questions because at least we don't have it that bad." that we should look at places who appear as if they may be doing better and ask "What are they doing differently from us? And can we emulate any of their policies to improve our own society?" Looking for new information in order to possibly optimize systems is logical from my perspective. But if you believe people should not be allowed to ask these questions unless they're first willing to "get the hell out" I suppose that is your prerogative.
- TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
  Did you intend to link a reference?

forrestthewoods 8y ago

> wealth disparity between the 1%ers and the rest of the world To make the Global Top 1% you have to earn $32,400. [1] Being a billionaire puts you in the top .00003% of human. There are ~2200 billionaires out of 7.55 billion people.

cyborgx7 8y ago
Really puts in perspective how bad it has gotten.
- barry-cotter 8y ago
  Indeed, we all long for the days, before 1800 or so, the overwhelming majority of human history, when the people living on more than $2 a day were a vanishingly small minority. The expansion of health, wealth, education and prosperity since WW2 has been particularly revolting. Education and lifespan have increased on every continent and wealth per person has increased on every continent bar Africa. This is not the wretched poverty, suffering and disease, the death in childbirth, the children dying in their droves in infancy that we deserve.
  - cyborgx7 8y ago
    Are you denying that the income and wealth disparity between the poor and the rich is currently widening?
    - beaconstudios 8y ago
      You're just sat in the 1%, looking up at the .01% and decrying the immorality of their success. Worldwide, the number of people living in extreme poverty has IIRC halved since the 90s. Fatal diseases in third world countries are being prevented. Things are getting better for the most vulnerable people but everyone is focused on how unjust it is that Warren Buffett or Jeff Bezos makes more than them. Why care?
      - cyborgx7 8y ago
        I'm not in the 1%. The reason I care is because the primary reason for still so many people living in poverty, is the people hoarding money and doing what they can against anything that could change that.
        IncRnd 8y ago
        The people in the article aren't hoarding money. They are paying the salaries of many people with their gaming.
        cyborgx7 8y ago
        And afterwards they will still have thousands of times what regular people have.
        beaconstudios 8y ago
        so what? Should we all have the same, or similar? I would've thought the focus would be on lifting up the poorest, not bringing down the richest. If you bankrupted every billionaire in the world you could give everyone on the planet about $1000, and that's presuming that a) net worth estimates are accurate and b) liquidating a billionaire's net worth would actually result in that amount of cash (it wouldn't). Ultra-rich individuals hoarding money aren't exactly emptying out the economy.
        8y ago
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
cyberferret 8y ago
I originally phrased that sentence as "the 1% and the remaining 99%" but I changed it to "the 1%ers". I realised it isn't a 1-99% of the global population, but my understanding of the term "one percent-ers" is that it described the elite rich amongst even the elite rich, i.e. the multiple billionaires that are few and far between in society.
toofy 8y ago
> To make the Global Top 1% you have to earn $32,400 It always troubles me when people throw this global piece into it. This global number is absolutely meaningless outside of a regional and often even city based economy. The quality of life someone can purchase for their family with a $34,000 salary if we live in SF is a terrible and incredibly rough quality of life. When people speak about the 1%, they are typically speaking colloquially about the 1% from any given region. The quality of life one can purchase for their family with a $34,000 salary in NYC is still just awful when compared to quality of life of the richest people in China or the richest people in India.
- mjfl 8y ago
  You'd still be living way better than the global 90%, who are living off rice and sleeping on dirt floors. I get your comment though, it's really inconvenient when people make you consider reality.
- nostrademons 8y ago
  Anyone living on $34K in NYC has the option of living like a peasant in China, India, or even poorer countries. If you don't want to emigrate, you can do Peace Corps or other volunteer work and have all your expenses paid for, as well as still knowing that your American citizenship and all your assets will still be here when you get back. Relatively few people take advantage of this option. A very, very large number of people living in those countries are willing to risk everything for a shot at immigrating to the U.S. and living on a lot less than $34K in NYC. That should tell you something about the relative desirability of these lives for most people, even if the dollar amounts are unreliable. (BTW, the richest people in China and India are very rich, oftentimes richer than their counterparts in the U.S. - the article said that 50% of the occupants of the Boulevard Penthouses were from China. So that's not really a fair comparison. Take a population of 2.5B and compare it with a population of 300M and even if the means of the former are much lower, the outliers are likely to be higher.)
  - toofy 8y ago
    > Anyone living on $34K in NYC has the option of living like a peasant in China, India, or even poorer countries. If you don't want to emigrate, you can do Peace Corps or other volunteer work and have all your expenses paid for, as well as still knowing that your American citizenship and all your assets will still be here when you get back. Relatively few people take advantage of this option. A very, very large number of people living in those countries are willing to risk everything for a shot at immigrating to the U.S. and living on a lot less than $34K in NYC. Using an entire paragraph to simply restate the old saying "If you don't like the US of A, you can just get the hell out" doesn't make the argument any more compelling than it is as a simple sentence. Some of us would prefer to rather than point at the worst nations and say "Welp, guess we should stop asking questions because at least we don't have it that bad." that we should look at places who appear as if they may be doing better and ask "What are they doing differently from us? And can we emulate any of their policies to improve our own society?" Looking for new information in order to possibly optimize systems is logical from my perspective. But if you believe people should not be allowed to ask these questions unless they're first willing to "get the hell out" I suppose that is your prerogative.
TheSpiceIsLife 8y ago
Did you intend to link a reference?