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Richest 1% to own more than rest of world, Oxfam says
- corysama 12y agoAccording to http://www.globalrichlist.com/wealth http://www.globalrichlist.com/wealth you qualify as a global 1 percenter if your net wealth is >= $770,000. That makes you the 45,045,226th richest person on earth.
- aryehh 12y agoThanks for quantifying that. Knowing that threshold, rather than just an abstract "1%" is useful.
- jpollock 12y agoSo, just about anyone in West with a secure retirement and a house.
- modfodder 12y agothat's probably far fewer people than you think.
- riffraff 12y agoalso in many places it's common that the house is co-owned between partners (i.e. husband and wife), so the two should have wealth for 1.5M$. Also, debts.
- zaroth 12y agocorysama says 45,045,226 adults. If they were all in the US, that would be 18.5% of the US adult population. "Of the remaining 52% of global wealth, almost 46% is owned by the rest of the richest fifth of the world's population, Oxfam said." So that's 94% of human wealth concentrated in the top 20% of humans. Keep in mind the 80th percentile global wealth is, according to TFA, $3,851. To me, I see this as an incredible opportunity, because I imagine with a few dollars of computing power and a network connection, a human would have everything they need (except for the requisite food, water, shelter, freedom, safety, and education) to readily earn that. To me that means there's no need to drastically redistribute wealth. What we need to redistribute is basic human necessities. Anyone can be brought up to current 80th percentile if we can just provide the basics. The solution to that problem has confounded humankind since inception, but as hackers we believe technology holds the key to an answer. * Updated after jzwinck's reply.
- jzwinck 12y agoIf you exclude people under 18 then 45MM is a lot closer to 1%.
- CmonDev 12y agoYou mean babyboomers who stole their children's future?
- jnbiche 12y agoYou say that like it's a common thing for Westerners under 40 (and no, most of us aren't "on the path" to a secure retirement, either).
- Intermernet 12y agoAccording to the article: "That compares to an average wealth of $2.7m per adult for the elite 1%." The site you linked has no info (that I could find) regarding where they source their stats, as well as no info regarding how they process the numbers so I'd be a bit wary about trusting their figures. EDIT: That's not saying the numbers are wrong, if $2.7m is the average, then $770k could be the low end of the distribution. EDIT 2: After entering some numbers into their form, they finally show you who they are, and where they get their numbers. I really wish they had a link on their homepage with that info...
- corysama 12y agoGiven a power law curve with $770K at the low extreme, $2.7m does not seem like an unreasonable average amount. RichList puts $1.31m=0.5%, $2.7m=%0.16 and 13m=0.01% of the population. It also says that $1B puts you at #998 in the world. Oxfam claims that number recently grew to 1645 [1]. I can accept 998 as a calculated estimate based on somewhat outdated data. But, it's obviously not nearly perfect. [1] http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2014/oct/29/oxfam-report-220-years-richest-man-spend-wealth http://www.theguardian.com/news/datablog/2014/oct/29/oxfam-r...
- JDiculous 12y agoI'm -$110k in net worth (due to student loans). Wonder what percentile that makes me.
- deleted 12y ago[deleted]
- kolev 12y agoAnd we call ourselves "civilized"...
- vixen99 12y agoI think your comment is indefensible but you could try. Perhaps you could start by defining 'civilized' according to your preferred meaning. Meanwhile data from many sources tells us that the world is less violent, healthier, more tolerant, better educated and better fed then it’s ever been. Although there is an association, I think inequality per se is largely irrelevant to our real existing problems.
- coldtea 12y ago>Perhaps you could start by defining 'civilized' according to your preferred meaning. People that don't allow other people to die when there's wealth available.
- smanuel 12y agoAllow me to politely disagree with some of the statements. While I realize it's largely a matter of which glasses you've put on, I just can't easily agree with statements which sound like an excerpt from Bill Gates' annual letter. healthier - I definitely disagree. I can provide a lot of statistics about why I think it is so, but unfortunately I can't provide statistics about what I see happening around me. And sometimes it's scary. better educated - Disagree. I think there are huge problems with the education system and it's only baby steps that are taken to improve something. better fed - With what? So... I agree with "kolev" that these 1% could eventually put their money to better use. Maybe some of them are doing it.
- snitko 12y agoIt's bizarre to me that people prefer to focus on how much somebody owns rather than if he earned it honestly. If a person didn't steal, cheat or coerced anybody in the process of making his money, he is entitled to it. I don't care how rich he is, because he didn't do anything bad to anybody else. Then of course people say "but greed". Yes, as if only rich people are greedy and you are not.
- meric 12y agoYou could frame the report in terms of "How in equal are people in terms of the ability to generate wealth honestly?". I don't think the report mentioned anything about stealing, cheating or coercing. A janitor in Australia makes a whole lot more than a janitor in India, and is able to save a lot more after consuming the same amount of goods, for example. Both earned their wealth honestly but why is one wealthier than the other merely because of living in a different country? Statistics like these can provoke some good questions.
- afarrell 12y agoIf you buy something in a peaceful and non-coersive transaction from someone who burgled it, have you acquired it honestly?
- mc32 12y agoI think the honesty part is what bothers people. People want to know that wealth wasn't gained via dishonesty, favors, favoritism, advantage, etc. In some ways wealth accumulation, if not managed by government thru taxation or other means can snowball and can create power plays favoring the wealthy. So I think the drumbeat has to do with the 'pendulum' being perceived to be too much in the 'wealthy' phase. People would prefer to see less sharp inequality not so much the disappearance of it as that is also undesirable (being that it too is too artificial) One of the symptoms is the spread of CxO pay to staff pay. Or companies with record profits paying near minimum wage --sure it makes sense in pure competitive capitalism, but is that what is best for society? Should we govern those disparities more, would it make society at large better (result in better educated and more productive people with reduction in crime, etc?) Unrelated to this but nonetheless a question this brings up is how well could the world deal with 7billion people with incomes similar to middle income euro/nam/east Asians?
- meric 12y agoIt appears the report measures wealth rather than income. One can have negative wealth if the value of one's debt is greater than one's assets. A corollary is: If debt is eliminated, a lot of inequality goes out the window too - since one man's debt is another's asset, and the poorest have more debt than everyone else.
- known 12y agoMost people who are wealthy have wealthy parents. It is overwhelmingly the most common way to become wealthy. Virtually nobody makes it to "the top" solely through hard work. Wealthy people always extol the virtues of hard work, but the truth is that there is no amount of hard work will necessarily make you successful. There are too many people waiting with outstretched hands to take advantage of you, or feet waiting to trip you — mostly to assure that you don't threaten their success in this negative-sum game. http://www.monbiot.com/2011/11/07/the-self-attribution-fallacy http://www.monbiot.com/2011/11/07/the-self-attribution-falla...
- refurb 12y agoRoughly 80% of millionaires in the US are first generation (their parents weren't rich). http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/real-1-percent http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/real-1-percent
- illumen 12y agoDo you know what's cool?
- grimmfang 12y agoMillionaires are most certainly not the subject of his comment.
- refurb 12y agoHe used the term "wealthy". Is having more than $1M not wealthy? The tax codes suggests it is.
- jnbiche 12y ago>The tax codes suggests it is Yes, and this is a problem. We tax people who have $1M net worth far too much, and people who have $10M+ net worths (the true 1%) far too little. Edit: Clarified that I meant to refer to net worth, which is far more useful to talk about.
- DanBC 12y agoMore or less covered a similar statistic - that the wealthiest 1% own more than the rest put together (totally not true) or that the wealthiest 1% own more than the bottom 50% combined (true but not in a useful or interesting way). http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04xf1d5 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04xf1d5 To be in the top 1% you need net assets of over about £500,000 - and this includes your house if you' e paid off the mortgage.
- known 12y ago80 rich people now have as much as 50% of the rest of humanity combined. http://qz.com/329099/80-rich-people-now-have-as-much-as-50-of-the-rest-of-humanity-combined/ http://qz.com/329099/80-rich-people-now-have-as-much-as-50-o...