62 richest on Earth Now Hold As Much Wealth As The Poorest 3.5 billion People

[DireWolfSpirit]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/global-wealth-inequality_56991defe4b0ce4964242e09

Income inequality has never been greater. Read the article and discuss your impressions of this trend.

[Bonesy]

Not surprising at all.

[DireWolfSpirit]

I'm currently looking for an image that compares 62 and 3.5 billion along side each other to get some kind of scale of it.

There's this, but I don't think it really does the enormity in difference of scale justice.

[Guest]

The really important take way from this is that these 62 people have a combined character equal to (or likely greater than)  these 3.5 billion lesser souls.

[Bonesy]

Agreed.

May I humbly state that we should do what little we can as individuals to oppose this, even while many of our supposed allies castigate us for doing so?

[litechick]

Statistics like this are so meaningless.  I say that because my understanding of the term 'wealth' is that you take the cash value of all your assets and subtract the amount you owe.  By that measure I would have negative wealth and so would many people who own homes, cars, etc.  Thoreau in his DIY shack on Walden pond would have more 'wealth' than me, assuming he had no debts.

Nevertheless if I was measured by the luxuries to which I have access--home, car, electricity, clean drinking water, etc--I would be much 'wealthier' than a person whose net worth is much higher than mine.

If you divide 1.76 trillion by 3.5 billion each of us would get about $500.  That would be huge for some people but for me it would be less than a month's rent.

Stop focusing on wealthy people as the source of the problem.

[Squab]

Hasn't poverty been falling, not only in percentage of population but, in absolute numbers since about the 70's?  Numbers

Makes me think this is less about helping the poor and more about hating the rich.

 

The really important take way from this is that these 62 people have a combined character equal to (or likely greater than)  these 3.5 billion lesser souls.

While income and character are not usually related, in some cases it might seem so.

[Arkhangel]

Agreed, Squab. Those greedy no-longer-living-in-absolute-poverty bastards are so selfish. Won't anyone spare a tear for the multi-billionaires?

[DireWolfSpirit]

Hasn't poverty been falling, not only in percentage of population but, in absolute numbers since about the 70's?  Numbers

Makes me think this is less about helping the poor and more about hating the rich.

 

While income and character are not usually related, in some cases it might seem so.

Which part of the article specifically makes you think it was about hating the rich? I got a sense they were attempting to make a case that the growing wealth concentration into too small a group was restricting consumer demand and overall growth to economies?

 

Kripke also points out that wide inequality is no longer seen as an unfortunate consequence of economic growth. Now many economists -- most famously Thomas Piketty -- contend that gross inequality actually slows down growth, as fewer people can afford to buy stuff, and creates 

economic and political instability

.

Indeed, Piketty says extreme wealth inequality helps fuel instability in the Middle East.

[DireWolfSpirit]

Statistics like this are so meaningless.  I say that because my understanding of the term 'wealth' is that you take the cash value of all your assets and subtract the amount you owe.  By that measure I would have negative wealth and so would many people who own homes, cars, etc.  Thoreau in his DIY shack on Walden pond would have more 'wealth' than me, assuming he had no debts.

Nevertheless if I was measured by the luxuries to which I have access--home, car, electricity, clean drinking water, etc--I would be much 'wealthier' than a person whose net worth is much higher than mine.

If you divide 1.76 trillion by 3.5 billion each of us would get about $500.  That would be huge for some people but for me it would be less than a month's rent.

Stop focusing on wealthy people as the source of the problem.

Do you think focusing on wealth concentration causes harm to economic growth?

[Guest]

Wealth concentration is a huge problem politically and may be driving the populist sentiment on US and Europe

[SeanF]

7 hours ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/global-wealth-inequality_56991defe4b0ce4964242e09

Income inequality has never been greater. Read the article and discuss your impressions of this trend.

It doesn't mean much unless you adjust for local purchasing power.

Having net assets of £573,000 puts you in the top 1% globally.  That'll buy you nice flat in central London, but a huge mansion in places like the Phillipines or Sri Lanka.  Most of us would consider that mansion-owners in the Phillipines or Sri Lanka have a higher standard of living than flat owners in central London, albeit, they run higher risks in terms of political instability and adverse weather conditions.

Net assets of £50,000 put you in the top 10% globally.  That would buy you nothing in London, but still a very decent house in many parts of the world.

 

[Bennis of the Brown Shield]

7 hours ago, litechick said:

Statistics like this are so meaningless.  I say that because my understanding of the term 'wealth' is that you take the cash value of all your assets and subtract the amount you owe.  By that measure I would have negative wealth and so would many people who own homes, cars, etc.  Thoreau in his DIY shack on Walden pond would have more 'wealth' than me, assuming he had no debts.

Nevertheless if I was measured by the luxuries to which I have access--home, car, electricity, clean drinking water, etc--I would be much 'wealthier' than a person whose net worth is much higher than mine.

If you divide 1.76 trillion by 3.5 billion each of us would get about $500.  That would be huge for some people but for me it would be less than a month's rent.

Stop focusing on wealthy people as the source of the problem.

This. 

Hence why serious people (not the Huffington Post) use measures like the Gini coefficient to gauge income inequality, not "holding wealth". 

Then it looks something like this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gini_coefficient#/media/File:Gini_since_WWII.svg 

So countries such as the UK, the USA, China and India have experienced growing income inequality since the end of WW2, whereas in many other major countries it has been relatively stable or even decreased. 

[Sir Thursday]

4 hours ago, GrapefruitPerrier said:

Wealth concentration is a huge problem politically and may be driving the populist sentiment on US and Europe

I would argue that the increased ability of non-establishment candidates to reach voters due to the internet and associated technologies is a bigger driver in that, but I suspect that's a discussion to be had in another thread.

ST

[DireWolfSpirit]

4 hours ago, SeanF said:

It doesn't mean much unless you adjust for local purchasing power.

Having net assets of £573,000 puts you in the top 1% globally.  That'll buy you nice flat in central London, but a huge mansion in places like the Phillipines or Sri Lanka.  Most of us would consider that mansion-owners in the Phillipines or Sri Lanka have a higher standard of living than flat owners in central London, albeit, they run higher risks in terms of political instability and adverse weather conditions.

Net assets of £50,000 put you in the top 10% globally.  That would buy you nothing in London, but still a very decent house in many parts of the world.

 

Expat retirement communities are growing fast in places like Panama and Costa Rica and that local purchasing power is a huge factor for increasing amounts of Western pensioners.

[The Anti-Targ]

Seems that a large part of the problem, according to the article I read, is that the very rich are avoiding taxes by putting significant amounts of their wealth in tax havens, and if they paid the taxes that they would normally have to pay, which would still leave them extremely wealthy, then a lot more could be done in terms of health and education, especially in the developing world. According to the article I read the very rich in Africa are avoiding paying taxes that could be used to provide healthcare to millions and ensure all children in Africa could go to school and get a reasonable level of education.

Being a global problem it really means sorting out the international finance system rather than dealing with the super-rich directly. Basically, eliminating tax havens means the super rich and the multinational corps wouldn't be able to squirrel away large amounts of their wealth to avoid paying taxes. And that would actually go a long way. Apparently $190 of potential tax revenue is lost to the US govt through tax havens. If Bernie Sanders wants universal healthcare, right there is large chunk of the cost of UHC without having to raise a single tax, which the super-rich and the major corps would just work harder to avoid anyway.

[sologdin]

when 62 persons have the same economic decision-making power as 3.5B persons, there's a defect in the democratic disposition of economic resources.  this is a political proposition anterior to any question of economics.  it's beyond outrage, and to minimize it is likewise beyond outrage.

[DireWolfSpirit]

I was quite shocked to realize that it only took the richest 62 people to equal these 3.5 billion persons collectively. Now if the article had said the 62 largest corporations or something similar, I might not have been so surprised by this. The article noted that 5 years ago it took the richest 388 people to equal the collective lower half (wealth wise) of humanities resources.

At this rate in another 5 years , one has to wonder whether the number will be something akin to- "Richest 10 people now equal the 4 billion poorest on the planet"?

At what point does this become unsustainable? Are there any signs the trend is slowing, or can we expect wealth to concentrate into ever smaller pockets?

[Spring Bass]

Keep in mind this is wealth, not income. Wealth is very unequal even in rich countries, and considering that more than two-thirds of humanity earns less than $10/day, it's not surprising there are some extreme wealth inequalities. Most of the world's population just doesn't accumulate enough earnings after expenses to amount to much wealth, and their assets are often poorly defined or measured (especially land rights in places like Africa). 

 

Quote

 

 

[Spring Bass]

Ugh, I totally botched the quote function on that. 

At what point does this become unsustainable? Are there any signs the trend is slowing, or can we expect wealth to concentrate into ever smaller pockets?

I think it will eventually decline, especially with China and other developing countries getting richer (at least until the recent downturn). China especially is pulling up the bottom, and that's eventually going to show up in average wealth statistics.