Global Inequality

https://inequality.org/facts/global-inequality/

by shankarro • 5 years ago

51 80 5 years ago

inequality.org

sedeki• 5 years ago

Website crashes for me in Safari on mobile (whenever I click on the Tableau widget.)

adamnemecek2• 5 years ago

It makes no sense to compare GDP vs net worths of billionaires since one is annual, one is not.

pyromine• 5 years ago

I think there is times where comparing the ratio of economic stock vs. flow, i.e capital to wealth ratios, but yah the billionaire wealth to GDP comparisons just seem silly.

I get what they're trying to say, but it is the weakest way to argue their point.

onion2k• 5 years ago

They're both a measure of 'available' resources at a given time though.

adamnemecek2• 5 years ago

If you deplete one, it’s depleted. The other one is generated next year.

Gunax2• 5 years ago

My criticism has always been around the use of wealth as the indicator. I believe it is chosen instead of income primarily because:

1. It's perhaps easier to determine than income (especially for the ultra-wealthy, who often have negative-income in certain years).

2. The wealth-gap is much greater than the income gap, so leads to more dramatic-sounding statements.

But really what we care about is income--especially when one considers that wealth is just unspent income. And income is actually what determines lifestyle.

refurb4• 5 years ago

These are good points and to add on, what do they mean when they say “wealth”? Cash? Equities? Real estate? Precious metals? Artwork? Super cars?

Some of those are easy to measure and others aren’t.

So going by your statement “wealth is just unspent income”, depending on what they consider as “wealth”, you could have person A invest all their disposable income and person B spend all their disposable income. Then in the end analysis person A is wealthy and person B is not despite having the same income.

twblalock• 5 years ago

But really what we care about is income--especially when one considers that wealth is just unspent income. And income is actually what determines lifestyle.

Wealth can borrowed against, in many cases to pursue opportunities to build more wealth such as investing or purchasing rental properties. Wealth enables people to make choices that would be too risky to make for people who depend on an income, such as starting a business. Wealth ensures financial security even if one does not have an income. Wealth buys access and influence. Wealth can be inherited.

In other words, wealth is not just money, like income is. Wealth is a form of power.

imtringued2• 5 years ago

Yeah sure but the way the Fed decided to economic stimulus is basically money straight into your stocks. You don't have to do any productive work to earn money. That's one of the defining features of deflation.

djrobstep4• 5 years ago

Wealth is the correct metric to look at, because wealth generates the most unequal amounts of income, from unequal amounts of work, and even if not spent, is responsible for inequality perpetuating itself over multiple generations.

WalterBright20• 5 years ago

85% of American millionaires are self-made (didn't inherit it).

See the book "The Millionaire Next Door".

neolog• 5 years ago

But really what we care about is income
And income is actually what determines lifestyle.

I don't see why for either of those.

jstummbillig• 5 years ago

Wealth aligns more strongly with inequality because it is inherited. Income is to some part a product of your personal effort which acts as an equalizer. Inheritance very rarely is.

simonebrunozzi2• 5 years ago

I fully disagree.

If I had $10M, I could retire today, never work again in my life, and my income would be $0. However, I could easily spend $200k/year and have a great lifestyle, without reducing my wealth, inflation-wise. Some people say I could even spend as high as 4% of my wealth annually [0] - which I personally don't agree with.

Vice versa, if I had negative $200k wealth (student debt, etc), and an income of, say, $100k/year while living in the Bay area, I would probably remain "poor" and be constrained to a thrifty lifestyle for a long, long time.

[0] https://www.schwab.com/resource-center/insights/content/beyo...

BerislavLopac• 5 years ago

It sounds like the best measure would be neither wealth nor income, but expenditure...

refurb4• 5 years ago

Presumably if you had $10M it wouldn't sit under your mattress but at a minimum would be in a bank generating interest. So you would in fact have income.

Gunax2• 5 years ago

But how did you attain that wealth? Wealth is unspent income. You could have two individuals who earn $1000. But if one saves $1 and the other saves $100, then the latter is 100x wealthier. But is he really have 100x the lifestyle? No, one spent $999 and the other $900. They are approximately equal.

Considering that most people don't save anything (even in wealthy countries) it's not difficult to have 10x the average wealth.

Aunche• 5 years ago

Arguably it's consumption that is the most important metric. Not everyone earns income, but everyone consumes, from a trust-fund baby to a subsidence farmer.

refurb4• 5 years ago

So I'm a student in medical school that cost $50k per year, so I take out $80k in student loans to pay tuition and living expenses.

Is my $80k in consumption really a good measure of my wealth?

simonebrunozzi2• 5 years ago

10 Men Have As Much Wealth as Many Countries

Incorrect. They are comparing wealth with GDP, which would equate to comparing wealth with income.

Synaesthesia• 5 years ago

It's still a pretty staggering statistic. You really gotta ask, how wealthy does an individual have to be? It appears there is no limit, even beyond the wealth most people can even imagine.

Also these individuals' wealth did not derive from income.

username90• 5 years ago

Return on capital is also income. You should compare that with GDP. Also a better measure of gap between rich and poor since it says how big part of the GDP each group gets.

Wolfenstein98k2• 5 years ago

Why would there be a limit? How would you enforce it?

Much of this covers from options in the brands they built.

The stocks aren't being taken from anyone.

So... Why would there be a limit? How would you enforce it?

Emma_Goldman• 5 years ago

The title of the graph misleading, but they plainly say underneath:

"The world’s 10 richest billionaires, according to Forbes, own $801 billion in combined wealth, a sum greater than the total goods and services most nations produce on an annual basis, according to the International Monetary Fund"

__henil• 5 years ago

This website is heavier than a black hole and does not even show its content on firefox

LockAndLol• 5 years ago

By now probably most people are aware of these facts to some degree (not with exact numbers but an inkling). The problem is what to do with that information. So, a question to the rest of HN what are you doing to reduce wealth and income inequality?

Me? I'm voting for parties that want to tax the rich+wealthy (people and enterprises) for money coming in and out of the country (or the EU).

Further, I try my hardest not to buy from the biggest offenders nor to use their products: Apple, Google, Nestle, Facebook, Amazon, McDonalds, Samsung, LG, etc. I try to buy local products and order from local, national or intra-EU companies. Second-hand or refurbished too.

And of course consumption in general is low: goods, energy, water are restricted to the necessary. There aren't many things in my dwelling that I don't need or don't use.

It's not always possible, but an attempt is being made.

KozmoNau72• 5 years ago

I try to follow a similar path of buying local or at least from EU-based companies, organic where possible, and generally keep that in mind when buying something, plus try to look for second-hand whenever possible. Why would I buy a brand new amplifier and speakers or a brand-new bicycle, when the second-hand market is brimming with quality gear?

I also vote for the parties with the strongest climate and environmental policies, which is generally the most left-wing parties, so that also fits with my own views on most other things.

But like you, my consumption in general is very low, so even if "vote with your wallet" did work as advertised, it wouldn't be doing much at all, an absent vote is a much less powerful signal than an actively cast vote.

So I donate to worthy causes and try to argue my views online and encourage people to reduce the consumption, for what good that does.

We must turn this consumerism ship around, somehow.

alexashka• 5 years ago

There is attractiveness inequality, should we post graphs about that too?

It's not the inequality that's problematic and it'll always be there, it's what people do with it.

I'd say we have global stupidity and short sightedness with exceptions here and there and I'm not sure there was ever a time when this wasn't the case.

The obliviousness of the stupid people inhabiting this planet, gravely concerned with getting their bling on asap, no matter the cost to everyone and everything else, is what I'd most like to see gently exposed, comprehended and compensated for. This'll solve most problems for most people, including the stupid ones.

csomar• 5 years ago

Credit Suisse defines “wealth” as the value of a household’s financial assets plus real assets (principally housing), minus their debts.

This definition excludes a whole category of people: Those whose wealth is 0 (or even negative) but they are rich or at least living like rich people. If you own $10m in assets and have $10m in debt, your wealth is 0 but I'm pretty sure you are not poor. What's the percentage of such people in society? This should make inequality even worse.

Then you have a category of people who are not rich on paper but they have access to privileges (ie: government bureaucrats). As bad as inequality on these stats is, I think it's severely under-reported.

randomcarbloke• 5 years ago

There's nothing inherently wrong with inequality.

Wolfenstein98k2• 5 years ago

Stop asking if Peter has more than Paul, and instead focus on whether or not Paul has enough.

The individuals this article focuses on have almost all their wealth from options in their own companies - stocks they get by virtue of creating and running the company, which in turn skyrocket in value because they did a good job.

The money isn't being taken from anyone, except whoever wants to buy the shares.

You lose nothing if Musk's holdings grow by another 10% after Tesla sells lots of cars in China. Stop caring about it.

Global Inequality

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