85 people own half of the world's wealth

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2014-01-20/the-worlds-85-richest-now-worth-as-much-as-3-dot-5-billion-poorest

by anigbrowl • 13 years ago

8 2 13 years ago

hughdbrown• 13 years ago

Another bad title.The article says:

"The poorest half of the world’s population—that’s 3.5 billion people—control as much wealth as the richest 85 individuals."

and:

"The world’s richest 1 percent control nearly 50 percent of global wealth."

Right? Those are not the same thing.

kevin_bauer• 13 years ago

Sadly journalism these days means more often to copy press-releases and exaggerate dumb statements, then to dive into a subject and getting to the bottom of it.

In this case 1% of 7-8 billion are roughly ~ 70-80 million people, which holds 50% of global wealth is really not that hard to believe, then the reported 85/7*10^9 ~ 1/10^8 = 0.000001%!

But on a second look, i think it's more an error of the choosen title of the OP. I couldn't find his/hers statement in the BBW-article.

85 people own half of the world's wealth

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