
World population living in extreme poverty, 1820-2015 - mydpy
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/world-population-in-extreme-poverty-absolute
======
dbg31415
So, yes, we have done a good job of combating "extreme poverty" \-- the chart
shows a marvelous decrease in that. And that's a good thing.

Feel good! [https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/world-population-in-
extre...](https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/world-population-in-extreme-
poverty-absolute?stackMode=relative)

But we've also done a horrible job of combating wealth inequality. The top 1%
get 30%, the top 20% get 80%... blah blah, you should have voted for Bernie.

Feel meh!
[http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/5162e54469bedd0b220...](http://static3.businessinsider.com/image/5162e54469bedd0b2200001f-1200/the-
top-1-of-americans-meanwhile-own-a-staggering-40-of-the-entire-countrys-
wealth.jpg)

So yeah, hooray... when you describe "extreme poverty" as like $1.90 a day the
chart looks pretty good. Now... what if you were to define it as like making
less than $10k / year... still feel warm and fuzzy?

~~~
tzs
> But we've also done a horrible job of combating wealth inequality. The top
> 1% get 30%, the top 20% get 80%... blah blah, you should have voted for
> Bernie.

What percent should the top 1% have? Same for the top 20%, and so on.

Note that unless every individual has exactly the same wealth, it is
mathematically necessary that the top N% has more than N% of the wealth.

Note also that this applies within wealth groups, too, so that if the top N%
has M% of the wealth, then the top, say, 10% of that N% would be expected to
have more than 10% of that M%.

It doesn't take a lot of unequal distribution in the subgroups to get an
overall distribution with the top 1% having 30%. All that takes is that the
top 50% in each group have 83.4% of the group's wealth. That doesn't seem like
an unreasonable distribution to me.

With that distribution, then overall the top 50% have 83.4%. The top 50% of
the top 50% have 83.4% of 83.4%, so we have the top 25% overall has 69.6%.
Applying 50/83.4 to that group, we get overall the top 12.5% has 58.1%. Do
this a total of 6.64 times, and you get the top 1% with 30%.

~~~
dbg31415
Fine, but let's at least set it up so wealth doesn't transcend generations.

You do well, you live well... your kids live well... but it stops being
capitalism when people don't have to try due to inheritance.

