
Where do the wealthiest 1% live? - chestnut-tree
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-30949796
======
wallflower
From a Quora answer (can't post link because they, you know, suffer from
login-o-rrhea.)

> There's a quite famous post on Tianya community (one of the most prominent
> Chinese online community). There's a sub forum on Tianya specifically for
> people to showoff their wealth.

1) And one day, some guy start showing off his watches (IWC watch.)

2) Other people step in and start competing with him - more watches

3) Luxury cars (Lambos)

4) More Luxury cars, diamond rings

5) Then, things start to get interesting, some guy post this: Government
approved mining permit. You ever heard about how Chinese coal mine owner could
afford a dozen Hummers, private jets? Yeah...

6) And then, another guy post this, bank account with nearly 1 Billion Yuan
(about 150 Million USD).

7) And the post got quiet for a bit until this guy show up, posting bunch of
land ownership certificates (the little white note says: all f __king go
home!)

8) And the post got quiet for a long time, and then this guy step up and end
the discussion once and for all:

It's an invitation to 中南海 ( Zhongnanhai ), and official envelopes of CPC (
Central Commission for Discipline Inspection of the Communist Party of China
).'

Here you have a very interesting social power structure of China:

Level 1: Luxury goods (Phones, Watches, Cars, jewelry)

Level 2: Possession of raw materials (mines, oil, steel...)

Level 3: possession of large amount of money

Level 4: possession of land.

Level 5: Access to the power core.

The guy might not even belong to core power, but the mere access to it, you
have that kind of connection is valued more than any material wealth. There's
your basic Chinese social structure in one sentence.

~~~
unknownian
[https://blog.quora.com/Making-Sharing-Better](https://blog.quora.com/Making-
Sharing-Better)

You can bypass the issue with a URL trick (?share=1)

~~~
jknightco
You can actually add any query-string and that will work. I'm a fan of adding
"?fuck=you" in the hopes that it shows up in their logs somewhere.

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craigds
Another map supporting the notion that New Zealand is a made up country.
Submitted to [http://worldmapswithout.nz/](http://worldmapswithout.nz/)

~~~
gumby
> Another map supporting the notion that New Zealand is a made up country.

So true! I flew east for _hours_ and never saw the place. My sister supposedly
"moved" there, but then a year or so later I saw her -- in Australia!

Kim Dotcom is in trouble with the law. Allegedly he lives in this "New
Zealand" place but what authorities are seizing his assets? USA.

There must be a evil cabal who has inserted this "country" into so-called
"educational" materials as a way of controlling youth. They've even gone as
far as creating a seat at the UN general assembly for them. And defaced the
name of the AAC biscuit. Stop the conspiracy!

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georgeecollins
I'm a bleeding heart liberal but every time I see this kind of analysis I get
uncomfortable. Most middle aged peole who live in Claifornia west of the I5
and own a house probably have a net worth > $700k. I would guess most people
who read this site will have a greater net worth before they are forty, if not
sooner.

Are these rich people? If you live in Boston, New York or California you can
have that net worth and just be getting by. It doesn't feel like you live a
life of priveledge, or you have some kind of power over the world that other
responsible employed adults don't have. It's hard to feel like that sort of
wealth is really a social ill.

~~~
sliverstorm
Sure, you're "just getting by". But you are still wealthy- it is your wealth
that lets you even hope to live there. If you were to cash out and move to
Mexico, you'd practically be a shah.

Wealth isn't just access to servants and lavish meals, it's access to anything
other people want but can't afford. A house in San Francisco is such a thing,
even if it doesn't have carved ivory statues and a moat.

~~~
TTPrograms
For most people, though, isn't living in that expensive environment a
significant boost to their ability to earn at a level required to achieve that
net worth? Not just San Fran, but any urban environment as opposed to, say, a
rural environment.

This suggests possibly massive disruption in wealth structure once augmented
reality puts remote interaction on par with local interaction. If your day-to-
day expenses are significantly more decoupled from your income how will
spending patterns in the top 5% change? Would luxury spending increase, or
perhaps individuals would be able to invest more and retire earlier?

~~~
sliverstorm
First, yes. Like many other investments of capital, (such as research) it
provides economic opportunities.

Second, absolutely yes. This has been the dream of telecommuting for, what, a
decade? But rather than increasing discretionary income, remember that perfect
telecommuting brings with it increased competition, which drives down
compensation. So you would probably not see 2014 San Francisco tech salaries
being paid to all those remote workers. A real part of today's high SV
salaries is simple cost-of-living adjustment that would be unnecessary with
remote hires in Nowhere, USA.

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tomp
I don't get this article.

> _Obviously billionaires like Bill Gates, Warren Buffett and Mark Zuckerberg
> are part of the 1%. But who else is? According to Credit Suisse, another 47m
> people_

There are 7 billion people in this world. 1% of that is 70 million, not 47
million.

Never trust journalists writing about statistics (or anyone who hasn't studied
statistics, they probably have no idea what they're talking about) (on second
thought, don't trust people who have studied statistics either; they now
enough to manipulate you).

~~~
jimminy
The image and number comes from the Credit Suisse report[1]. Inside of it,
they describe their methodology, which explains the discrepancy.

> "More specifically, since children have little formal or actual wealth
> ownership, we focus on wealth ownership by adults, defined to be individuals
> aged 20 or above."

[1](page 5): [https://publications.credit-
suisse.com/tasks/render/file/?fi...](https://publications.credit-
suisse.com/tasks/render/file/?fileID=5521F296-D460-2B88-081889DB12817E02)

~~~
tomp
Seems a rather important detail to omit.

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acadien
Anyone else shocked that China only has 1.6m relative to the world? Maybe this
is because it doesn't take into account relative cost of living and cost of
goods. I imagine a million USD goes a lot further in Shanghai than in SF.

~~~
blackguardx
Shanghai is the most expensive city I have ever visited. Coming from San
Francisco, most cities seem cheap. Not Shanghai.

~~~
acadien
Hm maybe it depends on your income level? I have friends in Shanghai that live
on a fraction of what I live on in the US, we're in comparable income levels
but no where near wealthy.

~~~
ido
This is common to many lower income countries.

You can live like a poor student in Poland for _very_ cheaply but an
upper/upper-middle class lifestyle (a couple of nice new luxury cars, always
having the latest iphones/ipads, fancy clothing/watches/jewelry, a nice
house/apartment in a good location, etc) will cost the same or more in Warsaw
as in Berlin or Vienna.

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jqm
Sounds like the group that is more of interest is the .01% or .001%. Love to
see a map of that. Because nickle millionaires with $800,000 of home equity
probably aren't the global movers and shakers.....

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stegosaurus
I think that a PPP adjustment is required here to produce a reasonable
analysis. Or, excluding primary residence.

For the 0.1% or higher (whose wealth is sufficient for them to take advantage
of globetrotting) absolute numbers might be important.

'The 1%' is not simply a matter of wealth; a person with $500K in the UK and
in Nigeria are not really equivalent. The former is just a person who owns a
normal home in the South East outright, the latter may well be in a position
of power.

~~~
omh
_I think that a PPP adjustment is required here to produce a reasonable
analysis_

This article is in response to the recent Oxfam report which talked about the
wealth of the global 1%. So in that context the absolute wealth, in the way
that Oxfam measured it, is relevant.

~~~
semperfaux
Then perhaps a better response to the Oxfam report would be to at least
attempt a more realistic measurement of wealth and present something similar
with that addition/adjustment.

~~~
sanderjd
I'm not sure I understand why adjusting for primary residence ownership would
make it "a more realistic measurement of wealth".

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claypoolb
This chart is deceiving - it does not contemplate the "age" of the wealth
(see: compounding interest).

The graphic shows 4.9% of the 47MM regarded as "the 1%" live in Italy.
Although I do not debate that the chart is factual, I will pose question to
you, as a skeptic audience: have you done business in Italy within the last
100 years? Have you heard of your friends or your friends of friends doing
business there?

Innovation prevails. Regardless of the rate of compounding interest.

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arfliw
Canada with 1.6 million is pretty surprising. That's roughly the same per
capita as the US.

China with only 1.6 million is downright shocking. You read about new
billionaires in that country all the time. I guess the wealth is only flowing
into a very small number of hands.

~~~
wicknicks
Germany with 2.8 million is equally interesting. The country's population is
80m. Atleast one in 35 people there is in the top 1%.

~~~
Gurkenmaster
France has 3.5 million with an even smaller population of 66 million so one
out of twenty. Even though it's not very stable from a financial perspective.

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tormeh
You're all discussing this on a local scale. This is clearly about global
upper-wealth distributions. That countries were used to group 1%ers was an
arbitrary decision.

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EGreg
Well obviously the wealthiest 1% are exactly 1% so there are going to be a lot
of them!

Did we really think there are tens of millions of Daddy Warbuckses?

~~~
semperfaux
My assumptions regarding where the term "the 1%" came from aside, it seems to
me that it's fairly useless for exactly this reason. If you want to talk about
people whose means significantly exceed the vast majority of others, a smaller
proportion is almost certainly in order (without, as another comment mentions,
a PPP adjustment or something similar).

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DanBlake
I would love to see a deeper level map for the US- being able to zoom in on
cities/states would be cool

~~~
Spooky23
There's a lot of cool stories hidden there. I know of one guy who is worth
something like $100m. When he moved to a different town, he basically broke
the school aid formula and had a dramatic impact on the schools revenue
stream!

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alexbecker
...they do know there are more than 4.7B people in the world, right?

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pedrosorio
It does not make sense to include minors in "wealth reports".

~~~
alexbecker
Ah, thanks.

