
62 people now own the same wealth as half the world's population, research finds - clbrook
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/politics/just-62-people-now-own-the-same-wealth-as-half-the-worlds-population-research-finds-a6818081.html
======
privong
An article about this study received a bit of discussion a day ago:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10922166](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10922166)

~~~
clbrook
Thanks. It is hard for me to grasp quite what this fact means. If it is even
being measured properly or not.

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evanpw
Alternate headline: 62 people own almost 1% of global wealth.
[http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/29/upshot/why-we-cant-
blame-a...](http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/29/upshot/why-we-cant-blame-a-few-
rich-people-for-global-poverty.html)

~~~
xlayn
You are right, that title makes it look more alarming than yours, but in the
link you provide there is a statement that still provides a similar statistic:

"The world’s richest 1 percent — including the very richest — hold 48 percent
of the globe’s wealth."

Edit: format and form.

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flubert
What percentage of people have a net worth of zero? If you've got $1000 to
your name, are you richer than 48% of the worlds population, by the same
metric? Anyone have the data for this?

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powertower
If you take $1.76 trillion and distribute it to 3.6 billion people, each gets
about $500.

~~~
rimunroe
(which is actually a staggering amount of money in some places)

~~~
powertower
Its a LCD TV for 50% of those people.

And a month's wage for another 25%.

And for the last 25% it would get wiped out by relative local inflation, bad
decisions, corruption, etc.

And that assumes you distribute it equally, and not by the area that wealth
was primarily generated from. IN which case all the people that consider this
amount "staggering", get around 50 cents to $5.

The point was that this is pointless, as wealth cannot be distributed, it can
only be destroyed.

~~~
rimunroe
_The point was that this is pointless, as wealth cannot be distributed, it can
only be destroyed._

I don't really know what your reasoning behind this is. I'm pretty sure we
redistribute money all the time through taxes.

 _And that assumes you distribute it equally, and not by the area that wealth
was primarily generated from. IN which case all the people that consider this
amount "staggering", get around 50 cents to $5._

If someone were actually magically redistributing that sum of money somehow,
then I'd hope they'd do the opposite of that. What you've described is the
status quo, where people continue to get exploited by being rewarded
comparatively little for the amount of work they do/hardship they experience.

~~~
powertower
> I don't really know what your reasoning behind this is. I'm pretty sure we
> redistribute money all the time through taxes.

Taking "wealth" from a few and giving it to many does not create more wealth.
Wealth is a concentrate of money, you can't redistribute "wealth" and make
everyone "wealthy".

> then I'd hope they'd do the opposite of that. What you've described is the
> status quo, where people continue to get exploited by being rewarded
> comparatively little for the amount of work they do/hardship they
> experience.

The only way the system works is when those that provide the most value get
rewarded the most. Having "hardships" in life provides zero value to the rest.

~~~
CuriousSkeptic
Which would be fine, if it were the case. In reality those who provide value
do get relatively more, but in absolute terms they generally gets screwed over
by those who own value.

I'm fairly confident that I would not give those people half of the earth
(were it mine) to continue doing whatever it is they are doing. Thus I suspect
that most of their wealth is the result of rent seeking rather than provided
value.

~~~
powertower
(you got a few down-votes, that was not me)

Explain just 1 thing to me...

Lets take your suspicion that the 1% are keeping everyone down and miserable.

And let say their wealth is bigger - 10 times bigger - for the sake of the
argument.

This mean that over the last 10 years, on average, they stole $500 from you
and me and the other billions of people.

Per year, in the US and the rest of the western world [lets assume this is
where most of that wealth is being siphoned form], has the $500/year they have
stolen from you ruined your life, has that missing $500/year kept you from
advancing in life, etc?

To me this the answer is absolutely no.

And this is coming from someone that is self-employed, and makes just above
the poverty line. An extra $500/year would help me, but it would not affect my
future.

This was a rhetorical question, as the rest of the middle class does much much
better than I, but if you can show me where I am wrong I'll be glad to
readjust my view of the situation. Because right now it mostly looks like
people are seeking victim-hood wherever you look.

[edited for spelling]

~~~
CuriousSkeptic
Wrt to happiness, I actually think it is a problem that people aren't more
outraged then they are. It's a fairness issue for many of us, as you note. But
as the topic of this post is that half the population of earth gets to share
only 1% of its wealth, (I do not agree with your assumption), it should be
pretty evident that it's a serious issue for them.

But mainly, you should look at booth sides of the equation, it's a democratic
problem when you consider the relative power difference they represent. While
a little more money for you might just be nice (for most part of the world it
would make a big impact though), the aggregated influence it affords the top
1% also affects you. They get to decide how half earth resources are employed.

~~~
vixen99
Some things to consider: 1\. Would that excess of wealth exist in the absence
of those 62 billionaires? The answer is yes only for those who think it's
already existing in the form of a pie rather than a product of creative
processes. 2\. The last twenty years have seen a decline in world poverty
unprecedented in the history of humanity. This should be a cause for
celebration and is inevitably associated with the ascendancy of the very rich.
3\. Billionaires are such because along the line they provide or have provided
goods and/or services that masses of us value and are prepared to buy. In the
main our lives are much better because of those offerings. 4\. The power of
billionaires spending their own wealth worries me very much less than the
power of politicians who spend far greater sums of other people's money for
good or ill but are mostly isolated from consequences relating to the latter.

~~~
CuriousSkeptic
As my basic assumption is that the wealth in question is a result of rent
seeking. All your bullets fall.

1\. Yes it would. And if my assumption of rent seeking is true, there might
even be more of it.

2\. True. At the same time, the amount of people living just above the extreme
poverty line has increased from both direction. That is, the poorest has
gotten less poor, but the less poor have gotten poorer. And, no it is not
inevitably tied to the very rich, if anything both groups has had changes
driven by the same Ariel dynamics, but neither is causing the other.

3\. Not if they got to be billionaires by extracting rent.

4\. No argument from me there. I do worry about large corporations as well
though.

