
Richest 1% to own more than rest of world, Oxfam says - rb2e
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-30875633
======
known
Most people who are wealthy have wealthy parents. It is overwhelmingly the
most common way to become wealthy. Virtually nobody makes it to "the top"
solely through hard work. Wealthy people always extol the virtues of hard
work, but the truth is that there is no amount of hard work will necessarily
make you successful. There are too many people waiting with outstretched hands
to take advantage of you, or feet waiting to trip you — mostly to assure that
you don't threaten their success in this negative-sum game.

[http://www.monbiot.com/2011/11/07/the-self-attribution-
falla...](http://www.monbiot.com/2011/11/07/the-self-attribution-fallacy)

~~~
refurb
Roughly 80% of millionaires in the US are first generation (their parents
weren't rich).

[http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/real-1-percent](http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/real-1-percent)

~~~
teraflop
By what definition of "rich"?

Googling turns up lots of people quoting that statistic, but none of them
provide more details on who was surveyed or what methodology was used, so it's
kind of meaningless.

~~~
refurb
Here a survey where the number is 61%.

[http://www.ustrust.com/publish/content/application/pdf/GWMOL...](http://www.ustrust.com/publish/content/application/pdf/GWMOL/USTp_ARKWY39L_2015-06.pdf)

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snitko
It's bizarre to me that people prefer to focus on how much somebody owns
rather than if he earned it honestly. If a person didn't steal, cheat or
coerced anybody in the process of making his money, he is entitled to it. I
don't care how rich he is, because he didn't do anything bad to anybody else.

Then of course people say "but greed". Yes, as if only rich people are greedy
and you are not.

~~~
mherkender
I can't speak for everyone, but for me it was more about the growing divide
between the rich and poor. I don't think a healthy/happy society with room for
upward mobility can exist if things keep moving in this direction. This is
literally how wars start.

I really can't understand how you think this is about some person's individual
success. People don't hate that, they want it for themselves too. The problem
is that statistically it's becoming less likely for poorer economic groups,
regardless of their honesty.

~~~
snitko
I agree with you that a healthy society is the one where the gap between the
poor and the rich is small. However, I believe this must not be achieved by
any kind of coercion coming from government. It may work sometimes (as in
Scandinavian countries, but those are exceptions and I'm not gonna go into the
details of why I think this cannot be duplicated), but ultimately, I think the
gap can only be made smaller by free market and free trade, without government
violence and coercion.

If you look at the wealthiest people in the world, those are the people who
are either in power or close to power. Nobody will be able to make money by
favoritism or coercion or corruption if there is no entity (e.g. government)
that facilitates those things. Look at the world map. Which countries (again,
with the exception of Scandinavian countries) are the richest and in which
countries the lot of ordinary men is better? The ones where there's more free
market, not less. The US, of course, is absolutely not in the top list of
those countries, being highly regulated and taxed.

~~~
dasil003
> _Nobody will be able to make money by favoritism or coercion or corruption
> if there is no entity (e.g. government) that facilitates those things._

Sure, government corruption is one way rich people make themselves richer, but
money by itself is powerful too. Imagine we lived in anarchy, the strongest
few would amass all the wealth, they would run their own private armies, and
no one who wasn't rich and strong would have any leverage to get anything.

The point of a progressive taxation scheme is that wealth itself confers an
advantage that needs to be offset by some collective power of the populace.
Claiming that free markets will make the wealth gap shrink is just magical
thinking. Money _is_ power, regardless of the form of government.

~~~
snitko
If you re-read your comment you will see that there's no logical proof in what
you're saying, nor is there any evidence. Saying things like "your point is
just magical thinking" will not prove me wrong.

Furthermore, please notice that when you say "The point of a progressive
taxation scheme..." means that this is an intention of the policy. The actual
effect might be quite different, as is very often the case with government
policies. I would argue that rich people will always be more powerful, you
simply cannot avoid that. And there will always be inequality. Question is,
under which system will the rich be less powerful and my answer is that
without government they won't be able to coerce others and force others to do
things, they will only be able to spend THEIR own money and act on the market
as market players, with no special privileges.

The problem is that while your intentions are noble, intentions alone cannot
solve the problem. You always have to look at results. Tell me, where in the
world has progressive taxation produced innovation and wealth? Perhaps,
Scandinavian countries are innovative and are responsible for a great deal of
awesome new things in the world? No they're not. Or perhaps China or Russia
before they started liberalizing their markets had produced a lot of
innovation and increased the standards of living for their citizens? No. Only
in countries with less government intervention have we seen the lot of
ordinary men greatly improved.

------
corysama
According to
[http://www.globalrichlist.com/wealth](http://www.globalrichlist.com/wealth)
you qualify as a global 1 percenter if your net wealth is >= $770,000. That
makes you the 45,045,226th richest person on earth.

~~~
jpollock
So, just about anyone in West with a secure retirement and a house.

~~~
modfodder
that's probably far fewer people than you think.

~~~
zaroth
corysama says 45,045,226 _adults_. If they were all in the US, that would be
18.5% of the US adult population.

"Of the remaining 52% of global wealth, almost 46% is owned by the rest of the
richest fifth of the world's population, Oxfam said." So that's 94% of human
wealth concentrated in the top 20% of humans.

Keep in mind the 80th percentile global wealth is, according to TFA, $3,851.
To me, I see this as an incredible opportunity, because I imagine with a few
dollars of computing power and a network connection, a human would have
everything they need (except for the requisite food, water, shelter, freedom,
safety, and education) to readily earn that.

To me that means there's no need to drastically redistribute wealth. What we
need to _redistribute_ is basic human necessities. _Anyone_ can be brought up
to _current_ 80th percentile if we can just provide the basics. The solution
to that problem has confounded humankind since inception, but as hackers we
believe _technology_ holds the key to an answer.

* Updated after jzwinck's reply.

~~~
jzwinck
If you exclude people under 18 then 45MM is a lot closer to 1%.

------
meric
It appears the report measures wealth rather than income. One can have
negative wealth if the value of one's debt is greater than one's assets. A
corollary is: If debt is eliminated, a lot of inequality goes out the window
too - since one man's debt is another's asset, and the poorest have more debt
than everyone else.

------
DanBC
More or less covered a similar statistic - that the wealthiest 1% own more
than the rest put together (totally not true) or that the wealthiest 1% own
more than the bottom 50% combined (true but not in a useful or interesting
way).

[http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04xf1d5](http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04xf1d5)

To be in the top 1% you need net assets of over about £500,000 - and this
includes your house if you' e paid off the mortgage.

------
known
80 rich people now have as much as 50% of the rest of humanity combined.

[http://qz.com/329099/80-rich-people-now-have-as-much-
as-50-o...](http://qz.com/329099/80-rich-people-now-have-as-much-as-50-of-the-
rest-of-humanity-combined/)

------
kolev
And we call ourselves "civilized"...

~~~
vixen99
I think your comment is indefensible but you could try. Perhaps you could
start by defining 'civilized' according to your preferred meaning. Meanwhile
data from many sources tells us that the world is less violent, healthier,
more tolerant, better educated and better fed then it’s ever been. Although
there is an association, I think inequality per se is largely irrelevant to
our real existing problems.

~~~
smanuel
Allow me to politely disagree with some of the statements. While I realize
it's largely a matter of which glasses you've put on, I just can't easily
agree with statements which sound like an excerpt from Bill Gates' annual
letter.

healthier - I definitely disagree. I can provide a lot of statistics about why
I think it is so, but unfortunately I can't provide statistics about what I
see happening around me. And sometimes it's scary.

better educated - Disagree. I think there are huge problems with the education
system and it's only baby steps that are taken to improve something.

better fed - With what?

So... I agree with "kolev" that these 1% _could eventually_ put their money to
better use. Maybe some of them are doing it.

~~~
relaytheurgency
I guarantee you that on average the population of somewhere like Peru is doing
better now than 50 years ago.

