
Just 8 men own same wealth as half the world - wowsig
https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2017-01-16/just-8-men-own-same-wealth-half-world
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rvern
Do they _consume_ as much as half the world? If the money is invested, where's
the problem? Wealth inequality only matters for the well-being of the poor
insofar as it affects consumption inequality. Why not talk about how much more
they consume than everyone else instead of how much more wealth they have?
Because talking about wealth makes for better rhetoric: wealth is understood
as an indicator of social status and Oxfam doesn't think the very rich should
have that much social status. It has nothing to do with the economic well-
being of the poor.

[http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/07/xxx...](http://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2008/07/xxxxxxx.html)

~~~
dpwm
The assets of those eight are almost certainly going to be invested, so it's
not really as if they can spend all the money without changing the value of
the assets that make up their wealth.

However, absence of evidence of a consumption inequality comparable match the
wealth inequality does not imply there is no consumption inequality --
something which really cannot be denied -- it just won't be as horrific a
ratio as with wealth, but it could still be quite eye-opening.

For what it's worth, I very much doubt the eight wealthiest are the top eight
consumers.

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kolbe
I was under the impression about half the world had zero or negative wealth.

Is this one of those statements where you could also say someone with $1000
net worth also has more than half the world, but they chose the billionaires
to be more inflammatory? Or was the 50% line chosen because the 45% of the
world has zero/negative wealth, and 8 billionaires happen to have more than
than sliver of 5% in between?

~~~
dogma1138
If you go just by the statement of current accounts then the poorest half
isn’t who you think they are. If you live in some underdeveloped country and
live on 1 dollar a day you also often don’t have debt because you are unable
to acquire it. That said it’s also hard to claim that some middle or lower
middle class family in a western county with 100-150,000 dollars in long term
debt e.g. because of a mortgage is poorer than some poor guy in Bangladesh
that would not be able to be in any institutionalized debt in their life
because of just how poor they are. Negative wealth is arguably a privilege of
the lucky.

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coleifer
For that reason we should all be grateful that money doesn't buy happiness.

~~~
Consultant32452
[https://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2013/05/10/money-
doe...](https://www.forbes.com/sites/susanadams/2013/05/10/money-does-buy-
happiness-says-new-study/#2d4c36d56150)

Money does buy happiness. In the US, though, only up to about $75k/yr.

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dagw
This again. This comes out every year and is equally misleading each time.
Here's an article from 2014 going into exactly why it's misleading
[http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26613682](http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26613682)

~~~
dpwm
That reference you give cites two people. The first makes the point that low
wealth does not mean you are poor, citing students in debt in western
countries as an example. Some would disagree with the assertion that having a
net worth of less than zero does not make you poor, but that's beside the
point. There's a lot of subtlety that is conveniently ignored in the analysis
of the article you linked to.

If you're in a Western country you benefit from goods made in countries where
wages are very low and the cost of living is low. People of these countries
cannot access many of the commodities that westerners can, such as oil, which
generally has a worldwide price floor. That is, despite the price of food
fluctuating between countries, the price of oil does not. That oil represents
a natural resource that many in the west can enjoy, but the bottom 10% on < $2
per day cannot. How much of our development, how much of our lifestyles in the
West are dependent upon being able to afford oil? Does an entrepreneur in
Central African Republic have the same access to cheap manufacturing (relative
to their earning ability) in the same way that an entrepreneur in the West
does. No.

The second person used in the article to "explain" why the figure is
misleading, despite having a career made largely on the back of denying wealth
inequality as a problem and the link being to a website called "cafe hayek",
merely divides $17.5 trillion by the population of the world at the time and
gets approximately the same as what I do.

What, precisely, did the top eight do that was so great a service to humanity
that it entitles them to the same* purchasing power of natural resources as
the poorest half of the world, especially given that the more valuable
resources accumulated over millions of years? There's at least three of those
figures whose vehicles of wealth accumulation are not universally worshipped
in this community: Bill Gates (Microsoft), Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook) and
Larry Ellison (Oracle).

*ignoring asset liquidity, which is arguably a big problem when discussing the assets of the super rich.

EDIT: to "debunk" this claim -> to "explain" why the figure is misleading

~~~
dagw
Nobody is 'debunking' the claim and everybody agrees that the numbers Oxfam
are using are technically correct. The problem is that the numbers don't
measure what people think they're measuring.

According to Oxfam someone in the "bottom 10% on < $2 per day" might very well
be wealthier than a recently graduated US doctor from a top medical school if
he's taken on student debt. And when that's the case then you have a bad
measurement of wealth.

Oxfam is doing the whole inequality debate a great disservice by putting out
misleading and underhand data that takes the focus away from the real debate.

~~~
dpwm
> According to Oxfam someone in the "bottom 10% on < $2 per day" might very
> well be wealthier than a recently graduated US doctor from a top medical
> school if he's taken on student debt. And if that's the case then you have a
> bad measurement of wealth.

Would income be a better metric? If so, you're not going to see something like
(the income of the top n) == (the income of the bottom m %) because it's very
hard to quantify the incomes of the poor. And in many ways that is misleading,
because you can be on a low income but managing fine and on a high income and
not managing at all, just depending on where you live.

> Oxfam is doing the whole inequality debate a great disservice by putting out
> misleading and underhand data that takes the focus away from the real
> debate.

They use the term wealth. They're not saying income. On seeing the headline I
never had any doubt that wealth was assets less liabilities, because that
seems to be the main measure of wealth that is thrown around. Should they
instead remain silent on this?

~~~
dagw
_Would income be a better metric?_

Lots of things would be a better metric. Purchasing power (as you mentioned in
your original reply) would be a much better metric (but obviously harder to
measure). Someone who's got salary of $200k a year, a house, two cars and a
net wealth of negative $100k should not rank below someone making $2 a day and
lives in a shack in any valid metric.

 _Should they instead remain silent on this?_

Absolutely not, they should do the exact opposite. Publish reports with
meaningful numbers that have real relevance to the underlying problem at hand.
All they're doing now is generating headline grabbing, easy to ignore,
clickbait. I mean I get why Oxfam is doing it (sexy headlines get likes of
Facebook), but I feel it cheapens the very serious underlying issue they're
trying to talk about.

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rglullis
These Oxfam reports always go for the sensationalist headline, but it is
utterly meaningless. By their measure, some middle-class family with a
mortgage (which implies access to credit markets, jobs, stability and all of
the comforts of a healthy economy) is in worse situation than some homeless
person and no debt.

~~~
dpwm
Wealth is wealth. Income is income. Here's an analysis of income of the
wealthiest by Oxfam:
[https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2013-01-19/...](https://www.oxfam.org/en/pressroom/pressreleases/2013-01-19/annual-
income-richest-100-people-enough-end-global-poverty-four)

