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Eight billionaires 'as rich as world's poorest half'

bbc.com

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Re: Eight billionaires 'as rich as world's poorest half'

#41

Post by nbanks »

apsec112 wrote: post #5

I'm richer than the poorest two billion people in the world combined, and I'm an upper-middle-class programmer with some modest savings. Please stop adding up the wealth of the poor: http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2014/04/04/stop-adding...

It would be interesting to add up the annual income of the world's poorest and richest people instead of net worth. This isn't entirely fair either, given than some unemployment is voluntary, but there would still be a massive inequality between the richest and poorest working people.

Re: Eight billionaires 'as rich as world's poorest half'

#42

Post by refurb »

andrewmutz wrote: post #13
refurb wrote: post #3

If we're worried about improving inequality, it would be helpful to have some historic data. I would assume if you went back 100 years it was far worse since much of the developing world (e.g. China, India) had far more poverty.

You can see data about long-term economic inequality here: https://ourworldindata.org/income-inequality/

Wow! Great link. Thanks for sharing that. I haven't seen that data before.

My only complaint is that it doesn't show the world overall.

Re: Eight billionaires 'as rich as world's poorest half'

#43

Post by caminante »

aburan28 wrote: post #33

What is the justification for this article being flagged?

Despite not being an egregious case, I think the flagging's fair.

As others pointed out [0], the article's premise is silly and just an annual refresh of Oxfam's dubious statistic. Thus, WRT HN's submission guidelines, the article's off-topic and not "evidence of some interesting new phenomenon."

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13407849

Re: Eight billionaires 'as rich as world's poorest half'

#45

Post by edran »

bikamonki wrote: post #25

$425bn/3.6bn = $118 avg. Now, the $425bn are not liquid assets, so we can argue that each of the 3.6bn individuals on the bottom half are worth a lot, lot, more than $120 each (worth in the same sense as measuring the net worth of billionaires). For starters, they own thousands of labor hours. Maybe the problem is that we cannot create enough jobs and it is easier to blame Zuck and friends? It is a very dangerous ide…

>It is a very dangerous idea to seek a fairier distribution of wealth by taking it from the rich. If you doubt it go ask Venezuelans or Cubans if it worked out for them.

FYI most countries already do this in the form of somewhat progressive taxation. Some however do this more than the US (say, the great majority of Europe), and they do pretty much fine.

I also don't see how this is "dangerous". For who, the general population? The socio-economical system? The environment?

Re: Eight billionaires 'as rich as world's poorest half'

#46

Post by cmdrfred »

confounded wrote: post #39
bikamonki wrote: post #25

$425bn/3.6bn = $118 avg. Now, the $425bn are not liquid assets, so we can argue that each of the 3.6bn individuals on the bottom half are worth a lot, lot, more than $120 each (worth in the same sense as measuring the net worth of billionaires). For starters, they own thousands of labor hours. Maybe the problem is that we cannot create enough jobs and it is easier to blame Zuck and friends? It is a very dangerous ide…

> It is a very dangerous idea to seek a fairier distribution of wealth by taking it from the rich. Sounds like a pretty straight-forward idea to me. How else best to achieve a fairer distribution? "Trickle down"?

Historically this has been achieved with pitchforks and guillotines.

Re: Eight billionaires 'as rich as world's poorest half'

#47

Post by cromwellian »

These measures I don't think are a good way to measure, because I think there's a difference between someone who's very wealthy on paper because of high stock prices, and someone whose's wealth because they got a disproportionate share of income. The latter represents money diverted in the here and now to someone else, and the former represents money that can be diverted in the future. Of course, you can ask Elizabeth Holmes how much of a billionaire she is now with Theranos, as an example of how paper wealth doesn't always translate. It's possible for someone to be very IPO stock rich, but not actually have received much income. This is especially true for founders who started with their stock, instead of being given it as a bonus.

Re: Eight billionaires 'as rich as world's poorest half'

#48

Post by mcroft »

_m8fo wrote: post #7

I believe there's a fundamental assumption among many that with time, life is becoming better for all. Even if this is true right now, one day it will not be true. Once no longer true, humanity is going to have to ask itself if the massive increases of inequality were worth it. Whether it's: 1. Global warming 2. Nuclear war 3. Mass unemployment 4. Resource depletion Or something else, I suspect the effects of the "bi…

If you've never come across Hans Rosling before, I highly recommend watching one or two of his videos on world statistics.

His overall point is that the world is doing much better than you may think. He uses a lot of data that he makes publicly available and shows which metrics are the best measure of progress and why.

Aside from that, he's also a very entertaining and engaging communicator.

Here's a relevant article: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-24835822

Re: Eight billionaires 'as rich as world's poorest half'

#49

Post by treuherz »

Oxfam released a similar stat last year, and the BBC's More or Less team didn't think much of it. The wealth numbers they're using aren't necessarily well-behaved when they're totted up the way Oxfam has done, as there are a lot of cases where wealth as-measured isn't an intuitive measure of "richness". For example, a new graduate with tens of thousands in loan debt will still have a chance at better long-term income than someone with neither the qualification nor the loan who has higher numeric worth.

That said, it's harder to find examples where the a high wealth implies a low buying power, so this doesn't necessarily contradict the crux of the piece. Either way, it's worth being skeptical of misapplied statistics.

Sources: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-26613682 http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p03fj84x

Re: Eight billionaires 'as rich as world's poorest half'

#50

Post by maxerickson »

aburan28 wrote: post #33

What is the justification for this article being flagged?

'click'.

There's apparently some level of egregious behavior that will result in not being able to flag things anymore but beyond that people will have lots of motivations for flagging things.

In this case a likely explanation is the terrible click bait headline.

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