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Explore Wealth and Income Inequality in the World Wealth and Income Database

wid.world

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Re: Explore Wealth and Income Inequality in the World Wealth and Income Database

#121

Post by euyyn »

ameister14 wrote: post #113
euyyn wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's a good metric for success at giving everyone equal opportunity at birth.

Not really. You can have low income inequality through redistribution of wealth and still have massive differences in opportunity at birth based on other, non-monetary societal factors.

I see that, and yet those other factors nowadays have some correlation with wealth too. In Spain gypsies are discriminated against, with a stereotype of them being poor, not educated, and thieves. And yet the children of a rich gypsy football player won't probably even be thought of as gypsies, just kids.

Re: Explore Wealth and Income Inequality in the World Wealth and Income Database

#122

Post by Idontknowmyuser »

ghostbrainalpha wrote: post #100
rayiner wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The opposite of income inequality isn’t income equality. It’s less inequality and more integration. My wife grew up in small town Iowa. There were rich people (doctors and some farmers) and poor people, but everyone’s kids went to the same school (there was only one), went to the same cornfield parties (apparently a real thing), etc. The millionaire farmers still worked for a living—they weren’t making passive income…

I think this comic illustrates your point. Equality vs Equity. https://scontent.flas1-1.fna.fbcdn.net/v/t31.0-8/23331456_17...

"From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs"

Re: Explore Wealth and Income Inequality in the World Wealth and Income Database

#123

Post by [deleted] »

ryandrake wrote: post #99
dmix wrote: post #52

Changing the graph from "Share %" to "Average Income or Wealth" shows a much more optimistic looking chart, with every country ramping upwards, almost at an exponentially positive rate. The world as a whole is moving away from poverty and quality of life is improving which IMO is the most important metric here. Far more important to the average person than the relative wealth ratios at the top vs the bottom, which ye…

Averages can be troublesome. Compare Population A where 9 people have $1 each, and one person has $100, to Population B where 9 people have $5 each and one person has $40. Which population is poorer? Which would you rather live among? EDIT: How about Population C, where 9 people have $10 each and one person has $10,000?

[deleted]

Re: Explore Wealth and Income Inequality in the World Wealth and Income Database

#124

Post by collyw »

splintercell wrote: post #63
david-gpu wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world would be moving away from poverty a lot faster if there was less inequality.

Or the argument can be made that the world is moving away from poverty at the back of 1%ers. The point being that 1% is getting richer than the average person of their own country, by lifting the poorest person of a poor country upwards. The only loser here is the middle class of rich countries, not middle or poor class of poor countries.

Correlation doesn't imply causation, or ave you got any supporting evidence of that?

Re: Explore Wealth and Income Inequality in the World Wealth and Income Database

#125

Post by sokoloff »

splintercell wrote: post #63
david-gpu wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The world would be moving away from poverty a lot faster if there was less inequality.

Or the argument can be made that the world is moving away from poverty at the back of 1%ers. The point being that 1% is getting richer than the average person of their own country, by lifting the poorest person of a poor country upwards. The only loser here is the middle class of rich countries, not middle or poor class of poor countries.

The middle class in America today is wildly, wildly better off than 100, 50, 25, or 10 years ago, IMO.

100 years ago, they didn't have phase-change refrigeration, instead relying on ice. (That's why your grandmother might still call it an "ice box".)

50 years ago, they didn't have air conditioning.

25 years ago, they didn't have cars that would reliably run for 250K miles with airbags, anti-lock brakes, traction control, and which required very regular servicing to keep running.

10 years ago they probably didn't have a smart phone with the world's information in their back pocket.

All of those things are now readily affordable and very commonplace in the middle class.

Re: Explore Wealth and Income Inequality in the World Wealth and Income Database

#126

Post by collyw »

choward wrote: post #98
goptimize wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Median instead of Average would be most illustrative

Not really. What if the top 55% made over $1,000,000 (or $100,000) per year and the bottom 45% made less than $20,000 per year? The median would look pretty nice.

Isn't it common knowledge that there is a big spike at the top end of the wealth distribution graphs.

Re: Explore Wealth and Income Inequality in the World Wealth and Income Database

#127

Post by meheleventyone »

IncRnd wrote: post #72
meheleventyone wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Depends on which average. In the case of very large wealth inequality the mean is going to make the picture a lot rosier than the median. I’d posit the average person cares more about the median than the mean as well.

What do you mean by "depends on which average"? As far as I know, average is another word for mean, and median is the middle value, unrelated to mean.

I guess I was colloquially referring to the difference we would see depending on whether the mean, median or mode was used. At least from my (British) point of view these are all called an “average” generally speaking. Hopefully the second and third sentences cleared that up as I specifically describe what I meant in terms of the mean and median.

Re: Explore Wealth and Income Inequality in the World Wealth and Income Database

#128

Post by tuna-piano »

1. When everyone was a farmer, the difference between the best possible farmer and the worst farmer just wasn't that great. Maybe you're 2x faster at picking corn, or 3x better at hunting deer. But a few guys literally built a communication tool (WhatsApp) to be used by billions of people. So maybe in the old world you could pick 2x as much corn, but in today's world you can build 1 billion times the communication tools as someone else.

2. The whole idea of inequality, while potentially useful, kind of assumes a fixed pie. The question is phrased as, "What percent of the total income pie did the 1% take" and not "How much pie did the top 1% of people produce to make the overall pie bigger?". I don't think either mentality is totally correct, but both are vitally important to understand (and the second belief is non-obvious to many). Did Steve Jobs producing the iPhone (and becoming a billionaire) take any of the poor people's money, or did it increase the overall output of the country? Steve jobs making the iPhone certainly made the country more unequal, but it also made the economy bigger and the country better off.

3. Does anyone care about equality, or do people care about poverty? Would a world where 1% of people had 100 yachts but 99% of people each had 1 yacht bother you? Would you rather live in a poor equal country or a rich unequal country?

Re: Explore Wealth and Income Inequality in the World Wealth and Income Database

#129

Post by smokeyj »

sumeno wrote: post #92
smokeyj wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you have two popsicles, and I have one - we could achieve popsicle equality by throwing one of yours away. We have overall less popsicles but greater equality.

If you have billions of popsicles and other people have none you could easily give out millions of popsicles to help the less fortunate and still have vastly more popsicles than you could ever need.

But the relevant metric here is how many people have nothing. If everyone had nothing you solved the inequality but you're still poor.

Inequality is just a bad metric. I'd rather be a poor in America than equal in Venezuela.

Re: Explore Wealth and Income Inequality in the World Wealth and Income Database

#130

Post by meheleventyone »

IncRnd wrote: post #114
JohnStrange wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He probably meant to say "measure of central tendency".

You might be right. I'm not sure why I was downvoted for asking for a clarification. In any case, it wasn't clear if he meant the average person or an average about wealth or income. Average could have meant a colloquial reference to the average person, or it could have been a misuse of the statistical term.

Sorry I meant wealth and thought that was obvious from talking about wealth inequality as opposed to income inequality.
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