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Just 0.001% hold 3 times the wealth of poorest half of humanity, report finds

theguardian.com

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Re: Just 0.001% hold 3 times the wealth of poorest half of humanity, report finds

#51

Post by kingstnap »

mcny wrote: post #4
kjkjadksj wrote: post #2

I figured it would be more honestly

Half of humanity is a lot of people though.

A lot of people own nothing or are in net debt though and all of those would get included in the bottom 50%.

Plus there is a strong "property of how you measure wealth" effect going into this. Specifically here we are largely comparing stuff like basic items as wealth for the bottom 50% and for the top 0.01% we are measuring stocks/crypto owned * market price which is a synthetic measure and can sort of balloon arbitrarily.

It would be more interesting to see things like the inequality of true apples to apples things like vehicles, land owned, fuel used, electricity used, etc.

An interesting apples to apples one is to see how inequal views on social media are. Which have a massive concentration effect as well.

Then you could measure how much we are funneling resources and attention on different categories.

Re: Just 0.001% hold 3 times the wealth of poorest half of humanity, report finds

#52

Post by quelsolaar »

adrian_b wrote: post #27

I would not care at all if 1 ppm of the world population would hold 100 times the wealth of the poorest half of the world population, if all of the poorest half would have nonetheless the means to produce their minimum necessities in energy, food, clothes etc., independently of others, so that their survival for the next months or weeks or even days would not be completely dependent on the benevolence of the rich to…

This, "If you have enough, why does it matter if someone else has more" argument doesn't really hold. Yes we can make more TVs and phones so that everyone can get one, but then get to things like centrally located housing, where there is a limited supply. It matters a lot if you want someplace to live, and there are thousands of very rich people trying to out bid one and other for the same space in your city. This is why housing is no longer affordable.

Re: Just 0.001% hold 3 times the wealth of poorest half of humanity, report finds

#53

Post by saikia81 »

simianwords wrote: post #26

Rich people having too much wealth is not necessarily that bad a thing because most of the investment is in productive companies. It’s not like they are using their wealth on frivolous consumption. Which means redistribution would only change who controls the investment and not the actual consumption patterns of people. Implication is that poor people will consume the same as before after redistribution with perhaps…

The fact you want to keep the current distribution, without considering that it could help many people if changed is a bit ignorant. Just because (without any indication why) you feel that the ones in control are doing well. I'm not seeing substance for these arguments when based on your feelings and presumptions. I wonder how many poor people you've really interacted with.

These sentiments are popular on Hacker News. For the readers: Consider that a few out-of-touch tech people who believe that rich people are some kind of genius, and that that is why they manage money is a circular argument.

Disclaimer: I'm a successful software engineer that wouldn't mind paying more taxes, if the rich paid their honest part.

Re: Just 0.001% hold 3 times the wealth of poorest half of humanity, report finds

#54

Post by mcntsh »

myrmidon wrote: post #16

I think a very problematic aspect of this is self-perception. People that see (growing) wealth inequality as a problem rarely perceive themselves as part of it, but e.g. anyone complaining about the "top 1%" on this forum is pretty likely to be part of the "problem" themselves, globally speaking. I think that for a lot of issues "people richer than us" are mostly a convenient scapegoat to shift the blame upstream, e.…

> globally speaking

What if instead of comparing people in, say America to people in South Sudan, you compare people in America to people in America.

Re: Just 0.001% hold 3 times the wealth of poorest half of humanity, report finds

#55

Post by eloisius »

simianwords wrote: post #26

Rich people having too much wealth is not necessarily that bad a thing because most of the investment is in productive companies. It’s not like they are using their wealth on frivolous consumption. Which means redistribution would only change who controls the investment and not the actual consumption patterns of people. Implication is that poor people will consume the same as before after redistribution with perhaps…

The concentration of wealth isn’t a problem so much for poverty, because without doing something to increase the production of things people need, having more money would just result in higher prices. Like you said, the 0.001% aren’t consuming half the world’s food production, so redistributing there money alone would not solve world hunger.

A bigger problem as that fewer and fewer have any say in the direction of society now. That concentrated investment means they get to shape the world we live in. Years ago I had a more libertarian mindset about that as well. “They’re more likely to make better decisions with it because they made the money to begin with.” I no longer feel that way. It increasingly looks like the most wealthy are happy to destroy the world for everyone in their quest to become ever more elite.

Re: Just 0.001% hold 3 times the wealth of poorest half of humanity, report finds

#57

Post by simianwords »

igorkraw wrote: post #42
simianwords wrote: post #26

Rich people having too much wealth is not necessarily that bad a thing because most of the investment is in productive companies. It’s not like they are using their wealth on frivolous consumption. Which means redistribution would only change who controls the investment and not the actual consumption patterns of people. Implication is that poor people will consume the same as before after redistribution with perhaps…

I see this argument often but for me it misses something. The difference is about power. The wealth being this concentrated means the power is concentrated. If people are okay with the idea of an ETF, or a wealth manager (or any type do fund manager/investment bank) then they should be okay with sovereign wealth funds/national ETFs that provide dividends with a guaranteed single share single vote setup. If you want c…

I agree with power argument but let’s not assume that this will solve any material problem with the poor. Sure they will have more “power” or say in how money is invested but they are consuming as per before.

I also think there are problems with having poor people have a say in how money should be invested. I think Bezos has a better say in how Amazon should run rather than random people.

Re: Just 0.001% hold 3 times the wealth of poorest half of humanity, report finds

#58

Post by norome »

I think it's become popular to talk about the issue of accumulation of wealth, and make this kind of dramatic wealth comparison to point out how uneven the distribution is. I wish wealth wasn't treated so abstractly as if it's some kind of universal measure of evil. I would like to learn about some specific cases of hyper wealthy people and what they are actually up to. Seems like some very rich people do really useful things with their money. Couple other thoughts that hang around my head:

- Though the bottom half of humanity may be poor, on average they have a quality of life that has risen dramatically over the past century thanks in large part to the deployment of technologies and aid originating from the wealthier nations.

- Historically the only time the trend of wealth accumulation reverses is during massive crises, wars, and civilizational collapse which make life worse for everyone and nobody with any sense would wish for.

- It seems to me a lot of people channel their unhappiness into resentment of the wealthy, based on this same flavor of folk economics as old as time "the rich get richer". And that unhappiness is usually uncoupled from their position in the economic ladder.

Re: Just 0.001% hold 3 times the wealth of poorest half of humanity, report finds

#59

Post by throwaway77385 »

johntennessee93 wrote: post #29
eldgfipo wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

please don't

Don't what? If most people had money, they'd waste it on clothes, cars and other frivolous purchases. Most billionaires made their wealth because they were effective at using that wealth for productive uses. Elon could have cashed out after PayPal, instead he revolutionized rocketry and electric vehicles. He deserves every cent of his wealth.

This is the 'ends justify the means' argument. No matter how ruthlessly power / money was accumulated by a person, the fact that they somehow did it, justifies it. It's undeniable that some progress happened thanks to Elon, but people like him can't stay in their lane and immediately assume they are demi-gods capable of doing anything. They start reshaping the world according to their psychotic beliefs and ultimately make all of us worse off. Unchecked power is not and will never be a good thing.

Re: Just 0.001% hold 3 times the wealth of poorest half of humanity, report finds

#60

Post by simianwords »

ajuc wrote: post #34
simianwords wrote: post #26

Rich people having too much wealth is not necessarily that bad a thing because most of the investment is in productive companies. It’s not like they are using their wealth on frivolous consumption. Which means redistribution would only change who controls the investment and not the actual consumption patterns of people. Implication is that poor people will consume the same as before after redistribution with perhaps…

The problem is oligarchy not inefficiencies. In the absence of regulation, with these levels of inequality - democracy becomes a facade. Whatever the few oligarchs want - happens, no matter if people like it or not. And yes, redistribution is one solution, and it does work. You just have to repeat it regularly. There are also other solutions - like strong regulations on influencing public opinion/legislation with "lo…

How does redistribution solve material problems with the poor?

My post says exactly that it is zero sum - you have to take away investments in big companies and drive it into perhaps unproductive places. It’s not so clear that this is a good thing.

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