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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

#101

Post by apexalpha »

docdeek wrote: post #14

FTA: The authoritative World Inequality Report 2026, based on data compiled by 200 researchers, also found that the top 10% of income-earners earn more than the other 90% combined, while the poorest half captures less than 10% of total global earnings. The report puts the threshold for being in the top 10% of income earners at €65.5K. I suspect many HN users would fall into this category. Related: is there a way to e…

>The report puts the threshold for being in the top 10% of income earners at €65.5K. I suspect many HN users would fall into this category.

Per person or per household?

In any case this does change the conversation a bit...

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

#102

Post by norome »

thefz wrote: post #70
norome wrote: post #58

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 usef…

"hey it's not so bad, the poor have showers now!" - Sent from my iPhone

Well, the poor seem to have smartphones as well XD — Uganda for example has 54% smartphone ownership. But in terms of vaccination rates, education, access to clean water, access to electricity yes things are ever improving if we look at statistics on global wellbeing. "In 1981, 44% of the global population lived in extreme poverty. By 2019, that figure had dropped to just 9%." So inequality may be huge today, but it doesn't mean the bottom hasn't also risen dramatically.

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

#103

Post by ajuc »

zjzbab wrote: post #100
ajuc wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> The problem is oligarchy not inefficiencies I agree with your problem assessment, but it’s been known since the Greeks that democracy inevitably ends in oligarchy. It’s why the US did not start out as a democracy as the founders knew this as well. And if you think about it from first principles, of course it’ll end like that. Mass groups of people are easily manipulated by a smaller group. Cambridge analytica is th…

Every building breaks eventually therefore cities are impossible - that's your reasoning basically :)

You can repair and rebuild and then cities and democracy are possible. There's nothing inevitable.

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

#104

Post by apapsksn »

FranzFerdiNaN wrote: post #77
norome wrote: post #58

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 usef…

> I wish wealth wasn't treated so abstractly as if it's some kind of universal measure of evil. Wealth equals influence. So yes, it kinda is a measure of evil. It goes so far as Musk turning of Starlink at a critical moment to help the Russians for example. Or buying access to POTUS. Or donating money to groups to help undermine labor rights. Basically, the type of person that can get this rich is in 99% of all cases…

> Basically, the type of person that can get this rich is in 99% of all cases also the type of person that doesnt give two shits about other people.

This is mostly because we’re ruled by elites that hate us. Noblesse oblige is a thing and wealth disparity is not necessarily a bad thing. What’s bad is our current elites using wealth to enrich themselves instead of planting trees (so to speak) for America.

There are humans out there who are much better than the rest of us at doing things. I’d like the subset of those that care for their people to have money and power.

The missing piece from this conversation is our current elites have made all the elements that produce good rulers taboo. The term “blood and soil” is a big no no, but it’s also the kind of cultural bond that’s needed to produce good rulers. What more noble cause is there than sacrificing for your land and people? Its been a rallying cry for all of human history.

The oligarchs that run society know exactly what kind of ideas will remove them from power and make sure these ideas are effectively banned.

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

#105

Post by bdangubic »

quelsolaar wrote: post #52
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…

not that I disagree with you in principle but it is a bad example. there are a lot more places where rich do not want to live than places where they do so rich outbidding you for housing wouldn't make even a top-100 list of issues. the "If you have enough, why does it matter if someone else has more" is basically "rich get to live in Monaco, you get to live in Elmo, Kansas" with all your needs met

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

#106

Post by zjzbab »

ajuc wrote: post #103
zjzbab wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The problem is oligarchy not inefficiencies I agree with your problem assessment, but it’s been known since the Greeks that democracy inevitably ends in oligarchy. It’s why the US did not start out as a democracy as the founders knew this as well. And if you think about it from first principles, of course it’ll end like that. Mass groups of people are easily manipulated by a smaller group. Cambridge analytica is th…

Every building breaks eventually therefore cities are impossible - that's your reasoning basically :) You can repair and rebuild and then cities and democracy are possible. There's nothing inevitable.

No, my reasoning is small groups can easily control large ones. There are tons of books on the failures of democracy throughout history. Here’s one from obamas summer reading list:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B099VYZXPQ

I can also dig up the quote from (Socrates I think?) a greek philosopher making the same argument thousands of years ago. Unlimited democracy ends in oligarchy. Look at how easily controlled you are - you didn’t respond to any of my points and simply said “well if everything keeps breaking we can just try again” instead of questioning why things are breaking. You’re carrying weight for billionaires for free.

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

#107

Post by bdangubic »

apexalpha wrote: post #99
simianwords wrote: post #12

This is misleading. It counts debt as negative. This means a person who has zero wealth and zero debt will have more wealth than bottom 5% of people cumulatively (their wealth cancels out due to debt). It would be misleading to suggest that a single person with zero wealth has more wealth than 100k people’s wealth combined. But that’s what this headline and report are doing.

>It would be misleading to suggest that a single person with zero wealth has more wealth than 100k people’s wealth combined Using a word exactly as you should is not misleading. People simply have a bad conception of wealth in their head. But in reality saying that a single person just born is indeed wealthier than someone in debt: that's how it works.

single person just born is indeed wealthier than someone in debt is exactly right. based on my Pre-K Math 0 is greater than -X :)

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

#108

Post by bdangubic »

anal_reactor wrote: post #79
simianwords wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s first agree that it’s misleading. A new born baby has more wealth than bottom 1 million peoples wealth cumulatively according to this metric. That’s ridiculous.

Time is money, and newborn baby has shitload of time.

Perfect answer!

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

#109

Post by norome »

pjc50 wrote: post #75
norome wrote: post #58

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 usef…

> 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. Yes. Which is why the question of social responsibility of the rich matters far more, because they can't help getting involved in politics. And a lot of them seem surprisingly pro-collapse, or at least pro-author…

The power of wealth certainly comes with a lot of responsibility. Which is why I would be curious to have a more detailed view on what all these hyper-rich people are actually doing with their money, and how they came to be so wealthy. We have some obvious examples of power accumulation and evil, and some clear examples of doing great good in the form of philanthropy. So while It doesn't make sense to me that so few individuals should have so much money and power, I still don't think we should count them all as defacto evil.

I'm more saying there's a sort of historical inevitability in the whole situation and we might benefit by taking that into consideration. And that some degree of nuance and tolerance of unfairness might play into a realistic solution.

Regarding landlordism, it's another tricky issue where yes there are bad big landlords, but the policies I've seen that put in place to tackle them tend disincentivize renting altogether and the first ones out of the market are the little guys, exasterbating the housing crisis in most cities. It seems to me an area where tolerating the bad actors is necessary to avoid crashing the whole system, to my point.

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

#110

Post by ajuc »

simianwords wrote: post #60
ajuc wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

1. It isn't 0-sum (see the effect of Henry Ford paying his workers more for 1 obvious example).

2. But that's irrelevant, because the reason some people are poor is not lack of resources in the whole economy. We have way more stuff than we need even if it was 0-sum

3. Also I wasn't even talking about eliminating poor people, I was talking about ensuring poor people have a say in what the society does.

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