Global Rich List • Hacker News Board

Re: Global Rich List

#41

Post by apsec112 » Thu, Jul 18, 2013, 2:07 AM UTC

lsd5you wrote: post #39

apsec112 wrote: post #38

This is an interesting idea, but the numbers are bogus. It says 2% of the world (130M people) makes more than $25,000. This is, however, the median American personal income, so we know that at least 150M Americans make at least that much, plus all the people who do so elsewhere (probably at least another 150M, counting UK, Germany, France, Japan, etc, all the wealthier countries).

I don't think all Americans are in work ... edit: Brief searching gives around 135 million Americans in work (this number maybe excluding farm work).

That's for everyone, not just workers. The figure for Americans who work with some non-zero salary is $29,000.

Re: Global Rich List

#42

Post by iamshs » Thu, Jul 18, 2013, 2:12 AM UTC

a3n wrote: post #32

Sealy wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with you that the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation is one of the best charities out there however I'm stunned that they do not (openly) accept donations: Q. Does the foundation accept donations? A. From time to time, people generously offer to contribute money to the foundation. We prefer that people give directly to our grantee organizations rather than to the foundation if they want to help advance the cau…

I suppose it's a tax management tool for the Gates, besides being an excellent charity. I don't mean to take away at all from the good they do, but why else wouldn't they accept donations except to not muddy the tax waters?

Because then people will use the "name that gets associated with Bill Gates upon donating", to further their own cause and popularity. Besides, they are rich enough to sustain their charity's causes, I am pretty sure they know about budgeting.

Re: Global Rich List

#43

Post by lsd5you » Thu, Jul 18, 2013, 2:14 AM UTC

apsec112 wrote: post #41

lsd5you wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think all Americans are in work ... edit: Brief searching gives around 135 million Americans in work (this number maybe excluding farm work).

That's for everyone, not just workers. The figure for Americans who work with some non-zero salary is $29,000.

Since we've established that less than half of the population are in work, it follows that the median for everyone is 0...

Re: Global Rich List

#44

Post by sbierwagen » Thu, Jul 18, 2013, 2:15 AM UTC

citricsquid wrote: post #7

I feel conflicted about donating to charity, Kiva(.org) is my money-for-good vehicle of choice but sometimes it feels as if my money could be better spent donating to charities that help people that can't afford to eat, eat. Long term spending of money to help people better themselves and those around them is the more sustainable model but short term helping people that are starving have access to life essentials has…

This is known as the efficient charity problem. GiveWell is the one of the few groups trying to solve it: http://www.givewell.org/

Re: Global Rich List

#45

Post by pcl » Thu, Jul 18, 2013, 2:23 AM UTC

apsec112 wrote: post #40

apsec112 wrote: post #38

This is an interesting idea, but the numbers are bogus. It says 2% of the world (130M people) makes more than $25,000. This is, however, the median American personal income, so we know that at least 150M Americans make at least that much, plus all the people who do so elsewhere (probably at least another 150M, counting UK, Germany, France, Japan, etc, all the wealthier countries).

(For better statistics see gapminder.org, it's quite fascinating)

Cool site; thanks for the link.

For all of us on mobile browsers: http://www.gapminder.org

Re: Global Rich List

#46

Post by sytelus » Thu, Jul 18, 2013, 2:46 AM UTC

I love how they hid a currency conversion fallacy by putting example of can of cock instead of glass of water. This website will make a walmart worker feel super rich than a person working in similar large store in Ghana even if both have more or less same quality of life.

Re: Global Rich List

#47

Post by ChuckMcM » Thu, Jul 18, 2013, 5:32 AM UTC

arjunnarayan wrote: post #15

citricsquid wrote: post #7

I feel conflicted about donating to charity, Kiva(.org) is my money-for-good vehicle of choice but sometimes it feels as if my money could be better spent donating to charities that help people that can't afford to eat, eat. Long term spending of money to help people better themselves and those around them is the more sustainable model but short term helping people that are starving have access to life essentials has…

Part of the nuance of the issue is the difference between "give a man a fish" versus "teach a man to fish and he eats for a lifetime". There is a moral dilemma between spending money now to feed 100 people versus teaching one person to fish for a lifetime. That is a tough dilemma to solve. But different charities approach this in different ways. The philosophy behind Kiva is to help people build sustainable businesse…

I always seem to evaluate that training a new fisherperson returns longer lifetime value. One to the mysteries of my generation is how persistent poverty can be in places.

Re: Global Rich List

#48

Post by vacri » Thu, Jul 18, 2013, 6:11 AM UTC

petersalka wrote: post #22

tokenizer wrote: post #5

Great app. Too bad a 1 percenters like me can't calculate my apparent wealth however. Income works fine, but when I put in the data for wealth (no house, minimalistic materials, and meagre bank accounts) it gives me the error code: "Are you sure about that?"... Apparently, you cannot hold less than $1,500CAD of wealth, nor can you be classed within the bottom 22%. The income bottom limit is $400CAD, which is much bet…

Yep, same here. I live in Sydney AU and the app also put me in the top 1% richest people in the world by income. When I did it by wealth, the result was: "Your personal wealth is equal to the combined wealth of 0 people in Myanmar." and "1% of your wealth could feed a family of four in Ethiopia for 0 months." There's no doubt that we live way more comfortably than most people in Myanmar do but it's clear that being b…

I have a slightly-lower-than-median wage in Aus and only $20k in assets (car, some furniture). This puts me at 0.9% for income, but 27% for wealth, which is quite a strange disparity - evidently there are a lot of people earning much less than me with much more in the way of assets.

While I am not financially astute, I'm also not terribly bad, throwing that money away on lottery tickets and whatnot. Buggered if I know how I manage to drop 26 percentage points - how are all those much poorer people managing to save so much more than me, especially considering that by the time you're out of the top 1%-by-income, you're below $30k.

Re: Global Rich List

#49

Post by chmike » Thu, Jul 18, 2013, 7:08 AM UTC

citricsquid wrote: post #7

I feel conflicted about donating to charity, Kiva(.org) is my money-for-good vehicle of choice but sometimes it feels as if my money could be better spent donating to charities that help people that can't afford to eat, eat. Long term spending of money to help people better themselves and those around them is the more sustainable model but short term helping people that are starving have access to life essentials has…

In my analysis of this "dilemma" I refer to this example: the man who stopped the desert http://blogs.worldwatch.org/nourishingtheplanet/the-man-who-...

The desert progress can be assimilate to poverty, something we beleive to be unstoppable. But the man above stopped the desert progress by planting little trees. In the long run it proved much more efficient than giving some water to the starving plants at the desert border. Kiva is like planting little trees.

On the other hand I also understand that some people want to contribute where urgent help is needed.

Re: Global Rich List

#50

Post by anovikov » Thu, Jul 18, 2013, 8:31 AM UTC

apsec112 wrote: post #38

This is an interesting idea, but the numbers are bogus. It says 2% of the world (130M people) makes more than $25,000. This is, however, the median American personal income, so we know that at least 150M Americans make at least that much, plus all the people who do so elsewhere (probably at least another 150M, counting UK, Germany, France, Japan, etc, all the wealthier countries).

Of course it's more than that, EU's average GDP per capita is 70% of that of the USA, population is over 150% of U.S., and income is more evenly distributed down here so losers are better off than in USA. And there is also Japan where the vast majority of 120+mm population get way more.