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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

#81

Post by JimmyBuckets »

eloisius wrote: post #55
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 so…

I agree with your overall position but I disagree on the first point.

Wealth is ownership, ownership is control of value. Allocating more (not all) value away from SaaS companies and into food security or education is a good thing and would make things better for everyone.

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

#82

Post by maciejzj »

simianwords wrote: post #71
maciejzj wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I would say that we have now enough information to say that this sentiment (characteristic for some strata of american society) is simply not true: 1) Wealthy people account for more and more % of consumption (now about 50% in the US). Source by Federal Reserve via Bloomberg: https://news.bloomberglaw.com/capital-markets/top-10-of-earn... . 2) "Investment in productive companies" now either goes to: a) financial inst…

1) you are damn right that top 10% consume as much as bottom 50 or whatever. Let’s be clear that taxing this bunch of people even more will have disastrous consequences. I’m okay with it if it works out. Top 10% includes everyone pretty much in HN. 2) a) PE is owned mostly by pension firms that the public has a huge stake in. Billionaires have stake mostly in their own companies rather than in PE firms. b) AI investm…

> Let’s be clear that taxing this bunch of people even more will have disastrous consequences.

?

> Top 10% includes everyone pretty much in HN.

I would suggest you take more caution with statements like that. There are people who read this page and don't have much luck in life. And foremost, what does HN mean in the scale of society? Should HN commenters high five and carry one because the are not the bottom part of the society?

> AI investment for job displacement is necessary for overall prosperity and efficiency.

AI will boost efficiency at expanse of society. I will give you some random examples to ponder about, maybe it will touch some people hearts:

1) What will happen to hundreds of thousands of managers and office workers in the US and EU who built mortgages and families when economy recovered after COVID if AI wipes out their jobs?

2) What will happen to hundreds of thousands of people in English-speaking counties in Africa who earned they daily bread by providing remote help desk services when AI takes heir jobs?

3) What will happen to hundreds of thousand of CS grads in India whose family spent life savings to give them "good" education in Bangalore when AI takes their jobs?

These and many more changes happening rapidly all at once?

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

#83

Post by eloisius »

JimmyBuckets wrote: post #81
eloisius wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 so…

I agree with your overall position but I disagree on the first point. Wealth is ownership, ownership is control of value. Allocating more (not all) value away from SaaS companies and into food security or education is a good thing and would make things better for everyone.

I agree with that. I only mean that it’s not as simple as “if we gave everyone Elon’s money then we could all afford homes.” But you’re right, the higher concentration of wealth means there’s less investment into producing more resources that people need, so indirectly it does mean there are less homes to go around.

I do agree with what (I think) GP might have been trying to say though. Conspicuous spending itself is not a problem. Way rather have the ultra wealthy buying yachts that deciding to be a wealth-proportional amount of everyday commodities.

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

#84

Post by nabla9 »

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…

Wealth translates easily into political power and influence. Do we care if Saudi Royalty and billionaires have power to shape societies, use power over us, determine what media we consume etc. Most of the history the rich and powerful ruled over us, why we can't go on living like that.

Kushner, Saudi, Ellisons behind Paramount, Warner, X, ... is nothing to fear of.

“There’s so much I’m learning from being here, In the States it feels really grim; and even in the less than 24 hours that I’ve been here in Saudi Arabia, I have a renewed faith in the cinema.” -- Dakota Johnson (Actress)

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

#85

Post by Gys »

willvarfar wrote: post #45
Gys wrote: post #19

Taxing them will be difficult. There will always be places welcoming them with low taxes if they just spend money. Most of their wealth is probably in companies operating globally. It seems more easy to tax profits in local markets. And increase competition…

Is there a global movement to tax business where the customer conducts it rather than where the company chooses to base itself?

It is a topic in the EU. France and Italy, IIRC, want to make this policy. I also found this https://brusselssignal.eu/2025/11/european-parliament-target...

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

#86

Post by dns_snek »

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.

It is evil, the vast majority of people don't become rich without exploiting other people, and just about everyone in that position then leverages their wealth to exert even more power over people and politics.

> technologies and aid originating from the wealthier nations.

We run sweatshops in poor countries, exploit their people and natural resources to death, then we send them a few crumbs of aid to paint ourselves as the good guys for the history books, how noble of us!

> 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

Nobody wishes for this but people will reach a breaking point where they're desperate and can't take it anymore. If slaves try to resist they get beaten, would you advise them to keep their heads down and do as they're told to avoid the beatings? These are classic abuser tactics.

> based on this same flavor of folk economics

Which part of "The wealthy are getting wealthier, they're using that wealth to exert more power over us, and they're using that power to change the system to be even more favourable for them, so that they can get even richer, and even more powerful, at great cost to the rest of society" would you say is "folk economics"?

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

#87

Post by DrProtic »

pseudocomposer wrote: post #62
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’s only “misleading” if you’re so out of touch that you don’t know a substantial portion of the population is in crippling debt. There’s nothing misleading about the fact that negative net worth is worse than zero. And a person without debt factually does have far more wealth than 10 million people in debt.

Using your logic, a person in debt living in a nice house driving a nice car is worse than a homeless person without any debt.

Another example of your logic, any MD with a huge student debt is worse off than pretty much everyone in undeveloped world?

Or a person with a business loan but a successful business.

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

#88

Post by esseph »

simianwords wrote: post #40
KumaBear wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No one is saying the rich shouldn’t exist. But there is a point where so much accumulated wealth is counter productive. The fact trillionaires will exist is mind boggling. Eventually everything from vehicles to housing will be rented to us as a way to extract the little wealth that’s left. Or layered subscription services. These aren’t great corporate ideas they are extractions of wealth.

That’s not what has been happening though. Home ownership has been the same over last 60 years since inequality has increased.

Yes, but it's a much high percentage of income in cost.

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

#89

Post by simianwords »

pjc50 wrote: post #76
simianwords wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’m asking you very clearly how poor people’s consumption would change if you taxed the rich wealth? The wealth is zero sum - you have to take away investments from Amazon etc and drive it into other places. That means Amazon will be smaller, employ fewer people and produce lesser. Why do you think that is necessarily a good thing? If you think that it is, then you can also stop the NASA program and drive all funds t…

You're eliding the distinction between people and businesses. There's no reason Amazon the company would have to be smaller simply because the Bezos fortune was distributed among more people. It didn't get 50% smaller or employ 50% fewer people when he got divorced and had to split the marital property.

Fair point. Let’s take McKinsey and her woke charities. She sold Amazon shares and drove it into the charities. The charities are now consuming more. So there has to be equal decrease somewhere else right? People are consuming equally less somewhere else to allow for extra activity in charities.

You might think this is a nitpick but this is my main argument. If you redistribute Bezos wealth to poor people, there has to be equivalent reduction somewhere else.

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

#90

Post by esseph »

simianwords wrote: post #57
igorkraw wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

What if Amazon isn't considered a "net good". Does it matter if Bezos is "better"?
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