Wealth inequality grows.
Discussion
fblm said:
Those of a less geeky nature may just want to skip this post...
Someone mentioned earlier the population growth rate of poor countries was higher than rich so it's almost inevitable global wealth inequality will continue to grow so I thought I'd look at that.
I compiled the world bank data for 200 odd countries population, wealth and birthrates. First of all there is a correlation between %birthrate and net wealth per capita. (Syria, lebanon and everyone under 1m population was thrown out)
So far so good. Now it turns out the top 10 countries by wealth per capita have almost exactly half of all global wealth. The top ten have wealth per capita of $130,000 and everyone else has $14,000. The top ten have a population of about 640m and and birthrate of 0.48%. The rest have a population of 5.1bn and a birthrate of 1.03%. So the top ten countries enjoy wealth per capita 9.08 times that of everyone else.
Now for the fun bit.
Just to keep the same ratio of wealth inequality due to 3rd world population growth the top 10 have to give the bottom 10.... $210bn a year. Enjoy.
Someone mentioned earlier the population growth rate of poor countries was higher than rich so it's almost inevitable global wealth inequality will continue to grow so I thought I'd look at that.
I compiled the world bank data for 200 odd countries population, wealth and birthrates. First of all there is a correlation between %birthrate and net wealth per capita. (Syria, lebanon and everyone under 1m population was thrown out)
So far so good. Now it turns out the top 10 countries by wealth per capita have almost exactly half of all global wealth. The top ten have wealth per capita of $130,000 and everyone else has $14,000. The top ten have a population of about 640m and and birthrate of 0.48%. The rest have a population of 5.1bn and a birthrate of 1.03%. So the top ten countries enjoy wealth per capita 9.08 times that of everyone else.
Now for the fun bit.
Just to keep the same ratio of wealth inequality due to 3rd world population growth the top 10 have to give the bottom 10.... $210bn a year. Enjoy.
Edited by fblm on Thursday 22 January 17:17
Very good!
And apparently, owning a house in London may well put you in the top 1% wealthiest in the world - (despotic bunch those terraced house owning Londoners...)
crankedup said:
Nobody has convinced me that extreme wealth in just a few hands is a good thing, and that extreme wealth is growing within those same few hands. Nobody can see a problem with that, except a couple of other posters. 
We don't have to convince you, as we're happy with the way the system works. You want to change how it works for, frankly, bizarre and seemingly unclear reasons, so you need to make the case for change.
fblm said:
Just to keep the same ratio of wealth inequality due to 3rd world population growth the top 10 have to give the bottom 10.... $210bn a year. Enjoy.
That's some good work there. I presume that examining investment rates of the top and bottom nations would show that even were they given the money this year, they'd require still greater numbers next year, when the opposite should be true.
turbobloke said:
crankedup said:
The Laurel and Hardy lookalikes!
Ah but which two...a whoosh parrot could be waiting in the wings 
Take another look
crankedup said:
They have been doing the steam-ups/vintage car shows for a few years now, a right good laugh them two. Not sure why you chose to post a pic' of them in here though
Vintage car shows?! Those two comedians were doing stand-up in the House of Commons for years.Afterwards one became rather more wealthy than the other. See
at the top of the post for the other reason for posting 
LucreLout said:
crankedup said:
Nobody has convinced me that extreme wealth in just a few hands is a good thing, and that extreme wealth is growing within those same few hands. Nobody can see a problem with that, except a couple of other posters.
We don't have to convince you, as we're happy with the way the system works. You want to change how it works for, frankly, bizarre and seemingly unclear reasons, so you need to make the case for change.Did I say I wanted to change the current system, no I did not! As a debate it is an interesting topic, as shown with the number of posts, last time I thought about it this is exactly what a forum is intended for.
Turning to your 'frankly bizarre and seemingly unclear reasons' (I don't want to change anything')maybe it's your lack of understanding of the subject matter that is the problem for you. True I haven't put a case as such but I have given a number of examples of how extreme wealth can influence World Politics within differing Countries. If that is not enough for you why not come back, with you're reasoning, and dispute the examples?
Last night's 'Newsnight' featured a piece regarding wealth distribution, as others have mentioned poverty base lines have risen over the past decades. The use of snowballs and toys were used to demonstrate how far those poverty base lines have rose. Worth watching if this type of subject analysis interests you.
crankedup said:
LucreLout said:
crankedup said:
Nobody has convinced me that extreme wealth in just a few hands is a good thing, and that extreme wealth is growing within those same few hands. Nobody can see a problem with that, except a couple of other posters.
We don't have to convince you, as we're happy with the way the system works. You want to change how it works for, frankly, bizarre and seemingly unclear reasons, so you need to make the case for change.Did I say I wanted to change the current system, no I did not!
If you think that we could have a better system, then please feel free to share your views.
Mali and Chad have a much smaller "wealth gap" than the UK. Even the poorest people in the UK have unimaginable wealth compared to the poor in those parts of Africa.
I get the impression that you would be much happier if we didn't have a few hundred wealthy people even if it meant that 10's of thousands would die of starvation.
don4l said:
So, are you happy with the current situation, or do you think that we could have a better system?
If you think that we could have a better system, then please feel free to share your views.
Mali and Chad have a much smaller "wealth gap" than the UK. Even the poorest people in the UK have unimaginable wealth compared to the poor in those parts of Africa.
I get the impression that you would be much happier if we didn't have a few hundred wealthy people even if it meant that 10's of thousands would die of starvation.
Crankie just continues to secure his "most contrary person on PH" spot.If you think that we could have a better system, then please feel free to share your views.
Mali and Chad have a much smaller "wealth gap" than the UK. Even the poorest people in the UK have unimaginable wealth compared to the poor in those parts of Africa.
I get the impression that you would be much happier if we didn't have a few hundred wealthy people even if it meant that 10's of thousands would die of starvation.
He doesn't want a different system as he knows that he falls on the wrong side of the line that sees both advantage and a would be clobbering should the true leftistas ever get their way at making everyone equally poor.
But taking that position in an open way would not provoke the bites he gets, nor help in his other aim of trying to look like a Vince Cable replicant
crankedup said:
What's with the 'we', do you imagine you're in an internet clic or is it the Royal 'we'?
Did I say I wanted to change the current system, no I did not! As a debate it is an interesting topic, as shown with the number of posts, last time I thought about it this is exactly what a forum is intended for.
Turning to your 'frankly bizarre and seemingly unclear reasons' (I don't want to change anything')maybe it's your lack of understanding of the subject matter that is the problem for you. True I haven't put a case as such but I have given a number of examples of how extreme wealth can influence World Politics within differing Countries. If that is not enough for you why not come back, with you're reasoning, and dispute the examples?
We in this instance is the people you seem to think should be convincing you of something rather than simply pointing out that your views as you've expressed them are illogical and irrational.Did I say I wanted to change the current system, no I did not! As a debate it is an interesting topic, as shown with the number of posts, last time I thought about it this is exactly what a forum is intended for.
Turning to your 'frankly bizarre and seemingly unclear reasons' (I don't want to change anything')maybe it's your lack of understanding of the subject matter that is the problem for you. True I haven't put a case as such but I have given a number of examples of how extreme wealth can influence World Politics within differing Countries. If that is not enough for you why not come back, with you're reasoning, and dispute the examples?
Extreme wealth differentials become increasingly irrelevant the more polarized the top set become. Make every billionaire into a trillionaire and I'll feel zero impact and nor will you. Normal people aren't competing against them for food, housing, education, or work. It matters not how rich Britains top one percent are; it matters to me & mine only how much wealth I have with which to house, feed, and educate my family.
The problem you perceive with wealth inequality is really just jealousy and envy. Socialism, in a word.
LucreLout said:
We in this instance is the people you seem to think should be convincing you of something rather than simply pointing out that your views as you've expressed them are illogical and irrational.
Extreme wealth differentials become increasingly irrelevant the more polarized the top set become. Make every billionaire into a trillionaire and I'll feel zero impact and nor will you. Normal people aren't competing against them for food, housing, education, or work. It matters not how rich Britains top one percent are; it matters to me & mine only how much wealth I have with which to house, feed, and educate my family.
The problem you perceive with wealth inequality is really just jealousy and envy. Socialism, in a word.
Comical. The argument is "I don't perceive any immediate negative effects on my life at the moment." I'd say this was a pisstake, but, sadly, I realize there are masses who happily vote against their interests.Extreme wealth differentials become increasingly irrelevant the more polarized the top set become. Make every billionaire into a trillionaire and I'll feel zero impact and nor will you. Normal people aren't competing against them for food, housing, education, or work. It matters not how rich Britains top one percent are; it matters to me & mine only how much wealth I have with which to house, feed, and educate my family.
The problem you perceive with wealth inequality is really just jealousy and envy. Socialism, in a word.
scherzkeks said:
Comical. The argument is "I don't perceive any immediate negative effects on my life at the moment." I'd say this was a pisstake, but, sadly, I realize there are masses who happily vote against their interests.
Your trolling is now obvious. Your lack of comprehension and reasoning is so bad it might even be worse than camorons!LucreLout said:
Extreme wealth differentials become increasingly irrelevant the more polarized the top set become. Make every billionaire into a trillionaire and I'll feel zero impact and nor will you. Normal people aren't competing against them for food, housing, education, or work. It matters not how rich Britains top one percent are; it matters to me & mine only how much wealth I have with which to house, feed, and educate my family.
This is ignorance of the highest order. It is well document economic fact (c.f. Gini coefficient) that concentration of wealth slow the velocity of money, reduces economic activity and does limit everybody else's opportunities and global wealth.Edited by Martin4x4 on Friday 23 January 10:16
Martin4x4 said:
LucreLout said:
Extreme wealth differentials become increasingly irrelevant the more polarized the top set become. Make every billionaire into a trillionaire and I'll feel zero impact and nor will you. Normal people aren't competing against them for food, housing, education, or work. It matters not how rich Britains top one percent are; it matters to me & mine only how much wealth I have with which to house, feed, and educate my family.
This is ignorance of the highest order. Martin4x4 said:
It is well document economic fact that concentration of wealth slow the velocity of money, reduces economic activity and does limit everybody else's opportunities.
If a government wants to increase the velocity of money, they will do well by decreasing the tax burden on low income and middle income workers. This will make more difference than fiddling with tax levels on high earners either way. Another key point often made but then forgotten is that standards of living are driven by men and women who create things that improve the quality of life for others, these people are not looking at the velocity of money when thinking up and developing life-enhancing concepts and the products/services that follow, which people want to buy. However, incentives to develop concepts to market need to remain in place and high taxation for whatever reason is a significant disincentive.A high velocity of money economy is one where low to middle income earners pay low taxes and where it's easy for enterprising individuals to accrue wealth - over time, everyone benefits. Try dispelling ignorance with a dose of that.
Forget the billionaires, invariably their success generates wealth further down the tree and they've had to risk their own money to get there .
For me the real story is the multiple between top earner and bottom earner in medium/large companies. Companies where the guys at the top are not risking their own money but are taking rewards commensurate as if they had invested their capital.
And company success is not rewarded proportionately to employees and shareholders.
For me the real story is the multiple between top earner and bottom earner in medium/large companies. Companies where the guys at the top are not risking their own money but are taking rewards commensurate as if they had invested their capital.
And company success is not rewarded proportionately to employees and shareholders.
Increasing taxes reduces the risk that entrepreneurs are willing to take. This article about start-ups by Paul Graham is my favourite on the subject:
http://www.paulgraham.com/inequality.html
http://www.paulgraham.com/inequality.html
Paul Graham said:
Suppose you wanted to get rid of economic inequality. There are two ways to do it: give money to the poor, or take it away from the rich. But they amount to the same thing, because if you want to give money to the poor, you have to get it from somewhere. You can't get it from the poor, or they just end up where they started. You have to get it from the rich.
There is of course a way to make the poor richer without simply shifting money from the rich. You could help the poor become more productive-- for example, by improving access to education. Instead of taking money from engineers and giving it to checkout clerks, you could enable people who would have become checkout clerks to become engineers.
This is an excellent strategy for making the poor richer. But the evidence of the last 200 years shows that it doesn't reduce economic inequality, because it makes the rich richer too. If there are more engineers, then there are more opportunities to hire them and to sell them things. Henry Ford couldn't have made a fortune building cars in a society in which most people were still subsistence farmers; he would have had neither workers nor customers.
If you want to reduce economic inequality instead of just improving the overall standard of living, it's not enough just to raise up the poor. What if one of your newly minted engineers gets ambitious and goes on to become another Bill Gates? Economic inequality will be as bad as ever. If you actually want to compress the gap between rich and poor, you have to push down on the top as well as pushing up on the bottom.
How do you push down on the top? You could try to decrease the productivity of the people who make the most money: make the best surgeons operate with their left hands, force popular actors to overeat, and so on. But this approach is hard to implement. The only practical solution is to let people do the best work they can, and then (either by taxation or by limiting what they can charge) to confiscate whatever you deem to be surplus.
So let's be clear what reducing economic inequality means. It is identical with taking money from the rich.
When you transform a mathematical expression into another form, you often notice new things. So it is in this case. Taking money from the rich turns out to have consequences one might not foresee when one phrases the same idea in terms of "reducing inequality."
The problem is, risk and reward have to be proportionate. A bet with only a 10% chance of winning has to pay more than one with a 50% chance of winning, or no one will take it. So if you lop off the top of the possible rewards, you thereby decrease people's willingness to take risks.
Transposing into our original expression, we get: decreasing economic inequality means decreasing the risk people are willing to take.
There are whole classes of risks that are no longer worth taking if the maximum return is decreased. One reason high tax rates are disastrous is that this class of risks includes starting new companies.
(cont...)
There is of course a way to make the poor richer without simply shifting money from the rich. You could help the poor become more productive-- for example, by improving access to education. Instead of taking money from engineers and giving it to checkout clerks, you could enable people who would have become checkout clerks to become engineers.
This is an excellent strategy for making the poor richer. But the evidence of the last 200 years shows that it doesn't reduce economic inequality, because it makes the rich richer too. If there are more engineers, then there are more opportunities to hire them and to sell them things. Henry Ford couldn't have made a fortune building cars in a society in which most people were still subsistence farmers; he would have had neither workers nor customers.
If you want to reduce economic inequality instead of just improving the overall standard of living, it's not enough just to raise up the poor. What if one of your newly minted engineers gets ambitious and goes on to become another Bill Gates? Economic inequality will be as bad as ever. If you actually want to compress the gap between rich and poor, you have to push down on the top as well as pushing up on the bottom.
How do you push down on the top? You could try to decrease the productivity of the people who make the most money: make the best surgeons operate with their left hands, force popular actors to overeat, and so on. But this approach is hard to implement. The only practical solution is to let people do the best work they can, and then (either by taxation or by limiting what they can charge) to confiscate whatever you deem to be surplus.
So let's be clear what reducing economic inequality means. It is identical with taking money from the rich.
When you transform a mathematical expression into another form, you often notice new things. So it is in this case. Taking money from the rich turns out to have consequences one might not foresee when one phrases the same idea in terms of "reducing inequality."
The problem is, risk and reward have to be proportionate. A bet with only a 10% chance of winning has to pay more than one with a 50% chance of winning, or no one will take it. So if you lop off the top of the possible rewards, you thereby decrease people's willingness to take risks.
Transposing into our original expression, we get: decreasing economic inequality means decreasing the risk people are willing to take.
There are whole classes of risks that are no longer worth taking if the maximum return is decreased. One reason high tax rates are disastrous is that this class of risks includes starting new companies.
(cont...)
Martin4x4 said:
This is ignorance of the highest order. It is well document economic fact (c.f. Gini coefficient) that concentration of wealth slow the velocity of money, reduces economic activity and does limit everybody else's opportunities and global wealth.
You seem not to understand what the Gini coefficient is. It's a measure of income distribution, not a measure of the velocity of money, economic activity, or opportunity. Back to school!Edited by Martin4x4 on Friday 23 January 10:16
turbobloke said:
If a government wants to increase the velocity of money, they will do well by decreasing the tax burden on low income and middle income workers. This will make more difference than fiddling with tax levels on high earners either way. Another key point often made but then forgotten is that standards of living are driven by men and women who create things that improve the quality of life for others, these people are not looking at the velocity of money when thinking up and developing life-enhancing concepts and the products/services that follow, which people want to buy. However, incentives to develop concepts to market need to remain in place and high taxation for whatever reason is a significant disincentive.
A high velocity of money economy is one where low to middle income earners pay low taxes and where it's easy for enterprising individuals to accrue wealth - over time, everyone benefits. Try dispelling ignorance with a dose of that.
Low-wage workers accruing wealth. A high velocity of money economy is one where low to middle income earners pay low taxes and where it's easy for enterprising individuals to accrue wealth - over time, everyone benefits. Try dispelling ignorance with a dose of that.
With increased income disparity comes a shrinking middle class, and an expansion of the underclass whom you are convinced will "accrue wealth" in their service jobs due to low taxes on their hand-to-mouth salaries.
Inclusive economies outlast and outperform plutocracies.
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