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December 05, 2006
Global Inequality
It's often easy to forget how unequal the world really is. Here's a reminder:
The richest 2% of adults in the world own more than half of global household wealth according to a path-breaking study released today by the Helsinki-based World Institute for Development Economics Research of the United Nations University (UNU-WIDER).
The most comprehensive study of personal wealth ever undertaken also reports that the richest 1% of adults alone owned 40% of global assets in the year 2000, and that the richest 10% of adults accounted for 85% of the world total. In contrast, the bottom half of the world adult population owned barely 1% of global wealth.
The research finds that assets of $2,200 per adult placed a household in the top half of the world wealth distribution in the year 2000. To be among the richest 10% of adults in the world required $61,000 in assets, and more than $500,000 was needed to belong to the richest 1%, a group which — with 37 million members worldwide — is far from an exclusive club.
Obviously, studies like this can obscure as easily as illuminate (Making X dollars in Madagascar means something different than it does in Sweden), but the disparity is, nevertheless, pretty remarkable.
December 5, 2006 | Permalink
Comments
Here's the sad part.
Take all of the money, distribute it evenly and within a short time, there will be have and have nots.
Posted by: Fred Jones | Dec 5, 2006 5:35:56 PM
Sure, Fred. But you - and others trying to defeat a strawman - are the only people who ever suggest distributing all of the world's money "evenly."
Even if it were theoretically possible, I have no interested in making everyone in the world the same, or rich. I am interested in people having enough to eat, being protected by rational laws, and having access to effective medical care.
Since that is what I and others here are actually arguing for, when I read your statement, and others that oppose our goals (whether you employ your socialist strawman or not) what you are really saying is that you don't want - or care - for people to have enough to eat, or to be governed by laws, or to have access to medical care.
Dude, that's cold.
Posted by: Stephen | Dec 5, 2006 6:18:43 PM
...what you are really saying is that you don't want - or care - for people to have enough to eat, or to be governed by laws, or to have access to medical care.
The post was about inequities, not minimum living standards. My comment was within that context.
You need to look in the mirror, dude, before you accuse anyone of constructing strawmen.
Posted by: Fred Jones | Dec 5, 2006 6:59:34 PM
Unless there is some form of cataclysmic tectonic upheval bringing the whole structure down, I expect that this global disparity will change little and, in fact, may only become more pronounced. Not a pretty picture.
Posted by: sparrow | Dec 5, 2006 8:05:28 PM
When I was travelling in India at some point I dug up some census-type records and found that my fairly meager grad student salary put me in something like the top 0.1% income bracket there.
Posted by: Victor Freeh | Dec 5, 2006 8:59:45 PM
Hello there. I'm listening to KHKX 99.1-FM in Odessa, Ector County in the largest warm state that's Eastly, and I want to tell you why the haves have and the dont's don't. One is called axes. They are far too rare. And the other is called evil. It most definitely wouldn't exist. Do you know what making $2200 a year means in Madagascar? A plane ticket to the airport named after a leader. His name is Ronald Reagan. He runs the antiimmigrant movement among gay people around the globe. It's a bet better than the Swedish glacier.
Hat tip to Ezar Klein for being free!
Posted by: what is a genius | Dec 5, 2006 9:20:11 PM
Am I supposed to feel good or bad that just the equity of my hydrogen powered Jeep puts me over the 50% line?
Skipping the 'hybrid' 1972 Charger, the rest of my stuff has offsetting loans on it.
Hope the study offset in the same way I am doing.
Posted by: Guy Montag | Dec 5, 2006 9:23:18 PM
Am I supposed to feel good or bad that just the equity of my hydrogen powered Jeep puts me over the 50% line?
One wonders whether Montag is a professional asshat, or just a really gifted amateur.
Posted by: paperwight | Dec 5, 2006 10:01:26 PM
Hello my name is John and my ancestors were descended from a man named for Columcille. I live in a suburb. I don't own a Prius. Sometimes I see open water. Usually I walk a round on the land and come home but occasionally a mighty sparrow shows up from the Kingsbridge neighborhood. I just want you to all know one thing. Right now I support the existence of the hydrogen atom because it is a fact of nature and its destruction would mean the beaches' end by juche.
Posted by: what is a leader | Dec 5, 2006 10:02:37 PM
And they say Marxism is dead.
Posted by: Fledermaus | Dec 6, 2006 12:46:31 AM
Hello my name is earthen and I live in a pot of clay, mind you, is bull colloquially. I run for exercise. When I do which is not more than too rare because of grossenesa I wonder about the fact that bill came paying time ago. We built the New York City on something called rock and also a little thing called genuine roll. As Grace Slick instructed. The berms gave in. The towers were untestable. Most people did not notice. The oil monopoly did not die. More people are hungry today than on a real computer. But if you think that food means land means peace means liberty I want you to consider the example of obesity among people with mellitus. Diabetes is a murderer. No more war and remember to manufacture liberty.
Posted by: what is a tradesperson | Dec 6, 2006 5:47:51 AM
Hello. I don't like bets against places which ain't real. Are you listening to me? Is there really a place on the face of the earth where the race of the mace can lose face in its trace? Last of all congratulations to the Orinoco for cool serious effort to bring down the nasty Ronald.
Posted by: what is an advocate | Dec 6, 2006 5:54:29 AM
Socrates
Posted by: athens | Dec 6, 2006 5:56:37 AM
'Making X dollars in Madagascar means something different than it does in Sweden'
Yes, PPP, but don't confuse wealth with income.
Two policy implications as well. As trade will help those poor people, we should get rid of all of our own protectionism. Farm Aid, tariffs, quotas and so on. We're trying to help the poor right, not the rich?
Secondly, as high medical drug prices in the US subsidise drugs in those poor countries the US should go on paying those high prices. We're trying to help the poor, not the rich, right?
Posted by: Tim Worstall | Dec 6, 2006 6:33:16 AM
One wonders whether Montag is a professional asshat, or just a really gifted amateur.
It seems we have a new troll.....nothing added, just personal attack.
Sad, really.
Posted by: Fred Jones | Dec 6, 2006 8:21:51 AM
I agree that axes are far too rare.
Posted by: Alex | Dec 6, 2006 9:35:48 AM
Alex,
Yes, axes should be as common as taxes, then everybody would have wood.
Posted by: Guy Montag | Dec 6, 2006 4:01:04 PM
Math: There are 6Bn people, shouldn't the richest 1% club have 60 million members, not 37?
Posted by: random | Dec 6, 2006 5:51:58 PM
Secondly, as high medical drug prices in the US subsidise drugs in those poor countries the US should go on paying those high prices. We're trying to help the poor, not the rich, right?
They don't. They subsidize direct-to-consumer advertising and insane profit margins.
Actually, some free trade agreements go to great pains to ensure that the poor remain screwed. Ordinarily, they just fail to ban export subsidies and farm aid (there's a reason NAFTA screwed Mexico while the EEC promoted convergence). If I'm not mistaken, CAFTA ups the ante and requires Brazilians to pay full price for drugs.
Posted by: Alon Levy | Dec 7, 2006 6:40:26 AM
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