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85 richest people have more wealth than half the world.

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Lord Percy
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PostPosted: 21:34 - 20 Jan 2014    Post subject: 85 richest people have more wealth than half the world. Reply with quote
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/jan/20/oxfam-85-richest-people-half-of-the-world?CMP=fb_gu

Interesting read.

Thoughts?
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Wafer_Thin_Ham
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PostPosted: 21:39 - 20 Jan 2014    Post subject: Reply with quote
Oxfam and the Guardian. Rolling Eyes

It's nothing new.
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Derivative
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PostPosted: 22:05 - 20 Jan 2014    Post subject: Reply with quote
It's not really a particularly useful comparison to make because most people do not concern themselves with accumulating wealth, even in developed countries.

Comparing to the top 5 or 10% would be much more relevant.

Even in Britain, a tiny minority really ever do anything more than save to buy a house and then a bigger house and then a bigger house.

Millions if not billions don't even have access to a bank.
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doggone
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PostPosted: 22:13 - 20 Jan 2014    Post subject: Reply with quote
It is never so simple as they make it sound, those with family wealth are the ones who dare create new businesses and keep the economy growing.
Presumably the solution they are implying is something like 90% tax rate for higher earners, massive disincentive to develop business there.

They may not be proposing communism but the total failure of that concept through the last century makes it clear that capitalism provides a better solution for far more people.

Last edited by doggone on 22:15 - 20 Jan 2014; edited 1 time in total
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Derivative
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PostPosted: 22:13 - 20 Jan 2014    Post subject: Reply with quote
Basically, the criticisms of inequality seem to be a sort of implicit assumption that everyone concerns themselves with being as absolutely rich as possible.

I just don't think that's true. The top few have almost all had their fair share of luck (even 'new money' like Zuckerberg had the benefit of a brilliant upbringing and essentially pulled a 'right place at the right time'). It's doubtful whether or not any of us could make it onto the Forbes rich list if we spent every waking minute dedicating ourselves to the task.

But on an 'everyday' level, looking around me, not that many people are even thinking about wealth. It's all about income, getting paid more so that you can buy more stuff (actually, generally buying more stuff and then realising you need to get paid more to sustain it).
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Lord Percy
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PostPosted: 22:15 - 20 Jan 2014    Post subject: Reply with quote
One of the sources in the article leads to this.

The world top incomes database.

I think this is particularly interesting: Income share charts. - You can use it to see the income share of the top 1%, top 5%, 10%, etc for many countries.

A lot of the data looks likes this:


https://i42.tinypic.com/2ihqwpe.png

Also this page is interesting:

Income share database.

The top 5% of UK adults currently have about 25% of the country's wealth.
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Lord Percy
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PostPosted: 22:25 - 20 Jan 2014    Post subject: Reply with quote
Derivative wrote:
Basically, the criticisms of inequality seem to be a sort of implicit assumption that everyone concerns themselves with being as absolutely rich as possible.


I think it's more focussed on the fact that there are people who could buy whole warehouses of food if they wanted to, while others have to scrape the bottom of the barrel every day. And generally it's focussing on the point that it seems to be reaching a stage where a very few people have control of all these warehouses of food, while others are left to slave away for what's left.
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Derivative
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PostPosted: 22:25 - 20 Jan 2014    Post subject: Reply with quote
I can't prove it by any stretch, but I tend to think that the push towards income inequality is mostly down to technology.

We seem to be going through a sort of 'perfect storm' that devalues labour. I don't really think of it as a conspiracy but more a natural consequence of people slowly becoming less necessary (and more people popping up at the same time).

Is it a good idea? Well, not if you're in the bottom tiers.

Quote:
I think it's more focussed on the fact that there are people who could buy whole warehouses of food if they wanted to, while others have to scrape the bottom of the barrel every day. And generally it's focussing on the point that it seems to be reaching a stage where a very few people have control of all these warehouses of food, while others are left to slave away for what's left.


I don't necessarily think that's true (I don't think Buffett could feed the world, even though it might look like he can afford to buy enough rice, you run into the problem that the relationship between 'money' and 'stuff' is not linear).

But disregarding that - what I'm talking about is this specific comparison. Comparing the wealth that people have. Not the amount of food they have or their standard of living, their wealth.

I think that most people prefer spending money to accumulating or storing it. The rich clearly don't - and the ones that do spend it in ways that ensure it is still conserved (See Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, etc).
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mr jamez
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PostPosted: 22:34 - 20 Jan 2014    Post subject: Reply with quote
"Its a big club, and you ain't in it!"

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Derivative
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PostPosted: 22:37 - 20 Jan 2014    Post subject: Reply with quote
Thought experiment: the vast majority of people in Britain have a roof, food, heating. Sure, many don't have a great life, tons of financial anxiety, etcetera, but the basics are there.

Imagine that you gave everyone £20k tomorrow. (For argument's sake we ignore things like benefits being reduced).

How many people do you think would even have half of that 2 years down the line?

I think a huge percentage will just spend it on fun stuff. Holidays, cars, nicer food (until they can't afford it any more), whatever.

Don't get me wrong - I don't see that as inherently bad, or think that people are feckless. I simply think that 'accumulate wealth over lifetime' is not the way many people run their lives, and so headlines like the above are inevitable and not 'shocking' or even something that can be fixed.
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Lord Percy
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PostPosted: 22:41 - 20 Jan 2014    Post subject: Reply with quote
Derivative wrote:

I think that most people prefer spending money to accumulating or storing it. The rich clearly don't - and the ones that do spend it in ways that ensure it is still conserved (See Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, etc).


I don't think that's true at all. eg Gina Rinehart makes more money while taking a shit than most people make in a month. I doubt she's rich because she's conservative with her spending, she's just rich because she inherited most of the mining wealth of Australia.

What if the mines were owned by smallscale local landowners etc, rather than gigantic single entities spanning over all the continents? Just a thought.
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Derivative
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PostPosted: 22:47 - 20 Jan 2014    Post subject: Reply with quote
Lord Percy wrote:
I doubt she's rich because she's conservative with her spending


That's not a logically consistent statement. If she weren't conservative at all then she would spend it all and that would be that. She would also never make money aside from capital gains (she does).

She uses her inheritance in order to provide herself with money. That's the point I'm trying to make. Most people simply don't do that.

A bad example perhaps, but take quiz shows. "How will you spend the money?" How often have you heard someone say they'll invest it? Try to start a business? No, most of the time it's a holiday or some other sort of frivolous expense. The TV network may have something to do with that, there may be some selection bias.

It'd be interesting to poll people off the street. Ask them what they'd do if I gave them £1k.

Quote:
What if the mines were owned by smallscale local landowners etc, rather than gigantic single entities spanning over all the continents? Just a thought.


Can't complain about that.
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Derivative
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PostPosted: 22:50 - 20 Jan 2014    Post subject: Reply with quote
The counterpoint is a professional sports player. How many fallen stars are there that chucked 10x comfy retirement money up the wall?

Having more wealth makes it easier to maintain (lower living costs as a percentage, can get an advisor, more investment opportunities, etc), but it doesn't matter how much you have, if you are financially inept you will not remain wealthy.
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Kickstart
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PostPosted: 22:53 - 20 Jan 2014    Post subject: Reply with quote
Lord Percy wrote:
eg Gina Rinehart makes more money while taking a shit than most people make in a month. I doubt she's rich because she's conservative with her spending, she's just rich because she inherited most of the mining wealth of Australia.


Probably a combination. She didn't spend her inheritance on toys as soon as she got it. Yes she has a stupid amount of money at something like Aus$20bn, but she wasn't a billionaire in 2006.

Lord Percy wrote:
What if the mines were owned by smallscale local landowners etc, rather than gigantic single entities spanning over all the continents? Just a thought.


Most would make a load of poor decisions and be bought out by the ones that didn't, or they would just go bust as their prices were higher than their competitors.

All the best

keith
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Mart_er6
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PostPosted: 23:00 - 20 Jan 2014    Post subject: Reply with quote
Quote:
I can't prove it by any stretch, but I tend to think that the push towards income inequality is mostly down to technology.


You need to read Jaron Lanier's latest book "Who Owns the Future" as he goes into great detail about this and proposes a solution.
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Lord Percy
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PostPosted: 23:34 - 20 Jan 2014    Post subject: Reply with quote
About the point of small landowners controlling the mining, and how they get bought out or otherwise pushed away by the bigger players:

What if there was the correct government legislation to never allow a company to get so big that it gained a monopoly on everything else?

I think one of the points in the article in the OP is that the uber wealthy are using their power to ensure they can have that domination over the smaller groups. I can sort of see the point - the super rich minority could certainly use their vast influence to pretty much control and own everything on the planet, while leaving the vast majority with fuck all. Hang on that's how it happens now anyway Laughing
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Kickstart
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PostPosted: 23:49 - 20 Jan 2014    Post subject: Reply with quote
Lord Percy wrote:

What if there was the correct government legislation to never allow a company to get so big that it gained a monopoly on everything else?


Then competitiveness goes out of the window and in the end you will be paying a LOT more for everything. The badly run ones would either go bust making the well run ones control the market, or the badly run ones would need to be supported.

Lord Percy wrote:
I think one of the points in the article in the OP is that the uber wealthy are using their power to ensure they can have that domination over the smaller groups. I can sort of see the point - the super rich minority could certainly use their vast influence to pretty much control and own everything on the planet, while leaving the vast majority with fuck all. Hang on that's how it happens now anyway Laughing


Of course that happens. If you have spare money you have easy ways to make more money.

Start everyone off from about the same level and you would solve a lot of problem.

All the best

Keith
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smegballs
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PostPosted: 00:50 - 21 Jan 2014    Post subject: Reply with quote
Derivative wrote:
(actually, generally buying more stuff and then realising you need to get paid more to sustain it).


This. I could afford to buy a sportsbike, I couldn't afford to run a sportsbike. The ongoing costs of tyres/fuel/consumables is a bigger hit in my pocket than the outright purchase cost. Of course there is no point getting a high-performance bike and then skimping out and getting the cheapest available tyres as it ruins the whole experience.
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Derivative
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PostPosted: 00:57 - 21 Jan 2014    Post subject: Reply with quote
smegballs wrote:
Derivative wrote:
(actually, generally buying more stuff and then realising you need to get paid more to sustain it).


This. I could afford to buy a sportsbike, I couldn't afford to run a sportsbike. The ongoing costs of tyres/fuel/consumables is a bigger hit in my pocket than the outright purchase cost. Of course there is no point getting a high-performance bike and then skimping out and getting the cheapest available tyres as it ruins the whole experience.


That's part of it, but I'm more talking of the lifestyle itself.
Buying a motorcycle and liking it, so wanting a car, but needing more money to get the car, so getting a better job, and then the car, and now you want a better car.

Or you watch TV so you need a better TV so you work hard to get a better TV and then the TV is bigger and you get Sky TV and so on and so forth.

Again, I don't think there's anything wrong with that, life is for living. But the simple matter is that these sort of chases, the way that most people's expenditure generally rises to fit their income, it means that most will never be wealthy, it just can't work.

Would it be any less shocking to hear '500 people have more wealth as the bottom 50%'? That's really the point I'm trying to get at, the premise is just daft, it's a random figure that really means nothing at all.
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smegballs
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PostPosted: 01:15 - 21 Jan 2014    Post subject: Reply with quote
Lord Percy wrote:

What if there was the correct government legislation to never allow a company to get so big that it gained a monopoly on everything else?


Nothing wrong with a natural monopoly, where the controlling company has it's market share simply by being the best one out there.

The problems start when the monopoly is gained via unfair means, for instance using lobbyists to get legislation passed that gives company X a clear advantage over others. It's not that hard to see how a big company can soak up legislation changes into their cost of doing business while smaller businesses are bankrupted by trying comply with the new regs.
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Derivative
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PostPosted: 01:32 - 21 Jan 2014    Post subject: Reply with quote
smegballs wrote:
Nothing wrong with a natural monopoly, where the controlling company has it's market share simply by being the best one out there.

The problems start when the monopoly is gained via unfair means, for instance using lobbyists to get legislation passed that gives company X a clear advantage over others. It's not that hard to see how a big company can soak up legislation changes into their cost of doing business while smaller businesses are bankrupted by trying comply with the new regs.


I'm struggling to really see what you mean by 'unfair' here.

Imagine Amazon taken to its' logical extreme. They become more efficient than every shop, cheaper, faster delivery due to scale, sorted.

Is that not 'unfair'? They win by virtue of simply being massive. The barrier to entry seems unfair to me.

Otherwise I can't really see what you mean by a natural monopoly. The reason big companies win is because they have bigger economies of scale.
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Benno
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PostPosted: 02:04 - 21 Jan 2014    Post subject: Reply with quote
Derivative wrote:
Lord Percy wrote:
I doubt she's rich because she's conservative with her spending


That's not a logically consistent statement. If she weren't conservative at all then she would spend it all and that would be that. She would also never make money aside from capital gains (she does).

She uses her inheritance in order to provide herself with money. That's the point I'm trying to make. Most people simply don't do that.

A bad example perhaps, but take quiz shows. "How will you spend the money?" How often have you heard someone say they'll invest it? Try to start a business? No, most of the time it's a holiday or some other sort of frivolous expense. The TV network may have something to do with that, there may be some selection bias.

It'd be interesting to poll people off the street. Ask them what they'd do if I gave them £1k.

Quote:
What if the mines were owned by smallscale local landowners etc, rather than gigantic single entities spanning over all the continents? Just a thought.


Can't complain about that.


Most people have no idea how to turn 20k into 20 million. For people like Gina Rinehart, apart from being the dumbest b*tch rich person on the planet, they have more money than they can possibly spend easily.

Most of the "ultra rich" have an obsession with wealth. They accumulate and accumulate, acquiring more and more property. This is when 'the masses' begin to take issue; the wealth-obsessed now own almost everything, and charge 'the masses' a premium to make use of 'their' property - because it's theirs and the law says they can, and this plays nicely into their obsession with increasing their wealth.

So I think arguing that "most people wouldn't have the drive/wouldn't be able to get rich if you gave them the means" is redundant. When there is a minority of people obsessed with acquiring wealth (and many of those people are given ample means to do so by inheriting some wealth sufficient to acquire vastly more wealth) then inevitably they will end up in control of most of the property, which will piss off everyone else, to put it frankly.
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