Meet The New Rich, Same As Old New Rich

It’s that time of year again when Oxfam point a bony finger, and say that the richest 1% of the world’s population now has as much wealth as the rest of the world combined. It further makes the remarkable claim (well unless you read last year’s report), that the richest 62 people in the world had as much wealth as the poorest half of the global population (last year it was 85 people).

Of course the accusations about the top 10% and top 1% carry a caveat or two:

• Firstly: Credit Suisse (who do the maths for Oxfam) suggests that its estimates of the proportion of wealth held by the 10% and the 1% is "likely to err on the low side".
• Secondly: It makes guesstimates of levels of wealth in countries from which accurate statistics are not available.
• Finally: The figures required to get in to the top 10% and top 1% (but not the top 62 people, obviously), are remarkably low by West European/North American standards .... cash and assets worth just $68,800 (£48,300) to get into the top 10%, and only $760,000 (£533,000) to be in the top 1%. 

New Top 65 Ultra Rich .... Much The Same As Old Rich 85

Super Rich Feasting On Us All

Every few years of so, there is a declaration by one organisation or another (Oxfam, or the Credit Suisse bank for example), that all the worlds wealth is falling in to the hands of the few, at the expense of the many. And while this is certainly true in a literal sense, its also compounded by factors that make it seem harsher than reality.  

This year, Oxfam have updated their report of last year that the 85 richest people on the planet have the same wealth as the poorest 50% (3.5 billion people). Now the figure has risen (or fallen depending upon your point of view), to the 80 richest people, having the same wealth as the poorest 50%.

According to their calculations, pretty soon the wealthiest 1% will also soon own more than the rest of the world's population combined, with their research indicating that the total share of the world's wealth owned by the richest 1%, increased from 44% in 2009,  to 48% last year, and that its expected that the wealthiest 1% will own more than 50% of the world's wealth by 2016.

Even outside the top 1%, global inequalities indicate that of the wealth not owned by the richest 1%,  52% is owned by those in the richest 20%. So the remaining 80% of the worlds population, accounts for just 5.5% of global wealth, and their average wealth was $3,851 (£2,544) per adult in 2014. That compares to an average wealth of $2.7m per adult for the elite 1%.

These figures are obtained by the simple method of totalling up the total wealth that was attributed to the poorer half of the world's population - less than 1% of the world's wealth, about $1.7tn (£1tn) via GDP reports etc. The by using the 'Forbes Rich List', and adding up all the wealth of the top billionaires until the figure of 1.7 trillion US dollars was achieved .... this was reached when adding the assets of the 85th richest person in the world (according to Forbes). Using a similar method for the UK (Forbes and The Times Rich List), you get the figure that the five richest families, have more wealth than the poorest 20%.

The idea that these super-rich individuals have so much wealth that it's making half the world poor is actually nonsense, as their wealth is not sitting in money piles in banks, its actually shared in physical factories, mines, agriculture, banking, shipping, stocks and shares etc, and its what employs people. In other words the idea of the rich just taking is a very simplistic world view .....

Even within these reports, its not all gloom and doom, as although this latest report echoes earlier reports, such as that by the Credit Suisse bank, there are also differences (perhaps reflecting the political nature of the Oxfam report).

Where The Top 1% Live