Saturday, February 22, 2014

On Other Countries Supposedly Having Less Wealth Disparity than the U.S.

a) According to Statistics Sweden, the top 20% in Sweden has 73% of the total wealth while a study from NYU and the University of Western Ontario has the figure at 80%.............b) According to Richbastards.com, the top 10 wealthiest people in Sweden possess a total of $74 billion while the average net worth in that country is $40,000.............c) According to the financial research institute, Investor Economics, the top 3.8% of all the households in Canada control 67% of the total financial wealth for a grand total of $1.78 trillion.............d) According to the OECD World Forum, in 1996 the top 20% in Denmark possessed 98.7% of that country's total wealth.............e) According to the University of California Santa Cruz, the top 1% in America possessed 42.9% of the total financial wealth in 1983 and 42.1% of it in 2010 - it actually went down and, please, do keep in mind here that the actual human beings who comprise these groups change from year to year and from decade to decade and that the actual number one demographic for this category is adults, ages 45-54.............f) According to the OECD World Forum, the top 20% in the Netherlands possess 78.5% of the total wealth there.............g) According to Friedlnews.com, the top 10% in Austria possess 54% of that country's total financial wealth.............h) According to teilung Deutschland, the top .0001% in Germany actually has a greater net worth (1.7% of the country's total) than that country's entire bottom 50% (1.4%).

3 comments:

dmarks said...

For the most part, socialism is by far the most effective method for concentrating increasing wealth disparity (as I mentioned in the comment about Mr. Sander's hero Stalin over at "Rational Nation").

This applies best to most socialist nations (Syria, Kadaffy's Libya, Mao's China)... but perhaps, as you indicate, in some form to "democratic" socialist nations as well.

After all, it's the version of the golden rule, "those who make the rules get the gold".

BB-Idaho said...

World and country wealth distribution figures vary widely, depending on the several sources, so it is best to view the phenomena in general terms. You are right about fluctuations, for example one table shows US top 1% wealth at 44.2% of total in 1929 and a minima in 1976 of only 19.9%
owned by the top 1%. There are actually people who study the econophysics of wealh distribution ,but I'll leave manipulation of statistics to the manipulators? professionals? econogeeks?
..dunno, whatever they call themselves.

Will "take no prisoners" Hart said...

You also have to differentiate between total wealth (which also includes property and displays less of a disparity) and strictly financial wealth.......And I don't seem to recall 1976 being a very good year for anybody (save for maybe Sugar Ray Leonard).