But what’s your point? Are people making $60k/year causing world hunger through artificial scarcity or is it the greed and mental illness of the capitalist class?
Comment on 'Global Oligarchy' Reigns as Top 1% Controls More Wealth Than Bottom 95% of Humanity
grue@lemmy.world 5 days ago
FYI (and I expect to be downvoted because y’all don’t want to hear this), but when an article talks about the “global 1%” it’s probably talking about YOU.
Yes, you. And me. And probably most of the people reading this, who live in the US or another Western country and consider themselves “middle class.” WE are the global 1%.
From vox.com/…/charity-philanthropy-americans-global-r… :
If you earn $60,000 a year after tax and you don’t have kids, you’re in the richest 1 percent of the world’s population.
Also, if you prefer to measure by wealth instead of income, that’s lower than you think, too. I’m having trouble finding a more recent figure, but as of 2018, the threshold to be considered global 1% in terms of net worth was only $871,320. No, didn’t typo: it really is only hundreds of thousands, not millions or billions.
(The billionaires are more like the 0.01%.)
mako@lemmy.today 5 days ago
Maggoty@lemmy.world 4 days ago
The math doesn’t even math though. It’s 80 million people, globally. Are we to believe no other country contributes to this number? The entire rest of the “Western world” doesn’t contribute at all?
umbrella@lemmy.ml 4 days ago
i’m not sure, but the middle class in my third world country doesnt have even close to the buying power of the western middle class.
Maggoty@lemmy.world 4 days ago
That’s not how purchasing power parity works. You compare the incomes with the same power, no matter what class they are in their regional economy.
callouscomic@lemm.ee 4 days ago
Only $800k net worth? Who the hell in middle class America has that? If they did, then homeownership would be less of an issue.
grue@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Only $800k net worth? Who the hell in middle class America has that?
Homeowners near retirement age, basically. Most of that net worth would be their home value, and the rest would be in their 401k/IRA.
(Keep in mind that in order to achieve a “modest but comfortable” $40k/year middle-class retirement, you need $1M assets (not including your residence) to achieve a 4% safe withdrawal rate. Basically, you have to be a millionaire by retirement just to avoid poverty.)
dubious@lemmy.world 4 days ago
i personally don’t know any of those people
Maggoty@lemmy.world 4 days ago
That “study” is a charity trying to guilt people into giving money. When you adjust for PPP it becomes quite a different story. The media loves it because it drives clicks but it’s literally just a calculator to guilt you and a list of approved charities.
Asafum@feddit.nl 4 days ago
The immense concentration of wealth, driven significantly by increased monopolistic corporate power, has allowed large corporations and the ultrarich who exercise control over them to use their vast resources to shape global rules in their favor, often at the expense of everyone else.
This is literally everything.
Aside from the bullshit religion is responsible for, the vast majority of the issues with the whole world is down to this. Government of the corporation, by the corporation, for the corporation.
Krauerking@lemy.lol 3 days ago
OK so I’m a millennial worth $-35,600, that’s a negative net worth thanks to student loans and the fact that owning anything is outside of my shirt on my back is basically been priced out.
So a net worth of close to $900,000 is feeling a lot like a whole fuck ton of money to me. And probably a lot of other people nowhere fucking near that.
Just cause we live in “western” countries does not make it immediately that we are anywhere near the 1% either. It’s 1% for a reason. Just more of that 1% live in western worlds cause that’s where they want to live. Don’t think of it as some slam dunk.
Einstein@sh.itjust.works 4 days ago
1% of 8 billion is only 80 million. I wouldn’t say most Americans are in the 1% when the 80 million is spread around the world.
Maggoty@lemmy.world 4 days ago
I don’t know how this keeps getting trotted out and up voted. I swear it gets dunked on every time.
Blackmist@feddit.uk 4 days ago
Not just Americans. First world nations in general. That’s about 20% of the population in there, so the top 5% of US, Europe, Japan, Australia, etc. We’re talking the upper middle class. $100K pre-tax gets you there easily, and thanks to rising prices of housing, I doubt most of them feel very rich at all.
The billionaires are holding big numbers as well, and there’s a few of those dotted around the world, but I’d imagine they’re mostly concentrated in first world countries. If you can live anywhere, why would you live in a craphole?
skibidi@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Yes, you. And me. And probably most of the people reading this, who live in the US or another Western country
Not quite. 1% of global population is ~80 million people. There are about a billion people in the highly developed nations (US, Canada, Western Europe, Japan, South Korea, and some minor others). So the top 8% of the golden billion, if we assume all in the US, the top ~25% of the country.
obinice@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Middle class people worth 800 grand these days, and earn over 60 grand where you live? Damn.
Upper middle class maybe, sure, but middle class mostly doesn’t exist any more, mostly it’s people scraping by on a mortgage trying to act like they’re still middle class :-(
HAL_9_TRILLION@lemmy.dbzer0.com 5 days ago
I don’t feel like an oligarch.
cyberpunk007@lemmy.ca 4 days ago
Yeah, where’s my yacht?
roofuskit@lemmy.world 5 days ago
Most Americans won’t have that much wealth even in retirement.
gwen@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 days ago
wheres my superyacht
Xenny@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Oh thank God I’m still not the 1%. Average wage in the US is 45k and I’m not even making that
cabb@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 days ago
Average wage in the US is a lot more than 45k. Sorry to hear about your financial situation, we don’t even try to make the economy work for most people.
“The national average salary in the U.S. in Q4 of 2023 was $59,384”
Buddahriffic@lemmy.world 4 days ago
In addition to the problems with this that others have stated, this also ignores the wealth distribution among that 1%. Like how much does that 95% go down if we limit it to the top 0.1%? 0.01%?
perestroika@lemm.ee 3 days ago
Suppose the global population is 7 billion. One percent is 70 million then. Neither “you and me” or “EU and me” are suitable candidates. The population of the EU is ~450 million, the population of the US is 330 million.
Some informative graphics, which by the way contradict the title claim of the post. So the 1% = 95% claim might be wrong. Wikipedia says that 1% = 46%.
geography082@lemm.ee 4 days ago
Then tax the first world?
Semi_Hemi_Demigod@lemmy.world 3 days ago
FYI (and I expect to be downvoted because y’all don’t want to hear this), but when an article talks about the “global 1%” it’s probably talking about YOU.
Came here to mention this, but I learned I’m only in the top 1% of income and not wealth so I feel a little better about myself.
AWittyUsername@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Yes but what about the 1% if that 1%
ShareMySims@sh.itjust.works 4 days ago
This is some wild reverse temporarily embarrassed millionaire bullshit right here.
No matter how many times you repeat this responsability shifting nonsense, it won’t ever make the people earning 60k responsible for what billionaires are doing.
Maybe visualising the scale of the numbers being discussed will help you see just how laughable your point is.
Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 4 days ago
Yes, billionaires are bad, but so are you.
You are just butthurt to find out that you are part of the 1% problem.
SpacetimeMachine@lemmy.world 3 days ago
Except we’re not and you’re just wrong.
Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world 3 days ago
We control our weath. We decided where to spend and where to invest.
We are the baddies.