The world is becoming more equal while the West spends its time navel-gazing about the 1 percent.
It is hard to talk about wealth without going down the rabbit hole of this era’s rabidly political quasi-trillionaire set.
Still, the endless circular discussions of the growing disparity between rich and poor is a discussion that every private banker has needed to endure in familial gatherings without having much of a ready answer as to whether they are part of the overarching problem or not.
More Balance
These days, some might even feel we are nearing peak one percent hate with Trump 2.0 and his cohorts just a few weeks in power. Although the likes of Elon aren’t doing the ultra-high net worth reputational any favors while staring down the great American federal bureaucratic complex as well as every judge in sight, there is another larger truth out there for the taking.
The world has become a much fairer place wealth-wise in the last quarter of a century, so much so it puts the most ardent of the UK tax redistribution efforts in the 90 percent income tax era of the 1960s and 70s to shame, something finews.asia commented on previously.
The Rise of Asia
A Visual Capitalist rendering released recently shows just how much. According to the World Bank’s per capita gross national income data, the share of low-income countries has declined to 11.9 percent currently from 30.7 percent in 2000.
In other words, the proportion of poor countries went from just under one-in-three to about one-in-ten. And the reason? China and India.
A Decade Only
According to the data, China managed to scrabble its way out of being a low-income country in 1999, reaching upper-middle income status in 2010.
India was much the same, although its rise has not been quite as consequential to date, rising from low income to lower middle income.
Wherefore Billionaire?
The short of it is that China has become the world’s second-largest economy in the space of just 12 years, as Visual Capitalist indicated. But the anti-percenters of this world would claim we are mixing apples with oranges and they would have a point as we discuss national wealth as a whole and not the levels within each country.
But Visual Capitalist also released a graphic at the end of last week showing where we are in that regard.
Higher Concentration
Using economic data from the Federal Reserve, it showed that the top 1 percent’s share of total wealth rose to 30.8 percent in 2024 from 22.8 percent in 1989. Bad, but still the conventional wisdom might point to much a larger increase.
Among them, the top 0.1 percent of the 1 percent accounted for 13.8 percent of total net worth, with the remainder holding 17 percent.
Protesting Centimillionaires
Looking at that more closely, you get the impression that it is not about the 1 percent at all, but about the fact that even 0.9 percent of that selfsame 1 percent should be about as irritated related to the increased concentration of wealth as anyone else.
Still, it is unlikely that we are going to see your average centimillionaire take to the streets, although watch out when they do, as that probably really means we are in for a turbulent ride in the markets.
No Comfort
Also, that means that the Elons and Zuckerbergs of the world probably can’t be feeling all that comfortable, even among their kind.
