RICHEST 2% STILL HOLD ALL THE ..$$$$$$$$$

[Anonymous]

Richest 2 Percent Still Hold Half the Wealth
LONDON
(Dec. 06) – The richest 2 percent of adults still owns more than half
of the world’s household wealth, perpetuating a yawning global gap
between rich and poor, according to research published Tuesday.The
report from the Helsinki-based World Institute for Development
Economics Research shows that in 2000 the richest 1 percent of adults –
most of whom live in Europe or the United States – owned 40 percent of
global assets.The richest 10 percent of adults accounted for 85 percent
of assets, the report said.By contrast, the bottom 50 percent of the
world’s adult population owned barely 1 percent of the world’s
wealth.”Income inequality has been rising for the past 20-25 years and
we think that is true for inequality in the distribution of wealth,”
said James Davies, a professor of economics at the University of
Western Ontario, one of the report’s authors.”There is a whole group of
problems in developing countries that make it difficult for people to
build up assets, which are important, since life is so precarious.”The
gulf between rich and poor nations has long concerned politicians and
economists, who say it is one of the biggest obstacles to
development.But Davies said there are some hopeful signs: China and
India, which are developing rapidly, are gaining wealth and in
countries like Bangladesh, the spread of micro-credit institutions is
helping people to increase their personal wealth, he said.In other
countries, land registration programs allow the poor to own land for
the first time, he said.

According to the report, individual
assets of $2,200 placed an adult in the top half of the world’s wealth
distribution in 2000.Those in the richest 10 percent of adults had
assets of $61,000 or more while those in the top 1 percent – who now
number 37 million – had at least $500,000.Researchers defined wealth as
the value of physical and financial assets minus debts.Household wealth
in 2000 was valued at $125 trillion, equivalent to roughly three times
the value of total global production, or to $20,500 per person, the
report said.Average wealth in the United States amounted to $144,000
per person in the year 2000, and $181,000 in Japan, it said.In India,
the figure was just $1,100 and in Indonesia, per capita wealth was
$1,400.00Even among high-income nations, the amounts vary, from $37,000
per person for New Zealand and $70,000 for Denmark to $127,000 for
Britain.The world’s wealth is heavily concentrated in North America,
Europe and the high-income Asia-Pacific countries, which hold nearly 90
percent of the total world wealth, and where almost all the world’s
richest individuals live, the report said.Although North America has
only 6 percent of the world’s adult population, it accounts for 34
percent of household wealth.China occupies much of the middle third of
global wealth distribution, while India, Africa and the low-income
Asian companies dominate the bottom third.Anthony Shorrocks, another of
the report’s authors, said despite its rapid growth, China does not yet
feature among the super-rich because average wealth is modest and
evenly spread by international standards.”However, China is already
likely to have more wealthy residents than our data reveals for the
year 2000, and membership of the super-rich seems set to rise fast in
the next decade,” he said.

[Author]

December 6, 2006 at 11:27 AM