Wealth watch - Who owns the world ?

[callmejoe 0]

Wealth watch - Who owns the world ?

How a small group of people ended up with the world's wealth

Interview with Kevin Cahill, other reports

========================================

 

Here, Kevin Cahill is interviewed by Kevin Barret for Truth Jihad - June 4th

 

MP3: http://www.americanfreedomradio.com/archive/Truth-Jihad-32k-060412.mp3

 

(see more on Kevin Cahill's book, in post #xx)

 

Percentage of wealth held in 2000 by the Top 10% of the adult population in various Western countries

 

Wealth owned by top 10%

=========

Switzerland-- 71.3%

United States 69.8%

Denmark------ 65.0%

France--------- 61.0%

Sweden------- 58.6%

UK------------- 56.0%

Canada------- 53.0%

Norway------- 50.5%

Germany------ 44.4%

Finland-------- 42.3%

=========

 

(original post - two threads were merged):

How a small group of people ended up with the world's wealth

=================

 

 

Having fiat currency guarantees inflation.

It also allows a small group of people to engineer collapses of the economies during which they can then buy up assets on the cheap.

 

Listen to Mark Cockin tell you the secret behind banking today.

 

Theo Chalmers interviews 'England’s most dangerous man', Mark Cocking, the second youngest ever Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Bankers who he has spent 24 years researching how and why we have regular cyclical collapse of the global economy and banking system and who is behind it.

[Errol 0]

Hardly needed to waste 24 years research, when most people on HPC or GEI could have told him in 5 minutes. It's fairly basic stuff.

[drbubb 0]

The Illusion of Wealth

 

How a small group of people ended up with the world's wealth

=================

...a small group of people to engineer collapses of the economies during which they can then buy up assets on the cheap.

Maybe not.

The wealth they think they have may evaporate in the crisis

 

 

"A lot of wealthy people are going to discover their wealth is not really there."

 

EXAMPLE:

"Well off" civil servants (in Ireland) are already protesting over what they are losing, that they could never really ever get - because the government could not afford to pay them what they had been promised. (They were mistaken to believe in the promises.)

[drbubb 0]

Wealth watch - Who owns the world ?

Interview with Kevin Cahill, other reports

========================================

 

Here, Kevin Cahill is interviewed by Kevin Barret for Truth Jihad - June 4th

 

MP3: http://www.americanfreedomradio.com/archive/Truth-Jihad-32k-060412.mp3

 

Some interesting points here.

Does the British Crown really own as much as he says?

 

 

/book summary: http://blogbusinessworld.blogspot.hk/2010/02/who-owns-world-by-kevin-cahill-with-rob.html

EXCERPT:

Kevin Cahill and Rob McMahon provide startling statistics about who really owns the land in every country and territory on earth. Tables and charts, complete with numbers of owned acres, demonstrate that the ownership of land everywhere is not widely held. Instead, a few wealthy people, members of royal families, churches, and governments represent the vast overwhelming majority of land ownership. The authors identify Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom as the largest owner of land in the world. Through Crown ownership, her ownership extends to entire countries and encompasses one seventh of the globe. Other monarchs hold similar ownership levels in the countries of their dominion. In the United States, the largest landowners are the government and Ted Turner. The book lists the major owners in exhaustive lists of their extensive holdings

 

/as of 2000: http://www.mindfully.org/WTO/2006/Household-Wealth-Gap5dec06.htm

[drbubb 0]

 

Author Kevin Cahill

 

Kevin Cahill is an elected Fellowship Councillor of the RSA and a former chair of the RSA SW Region. A believer in life long learning he is currently doing a PhD in landownership in Devon, Cornwall, Somerset and Dorset, at Exeter University, Dept of History. He is a former soldier who saw active service in Aden and Northern Ireland, subsequently reporting on wars in Turkey, Palestine and the Western Sahara for the Observer and the Jerusalem Post. He is board member of Co-operation Ireland, the Queen's only Irish Charity.

 

He was the deputy editor of the Sunday Times Rich List and he is now a special advisor in the House of Lords and was Lord (Paddy) Ashdown’s research assistant in the House of Commons. He lives in Exeter where he organises the yearly activity programme for the local RSA Fellowship. All three daughters are Fellows of the RSA. He is the author of "Who Owns Britain" and "Who Owns the World" and is the publisher of the facsimile edition of the Second Domesday. "The Return of Owners of Land".

 

/see: http://www.thersa.org/about-us/governance/fellowship-council-members/kevin-cahill

[drbubb 0]

Many once-wealthy Americans have not fared well... in recent years

==============

 

Great Recession erased nearly 40% of family wealth

 

Washington— The Great Recession took such a heavy toll on the economy that the typical American family lost nearly 40% of its wealth from 2007 to 2010, shaving the median net worth to a level not seen since the early 1990s.

 

Suburban Homeowners hit hardest*

The biggest impact was felt by young middle-age families, those headed by people ages 35 to 44. For this group, the median net worth -- total assets minus debts -- fell a whopping 54% in the three-year period to $42,100 in 2010. Such was their financial hardships that only 47.6% of these families said they had saved money in 2010; that was the lowest among all age groups, where an overall average of 52% of families saved some money that year.

 

/see: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-mo-economy-wealth-20120611,0,5418853.story

 

*Suburban Homeowners hit hardest

THE FRUIT of an unsustainable livestyle?

JHK years ago called the American Suburbs as

"The greatest malallocation of resources in the history of the world."

(Those who were paying attention might have sidestepped the slide in wealth by selling out when they read his book.)

 

 

The US is on the road to The Long Emergency (Grove/Atlantic, 2005), as JHK describes.

 

No one can say they were not warned, and there were also many warnings on sites like GEI too.

Those who suffered losses can only say, that they were not paying attention. And many still are not.

 

How long do they have to go on losing wealth before they wake up ?

 

Some already began to wake up in 2008, when Oil prices shot up to $147 /

This video is from CBS and was uploaded to YT on Aug 7, 2008

 

 

Suburban homes (especially in outer ring suburbs) have been hardest hit

[drbubb 0]

WHERE are the Wealthiest - this is the 2006, pre-GFC breakdown

 

Share of 1% Wealthiest

 

Share of 10% Wealthiest

 

The USA was the country most reliant on Financial Assets, and therefore perhaps most vulnerable to the GFC

 

 

 

/source: http://www.mindfully.org/WTO/2006/Household-Wealth-Gap5dec06.htm

 

You could say that US wealth was "wrongly positioned" for the GFC

[drbubb 0]

After the GFC, the 1% have emerged stronger

 

US Wealth in 2011

 

 

 

/source: http://itoosing.blogspot.hk/2011/02/wealth-distribution-in-america-2011.html

 

WHY so much better?

===

The 1% did not have so much of its wealth tied up in devaluaing suburban homes.

And those lower taxes on the ways that Millionaires make their income helped to:

 

 

Ask "the Rich Dad", or ask Mitt Romney, who uses the same tactics.

Paying a Payroll tax, so you can have some money to pay the mortgage on your suburban home was not the way to go.

[drbubb 0]

How the Mainstream Media sees the "Most Wealthy"

 

/source: http://sastha-knowyourledge.blogspot.hk/2011/08/worlds-wealthiest-people.html#!/2011/08/worlds-wealthiest-people.html

 

You have to wonder about how many of the World's REAL Top 10 are not on this list.

The property owners, those with money in offshore centers, etc

 

(I know one billionaire who told me that he was very family his family was not "seen" by these Polls.)

[Oil Man 0]

(FROM THE UK):

 

One day soon, the "financial middle class" will awake to realise that they have had their "wealth" "stolen", with little if any guarantee of a living allowance pension in old age, children who cannot afford to downpay the deposit for a mortgage, an uneducated workforce, a diminishing workforce with lower real take home pay, higher unemployment, less job security, higher tax on everything, less accountability from the politicians at all levels.

 

Until that time we will have more of the same. The rich growing richer the poor remaining poor but growing in numbers sucked in by the vortex of theft via taxation and inflation.

 

It is very gloomy.

 

Option 1 - Emigrate with a skill set and languages

 

Option 2 - Stay and fight but it is the Alamo here in the UK. The system is so broken it is hard to know where to begin.

 

The electorate didn't fully believe Cameron and his Conservatives thus the Coalition They were proved correct.

[drbubb 0]

You have to wonder about how many of the World's REAL Top 10 are not on this list.

The property owners, those with money in offshore centers, etc

A Banker’s Secret Wealth

 

By LANDON THOMAS Jr. and RAPHAEL MINDER / September 20, 2011

 

¶ Emilio Botín is a billionaire Spanish banker renowned for running a tight ship. He asks that his top credit officers at Santander — one of Europe’s largest banks — make a trek to his vacation home each summer to report on loan exposures. And he queries the head of his charitable foundation, euro for euro, on its smallest donations.

 

A Spanish court is investigating whether the family of Emilio Botín, the head of Banco Santander, paid too little taxes.

 

¶ Yet, there is one not-so-small matter that Mr. Botín (pronounced bo-TEEN) has failed to keep tabs on: a Swiss bank account secretly opened long ago by his father that grew to such a size that when Spanish authorities discovered its existence last year, Mr. Botín and other family members paid 200 million euros (about $273 million currently) in taxes to avoid tax evasion charges.

 

¶ At the request of tax fraud inspectors, a Spanish national court is investigating whether the payment is enough, given the amount that was stashed abroad; tax experts in Spain say that the account could reach two billion euros. The court has also said that officials need more time to sift through the blizzard of documents that the family submitted and will consider whether a criminal charge of document fraud should be brought.

 

¶ A lawyer for the Botíns, Jesús Remón, said the family was cooperating with the investigation and was “fully in compliance with its tax obligations following their voluntary filing” last year. He added that no family member had been charged with wrongdoing.

 

/more: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/21/business/global/spain-examines-emilio-botins-hidden-swiss-account.html?pagewanted=all

=== ===

 

BTW,

I can assure you, that I do not suffer from a problem of hidden wealth that may attract scrutiny.

But there must be wealthy people who do want to keep out of public reports any notion of their true wealth.

 

This could be folks like: The Rothschilds, the Rockefellers... the Queen. And probably many others,

some of whom may have obtained their wealth illegally. All of these types of people may be very happy

to keep their names out of any RICH LIST. But if it is obviously they belong on the list, they may

try to have their actual amount of wealth dramatically under-reported. And these folks are the most

interesting to know about, because they are the real "Powers Behind the Throne."

[Oil Man 0]

The above story is simply reflective of the first phase of the forthcoming tax grab which will hit us all.

 

Governments will instruct their revenue generation services to go for for the easy targets - those the voters will be jealous toward - during these difficult times.

 

When exhausted taxes will rise to keep the ponzi going but all under the guise of "fairness" and "equality"

 

For the property and land owners: Just wait for the "Land Value Tax". Local municipalities/authorities are running out of cash fast (mainly keeping their public sector pensions funded). Too bad if you are in a big/valuable property with little disposable income, you will be forced to sell.

 

There really are tough times around the corner.

[drbubb 0]

Governments will instruct their revenue generation services to go for for the easy targets - those the voters will be jealous toward - during these difficult times.

 

When exhausted taxes will rise to keep the ponzi going but all under the guise of "fairness" and "equality"

 

For the property and land owners: Just wait for the "Land Value Tax". Local municipalities/authorities are running out of cash fast (mainly keeping their public sector pensions funded). Too bad if you are in a big/valuable property with little disposable income, you will be forced to sell.

 

There really are tough times around the corner.

I AGREE with what you are saying, and I do not look foward to a rise in taxes, and the re-emergence of a "soak-the-rich" attitude, but it does seem inevitable.

 

Perhaps it is just a Long Cycle thing.

 

You may know that an increased concentration in wealth, tends to be associated with Long Cycle peaks. Look when the the last surge in weath concentration happened, and how long it took to return to a less-concentrated status:

 

 

The last time this much wealth was concentrated in the hands of the rich was right before the great depression. The country has historically been more prosperous when more of our wealth is held by the middle class, not the wealthy.

 

"If we just redistribute wealth as food stamps it wont rase our GDP a cent. It will incrase stagflation or inflation of the dollar making the ecomony even sicker piss off the rich who feel they got robbed at gunpoint by the IRS. Inflation is a huge player in the economy. An since we import so much products its impotant to get the Dollar up an deficet spending down so our currency is still strong in other countries where we do our big shopping."

 

Rich people don't hire or fire people because they are happy or mad. They do it because it will increase their income. If you tax Bill Gates an extra 3%, you aren't taxing microsoft 3%. Why would he want he want to fire people who are making him money? Because he's mad? Do you really think that makes sense?

 

/source: http://www.rollitup.org/politics/383727-top-2-3-tax-cuts-5.html

[Oil Man 0]

The "error" which many countries in the "West" will make is to again tax (as they did during the 1970's) the hard working decent law abiding financial middle class.

 

A country without a middle class is utterly doomed. Everything reverts to the lowest common denominator.

[drbubb 0]

The "error" which many countries in the "West" will make is to again tax (as they did during the 1970's) the hard working decent law abiding financial middle class.

A country without a middle class is utterly doomed. Everything reverts to the lowest common denominator.

But the power is in the hands of the Top 1-2%, and their paid proxies,

and they write the laws to their own benefit.

 

By destroying the Middle Class, the elites are also destroying the customer base for their legitimate business interests,

leaving them with scams like:

 

+ Wars, which stimulate demand for weaponry,

+ Drugs, the panacea of choice for a broken medical industry

+ Oil, used by the dopes who want to continued the failed suburban experiment

+ Debt, through expensive credit cards

 

Ron Paul'a politics saw through the first of these, but he was never really taken seriously by the press and many of the voting sheeple who are now dumbed down into beastial ignorance by the mainstream media.

 

I wrote two article about these 4- "Huge Holes in America's pockets":

 

+ http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/dr-bubb/2011/08/24/america-has-huge-holes-in-its-pockets

+ http://www.financialsense.com/contributors/dr-bubb/2011/08/31/america-has-huge-holes-in-its-pockets-part-2

 

Instead of facing up to the out-of-control spending, Obama now says he wants to raise taxes on "the Rich". There is some justification for this, since taxes as a percentage of GDP has fallen, and many (including Warren Buffet in a recent newspaper article) say that America's rich are "under-taxed" compared to what they pay in other countries. But Obama's definition of whom is rich will shock many middle class people. And even if taxes on the rich were doubled, they would not bring in enough revenues to balance an out of control federal budget.

 

Spending needs to be cut. But where? I will discuss the four big holes in American pockets in future posts. A careful diagnosis can help to identify where changes in government programs can plug the holes where wealth is draining out, and improve the health of the US economy.

 

Coming: Where are the four big holes in America's pockets?

 

The largest single component of the Federal budget is health care. And the explosive growth of this spending is virtually guaranteed by Obamacare.

 

The US spends twice the share of its GDP on military spending, as its major allies.

 

The Banking sector has become bloated, and lives off over-lending and speculation.

 

The US addiction to foreign oil, is a major vulnerability, particularly if the US dollar falls.

 

And was pleased to see that one of the two articles was noted by the Puplavas on FinancialSense as one of the "best of 2011" articles. The TRuth is out there, but few care.

[drbubb 0]

WEALTH DOES SHIFT

 

 

In the 15th century, the highest standard of living in the world belonged to China. Places like Nanjing had reached the pinnacle of civilization with incredibly modern infrastructure, robust economies, substantial international trade, great healthcare, and a rising middle class.

 

Across the globe, Europeans were living out short, mud-filled, brutish lives in squalid poverty, dying off by the thousands from the bubonic plague. They were practically Neanderthals compared to the Chinese, and explorers like Marco Polo wrote fanciful tales of wealth and opulence in the east.

 

If you had told a Chinese merchant at the time that, over the course of the next several hundred years, global primacy would shift to Europe (and a relatively unknown American continent), you would have been laughed at. It was simply unthinkable given how advanced China was over the west.

 

And yet, it happened...

. . .

It got to the point where people felt it was a natural right of Americans to have huge homes, cheap gas, and oodles of junk, as well as a government that could buy anything it wanted without giving a second thought to fiscal discipline. Much of this was made possible at the expense of peasant workers overseas.

 

For years, they imported US inflation and suffered a tremendous disparity in standard of living, all because of how the global financial system was set up. This system, based on the United States as the center of the economic universe, is now completely fractured, and it’s the biggest game changer in centuries.

 

Is it possible that such a force can be stopped or reversed? Highly unlikely.

/Is it Fixable? :

http://www.sovereignman.com/expat/is-it-fixable/

[drbubb 0]

China's most powerful people are far richer than you think !

 

THE BEIJING MODEL Under Stress - says WSJ

. . .

According to the Hurun Report - the leading "Rich List" in China - the wealthiest 70 members of the national legislature have an estimated net wort of $89.8 billion. That compares to $7.5 billion for the 660 most powerful officials of all three branches of the US government.

 

(pg. 9, Asian WSJ- June 14, 2012)

 

Comparison

==== : Total Wealth : People : Ave./person

China : $89.8 billion : ..... 70 : $1.28 Billion

U.S.A : $ 7.5 billion : ... 660 : $11.4 Million

 

Ratio: average top legislator in China is 112 times wealthier than in the US. (!)

(Who thought China was a "poor" country?)

 

China's 0.01% really seem to run things.

 

 

In the US, the legislators (secretly) work for "the 1%"

But in China, the legislators ARE the 1% !

 

Another WSJ article talks about "The End of the Suitcase Banker"

 

Asia now longer needs banks from the US and Europe. Most big syndicated loans in Asia are now being leand and made by Chinese and Far Eastern banks.

 

"Now, 80% of a typical bond float is bought by Asian investors."

 

Why? The US and European banks are troubled, and do not have the same access to deposits that they once had. And the Asian banks have been better run, and are stronger.

 

I reckon that we will increasingly see Asians as buyers of assets in the US and Europe.

 

Meet the New Boss...

 

 

Tomorrow's New Boss might be very different from the old one, speaking a different language

[LC1 0]

Some interesting points here.

Does the British Crown really own as much as he says?

 

/book summary: http://blogbusinessworld.blogspot.hk/2010/02/who-owns-world-by-kevin-cahill-with-rob.html

EXCERPT:

Kevin Cahill and Rob McMahon provide startling statistics about who really owns the land in every country and territory on earth. Tables and charts, complete with numbers of owned acres, demonstrate that the ownership of land everywhere is not widely held. Instead, a few wealthy people, members of royal families, churches, and governments represent the vast overwhelming majority of land ownership. The authors identify Queen Elizabeth II of the United Kingdom as the largest owner of land in the world. Through Crown ownership, her ownership extends to entire countries and encompasses one seventh of the globe. Other monarchs hold similar ownership levels in the countries of their dominion. In the United States, the largest landowners are the government and Ted Turner. The book lists the major owners in exhaustive lists of their extensive holdings

 

 

Hmmm, I'd be really interested to know how this ownership works in practice.

 

So, for example, does she actually 'own' some countries, like maybe Jamaica? Does the Jamaican govt pay a peppercorn 'rent' for lease of the soil under their feet, or what? I wouldn't imagine that any money actually changes hands, that it's more of a legacy of colonial rule and current Commonwealth arrangements. But even so, could she (or a future heir) suddenly decide that every citizen (serf) must now pay rent (tithes) to the British monarch for use of the land?

 

I guess this sort of move could only ever be backed up by a standing army, but even so, it's interesting to think about....

[drbubb 0]

Hmmm, I'd be really interested to know how this ownership works in practice.

 

So, for example, does she actually 'own' some countries, like maybe Jamaica? Does the Jamaican govt pay a peppercorn 'rent' for lease of the soil under their feet, or what? I wouldn't imagine that any money actually changes hands, that it's more of a legacy of colonial rule and current Commonwealth arrangements. But even so, could she (or a future heir) suddenly decide that every citizen (serf) must now pay rent (tithes) to the British monarch for use of the land?

 

I guess this sort of move could only ever be backed up by a standing army, but even so, it's interesting to think about....

The more land one owns, the more that ownership claim gets stretched, the less immediate control one has over it - she would tell you.

 

Much of it is "controlled" in a day-to-day way by leaseholders.

 

The the crown does get peppercorn rent on most of that. And in war-time, the crown can reclaim use of the land and not have to pay rent - that's rather convenient.

 

The ownership claim in other places - She is said by Cahill to "own" something like 1/3 of Antarctica, is mainly theoretical.

[drbubb 0]

China's most powerful people are far richer than you think !

 

Ratio: average top legislator in China is 112 times wealthier than in the US. (!)

(Who thought China was a "poor" country?)

 

China's 0.01% really seem to run things.

The US Embassy said China's ruling Politburo is a cabal of business empires that prioritizes its vested interests over the interest of its people.

 

The remarks were made in a US Embassy cable released by WikiLeaks, which reported members of China's government own lucrative state businesses in areas such as precious stones and oil.

 

Meanwhile, a poll conducted by China's official media has shown that over 90% of Chinese people believed that the new rich in China achieved their wealth via corruption and political connections.

 

Basing on the information disclosed by the WikiLeaks, western media reports criticize that the personal greed of Chinese politicians has impeded moves to reform and liberalize personal freedoms.

 

The assessment report which contained the statements was made by the US Embassy in Beijing and relayed to Washington in July, 2009. An embassy contact reported in the cable, saying, "China's top leadership had carved up China's economic pie."

 

/more: http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?cid=1101&MainCatID=11&id=20101207000037

 

 

/examples: http://www.wantchinatimes.com/Features/RedNobility/Red.html

 

Meet the New Boss... ?

 

Jiang Zemin's grandson sets up private equity fund

 

Jiang Zhicheng, foreground, in Chengdu in 2010. (Internet photo)

 

Jiang Zhicheng, grandson of the former Chinese president Jiang Zemin, set up a private equity fund － the Boyu Investment Advisory Co — with Louis Cheung, the former general manager of insurance giant China Ping An Group, and other financial moguls in Hong Kong...

 

Jiang Zhicheng was admitted to Shanghai Jiaotong University before later studying economics at Harvard. After graduation, he worked at the direct investment arm of Goldman Sachs.

 

/more: http://www.wantchinatimes.com/news-subclass-cnt.aspx?id=20120529000053&cid=1602

[drbubb 0]

The Big losers are not just Americans, they are American men...

The following are 16 signs that this economic decline is sucking the life out of the American male....

#1 During the last recession, men lost twice as many jobs as women did.

#2 According to the Economic Policy Institute, the "real entry-level hourly wage for men who recently graduated from high school" has declined from $15.64 in 1979 to $11.68 last year.

#3 During the recent economic downturn millions of men saw their family finances get absolutely destroyed. According to the Federal Reserve, the median net worth of families in the United States declined "from $126,400 in 2007 to $77,300 in 2010".

#4 As you can see from the chart below, in the 1950s there were times when nearly 85 percent of all working age men had a job. Sadly, that number has stayed below 65 percent since the end of the last recession....



/more: http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/the-mancession-16-signs-that-this-economic-decline-is-sucking-the-life-out-of-the-american-male

Women are being saved mainly by government jobs, paid for BY GOVT BORROWING.
American men are being "hung out to dry", and soaked for taxes...
The old familiar "second sex" routine, being carried out at a National level.

[notanewmember 0]

Wealthy Russians have been re-patronising art (paying millions), the chinese are already doing that. Buy the things that the chinese will buy to profit.

[drbubb 0]

Is America's future endangered by a Brain Drain ?

 

 

Actually, I don't think so - but the reward system is wrong

 

Too many bright Americans go onto Wall Street, instead of doing things like becoming engineers and solving real problems

[drbubb 0]

Wealth, Income, and Power

by G. William Domhoff

Some of the information may come as a surprise to many people. In fact, I know it will be a surprise and then some, because of a recent study (Norton & Ariely, 2010) showing that most Americans (high income or low income, female or male, young or old, Republican or Democrat) have no idea just how concentrated the wealth distribution actually is. More on that a bit later.

As far as the income distribution, the most striking numbers on income inequality will come last, showing the dramatic change in the ratio of the average CEO's paycheck to that of the average factory worker over the past 40 years.

First, though, some definitions. Generally speaking, wealth is the value of everything a person or family owns, minus any debts. However, for purposes of studying the wealth distribution, economists define wealth in terms of marketable assets, such as real estate, stocks, and bonds...

We also need to distinguish wealth from income...

This document focuses on the "Top 1%" as a whole because that's been the traditional cut-off point for "the top" in academic studies, and because it's easy for us to keep in mind that we are talking about one in a hundred. But it is also important to realize that the lower half of that top 1% has far less than those in the top half; in fact, both wealth and income are super-concentrated in the top 0.1%, which is just one in a thousand. (To get an idea of the differences, take a look at an insider account by a long-time investment manager who works for the well-to-do and very rich. It nicely explains what the different levels have -- and how they got it. Also, David Cay Johnston (2011) has written a column about the differences among the top 1%, based on 2009 IRS information.)

Percentage of wealth held in 2000 by the Top 10% of the adult population in various Western countries

Wealth owned by top 10%
===========
Switzerland--- 71.3%
United States- 69.8%
Denmark------ 65.0%
France-------- 61.0%
Sweden------- 58.6%
UK-------------- 56.0%
Canada------- 53.0%
Norway-------- 50.5%
Germany------ 44.4%
Finland-------- 42.3%
===========

/more stats :: http://www2.ucsc.edu/whorulesamerica/power/wealth.html/
/1917 article: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2964918

[drbubb 0]

From today's SCMP / Tom Holland

 

How Xi Jinping can prove China is not a kleptocracy

 

The heir apparent to the presidency will soon be ideally placed to counter the perception

that the wealthy relatives of senior leaders base fortunes on (political) influence

 

( "kleptocracy": "rule by thieves"- is a form of political and government corruption where the government exists to increase the personal wealth and political power of its officials and the ruling class at the expense of the wider population )

 

EXCERPT

"...This network of family businesses looks remarkably like a crony-kleptocracy, in which the relatives of senior leaders use their influence to obtain cheap funds from the state controlled banking sector; funds which they then use to set-up companies to extract handsome rents from the state sector and from China's people at large."

 

"Happily, Xi should soon be in a perfect position to prove this impression wrong. As president he will be ideally placed to liberalise the banking sector, break up state monopolies, and open protected sectors of the economy to free and transparent competition."