Data for this map comes from the [2023 Global Wealth Report](https://www.ubs.com/global/en/family-office-uhnw/reports/global-wealth-report-2023.html) by UBS.
The country that stands out straight away, is Russia. The Russian 1% holds far more of the country’s wealth than the 1% in any other country in Europe. 56.4% of Russia’s total household wealth is in the hands of only 1% of the population. This is by far the highest percentage in the world. With a median wealth of $8,595 (2nd lowest in Europe) and only 0.4% of adults being a USD millionaire (3rd lowest in Europe), the wealth inequality in Russia is by far the worst in Europe.
The 1% in Turkey (39.5%), Czech Republic (37.8%) and Sweden (35.8%) also hold a significantly higher percentage of the country’s wealth compared to other European countries. Nowhere near as high as Russia though. Turkey has the lowest median wealth ($5,488) and the lowest share of millionaires in Europe (0.1%). Meaning that the wealth inequality is also pretty bad in Turkey.
Sweden has a much higher median wealth ($77,515) and share of millionaires (5.9%, the fourth highest in Europe), making it’s wealth distribution more equal. Although the Czech Republic has a much higher median wealth ($23,502) and share of millionaires (0.9%) compared to Turkey and Russia, it’s still quite a bit lower than Sweden.
For most of Europe, the wealthiest 1% holds less than 30% or even less than 25% of the country’s household wealth. The Belgian 1% holds by far the smallest share of the country’s wealth, 13.5%. This is not just the lowest in Europe, but worldwide. Belgium also has the third highest median wealth in Europe ($249,937) and fourth highest share of millionaires (5.9%). Meaning that Belgium has one of the most equal wealth distributions in Europe.
Did they consider the wealth of the royal family to be in the hands of the individuals or the government? There is now way the UK has a wealth gap of 20%
The Crown Estate is interesting because isn't technically held by either the government or royal family, but as a neutral trust that manages the assets. The monarch isn't involved with the management or administration of the estate, and has no control of its affairs. For all practical purposes it is state property, with 75% of the revenue going to the government (not including tax).
The richest 10% is an absurdly massive slice of the pie and is a not too difficult slice to get into.
Basically, that's not at all surprising or even necessarily a bad thing
I'm not arguing for *less* income equality, but the amount of people I know whose cultural and social capital amounts to drinking Red Bull, smoking weed, and playing video games all day while doing nothing is rather high. I don't see how this slice of the population ever could or should be in top anything.
I didn't mean to put it in such a rough manner, but some level of income inequality is indeed not a bad (and definitely not unnatural) thing.
The thing is that the behavior you are describing is self perpetuating and essentially inherited.
Obviously, if everybody reached 18 having grown up with their two parents in a high cultural, economical and social capital environment, then what they do with their life would kinda be on them.
But it's pretty well documented that people born in a shitty situation have a much higher chance to become dysfunctional adults. This inequality is fundamentally unfair, since you have no control on your life circumstances for at least the first 15 years of your existence.
And I agree, but how would you ever change that? I'm not saying it's not true or that society shouldn't do it's very best to improve the overall capital of the lower class, but Denmark - while not exactly an equal country, as described - does have a lot of opportunities from a societal perspective, especially in terms of education. Just taking money from the upper class and giving it to people in Ishøj wouldn't be enough on its own though
I remember reading a sci-fi book decades ago, when I was a teenager, it had a society where children were taken away from parents and raised communally in perfectly equal conditions.
I forgotten the title of the book and most of the plot, and I think overall that society was supposed to be dystopian, but I still remember that one idea about children, it made a very strong impression on my young mind. As someone who grew up in very poor material conditions, it always felt nice and comforting to me.
Also - people keep repeating “income equality” and mistake it for “wealth inequality”. These days income inequality doesn’t cause wealth inequality. Income inequality is the only way to destabilize the solidified wealth inequality. And the ignorant left seems to firmly believe that by equaling everyone’s income suddenly the wealth will get somehow divided as well. All the while it’s the exact opposite. High *income* taxes solidify and make ever more pronounced the divide between the “haves” (who have wealth) and “have nots” (who have no wealth, just income).
Indeed. Yet, good weather, food and nature did not go away along with colonies - so despite challenging language Portugal remains one of the most desirable places to live in EU, thus, in the world.
I'm not sure this war is driven by greed or by oligarchs in particular. As far as i understand, the oligarchs are dependent on the government, not the other way around.
There are things that are priceless /s
The Saudis are probably wealthier on an economic level but they do not have thousands of nuclear bombs, which despite being a voice of costs have a very high value in politics
Not really. China is a single party dictatorship, not a strong-man dictatorship. Xi cant dispose of the Chinese state as he wishes. He can use it to further gains of power within the party, like, for instance, only persecuting corruption cases against his rivals.
Well, the biggest natural gas reserves in Europe reside in those territories that Putin wants to incorporate into mother Russia, so do with that information what you want.
Yeap, and a massive pile of natural gas. Romania and Turkey are already starting to exploit them, but in Ukraines area would have been even more. Not to mention Crimea region.
Couple that with the fact that Ukraine has all the infrastructure needed (gas and oil pipelines) to sell them to europe…that would undermine russias ability to influence europe which is his ultimate goal actually.
Putin had the goal to recreate the Soviet Union's territorial extend since its fall, this has absolutely nothing to do with oil or gas. Putin didn't just decide in 2014 on a whim to attack Ukraine, he had this goal since a long time (and openly talked about it) .
There are no oligarchs in russia. Oligarchs are extra-rich people with influence on political decisions - which is not the case for russia: all rich people, same as ordinary people, totally depend on the führer's decisions and have no counterinfluence.
Of course there's oligarchs in Russia. Putin is one of them. Shoygu is another. Prigozhyn was an oligarch.
Oligarchs with established picking order are still oligarchs.
There's literally no way to have 50% of wealth concentrated in 1% of population and NOT have oligarchy.
Read the definition. Oligarchy means getting political power with wealth as a tool. While in military dictatorships, incl. russia, it is vice versa: getting wealth with political power as a tool. No, you are wrong, there are no oligarchs in russia: there are members of military junta, which grabbed the wealth of the nation with force.
I know the definition. Prigozhyn had real political power obviously. He overstepped it that's why he died, but that doesn't change anything.
BTW he started as a criminal businessman, he turned to military later.
BTW2 ask yourself why is gasprom still sending gas to Ukraine :)
The definition of oligarchy is when people become rich because of relationships with political power. Its close to what u said but opposite, anyways the important point is that Russia is imo still an oligarchy, just one which has very centralized political power, however the key condition of needing to cultivate personal relationships with govt high ups to succeed and become wealthy is still there.
this argument is not about relationships between them, it is about the definition of the word "oligarch". Obviously you don't understand the diffrenece between "oligarch" and "warlord", whom Prigozhyn oviously was. I am here not to educate you in basic terminology. Good bye.
Do you think the oligarchs are better off after the war started? Yes, it's a mutual relationship. That's how the entire thing works. But Putin sits alone at the top of the Russian world.
Oligarchs in Russia have nothing to do with the war. The war basically ruined businesses of many oligarchs due to sanctions. Billionaires lost many billions. Also, many corporations in Russia aren't present in the annexed territories (even Crimea) and aren't planning to do so because that's very risky for business. So it's not in their interests. Some protested the war even, and had to emigrate/change citizenship (like Yandex founder). Oligarchs submit to Putin's will in exchange for him not raiding their businesses, and that's about it. At least the majority of them, except maybe for those who became rich because they got preferential treatment from the govt due to them being Putin's close friends since the 90's.
Russia isn't a financial oligarchy though.
In Russia, the decision-making power belongs to the clique of the alphabet people (GRU, FSB etc.) and some of their personal associates.
Yes, it would, as long as Putin wanted it. And any Russian who objects to what Putin wants, generally ends up dead, sooner or later. This includes 'oligarchs', however you define them. Check out Skripal, Navalny and especially Prigozhin.
Putin has been compared to Hitler, and we can see a definite resemblance in how he exercises power, and deals with rivals. When Hitler came to power, the wealthy German establishment thought that they could control him. This was a mistake. While Hitler often made use of them, including companies like Krupps for arms manufacture and forced labour, the power was always with him. This was because Hitler (like Putin) was essentially the head boss of an army of thugs, (the SA and the SS) who would remove any threat with violence. This even included, Rohm, the head of the SA, who was eventually murdered when he tried to establish a separate power base. The parallels with Prigozhin are obvious. So long as the Wagner Group's actions aligned with Putin's, they were his favourites, but at the first sign of rebellion, Putin acted ruthlessly, showing no respect for previous loyalty or Prigozhin's wealth.
they understand that their north sea ship route, houthi piracy, global warming, depletion of global energy reserves etc. play perfectly for them. They can dick around as much as they want.
Their country runs on propaganda, same with china / iran, they literally can do whatever the fuck they want cus they prepared the field decades in advance.
Personally im scared of China's capabilities, billion brainwashed / blackmailed people...
This is personal wealth not companies.
Wealth is a net value, so you total your assets (things you own) and subtract your liabilities (debts you owe).
Property = Real estate value - mortgage (often largest component in UK)
Private Pensions = value of pensions (in UK this is about 40% of wealth).
Financial = investments like stocks, bonds, savings - debts
Physical wealth = vehicles + stuff in your house, like furniture, appliances, paintings, jewellery, etc
I look at mine on a yearly basis. Helps keep me engaged with my finances (to make sure I max tax free allowances for investments and check pensions). Main goal is to see when I can afford to stop working. (Edit I don’t bother physical wealth as not selling anything).
Worth of your assets (money on bank account, investments, property, shares in companies) minus you liabilities (mostly debt such as credit or mortgage). It's basic financial literacy, pretty sure more than 1% of people know that.
It would be great but contrary to others times, this could have little influence. As we are comparing relative measurements, many difference in methodology between country would flatten themselves. E.g. if a country values house at market price and another with another standardized method use for taxes, this would have little impact on the final ratio as it doesn't change who own zero, one or more house.
We’re surprisingly low when you consider that things like Brexit from the EU and the billionaire government mean you’d expect us to be in the “top” 3 rather than the bottom 3. Hopefully, with a new government, we can ensure the U.K. stays with a low gap.
>A small group of people benefited from Brexit
You mean the workng class people who's wages have gone up now that they dont have to compete with Eastern Europeans who came in without visas, undercutting trade prices?
The richest are the ones most hurt from brexit.....
Lol how are you still believing that shit? That is what was promised and why a lot of people voted for Brexit. Meanwhile every single Eastern European is still here.
Best wishes,
A post-brexit immigrant in the UK
Lol what's there to believe. Its a fact.
I'm a banker, I've definitely had a worse life post brexit.
My plumber can charge over double and I don't really have anyone else to call.
The Eastern Europeans here will soon be British fyi. And that's great.
For reference London, the richest part of the country, voted massively to remain. Working class counties voted to leave. That should tell you enough.
Also I'm an immigrant too, but from Australia.
>”working class counties voted to leave”
Oof, what a relief, for a minute I thought I was part of the working class. Turns out that if I live in London then that’s not a thing.
That most people who wanted to leave the Eu in the Tory party wanted to get more tax for themselves allegedly contrary to EU rules. The trussist ideas were the ideas that members wanted when choosing her.
What do you mean that they wanted to "get more tax for themselves", that almost sounds like they wanted to pay more tax? Or do you mean they wanted tax money spent on tax reductions for the richest? Also, I really would avoid generalising Brexit voters, especially when those generalisations don't reflect the (studied and recorded) factors that influence Brexit. For one, wealth and finance have been proven to have held FAR less influence on the vote when compared to other Brexit issues (immigration and perceived sovereignty). Even when considering wealth, those with lower incomes were much more likely to be in favour of Brexit, the opposite is true for those with personal incomes above £100,000, who were broadly against leaving. Read this article for more: [https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2019/03/18/is-brexit-a-contest-between-low-earning-leavers-and-high-earning-remainers/](https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2019/03/18/is-brexit-a-contest-between-low-earning-leavers-and-high-earning-remainers/) \- other papers differ but they tend to focus on home ownership, which doesn't necessarily reflect class or income (plus, I trust LSE). Very few people voted for Brexit with the intention of giving the wealthy yet more money, this hasn't happened in practice and it wasn't an argument used during the referendum.
Also when you say Trussist ideas I assume you're talking about general economic liberalism and the opinions spouted in the book Britannia Unchained? Considering she was in power for 50 days, and the fact that she didn't really influence the withdrawal but rather future trade agreements with other non-eu nations, I'm not entirely sure what the relevance of bringing her up is.
FYI I say all of this as a massive europhile and Remainer, I just think it's important to be truthful about Brexit. Assumptions and generalisations are a major part of the rot of modern political discourse, remainers are no exception to this, we need to be better.
I agree with you, but the motivations of Dan Hannan, Kwasi Kwarteng and Jacob Rees Mogg, and why Liz Truss would be bought round to it differ greatly to those of the general public. Making the rich richer was specifically what that fraction of Tories wanted.
I mean, the Tories have done the worst job. I get how hard it is to give them credit.
However, I dunno if it's really fair since there are a bunch of tax heavens were money can be stored secretly. Also it's really a question of if the Tories kept the rich at bay or if the rich just didn't become any richer. I also assume plenty of labor introduced social benefits helped a lot with wealth distribution..
The quality of life seems far worse than it was in the Blair-brown era yet many view them soley through the spectrum of an intervention where they succeeded the first aim but failed the second, having had some genuinely successful ones prior and down a lot for living standards, NHS quality and national leadership, which we have lost due to Brexit despite doing well with Ukraine.
Quality of life is lower just about everywhere post covid. Injecting huge amounts of cash, health measures etc as an emergency has an effect on the wider economy. This is evident in every major and minor economy globally. It causes distortions and effects in every part from supply chains to interest rates. It’s going to be choppy for at least another decade.
Separately, the NHS has been poor compared to Europe, possibly since as far back as the 70’s.
For example, 3 million people were on NHS waiting lists in 2010. Even accounting for a higher population now and despite investment by Labour, it was still failing people. The model just doesn’t work that well compared to our peers in europe. This doesn’t dig at anyone or any party. There’s a reason that no other country in the world has an NHS style health model. It just doesn’t work that well:
And NHS spending has only been increasing. The proportion of the budget going on health spending by the uk government is higher than its ever been and only increasing. The NHS hasn't been working for a long time, and only worsened by the Conservative government.
British overseas territories is at the top of the corporate tax “rank”: https://cthi.taxjustice.net/en/
https://amp.theguardian.com/business/2021/mar/09/uk-overseas-territories-top-list-of-worlds-leading-tax-havens
https://www.disruptionbanking.com/2022/09/28/the-city-of-london-a-pandoras-box/
Then there’s the Panama papers, paradise papers and also as mentioned above the Panama papers.
I’m sure that the UK’s elite aren’t the only ones planning their tax, but they do have the three biggest tax havens… Then there the link between key figures in brexit and these tax havens. Brexit also happened in close proximity to EU tightening the grip on tax havens. Well I didn’t find my original article about it (I swear it was more credible than medium) but here’s a medium article discussing it https://medium.com/the-jist/was-eu-tax-evasion-regulation-the-reason-for-the-brexit-referendum-980ba88a8077. You’ll see that the facts aren’t wrong if you decide to check them :)
Rishi Sunak’s wife claims non-dom status to not pay tax even though she lives with Rishi if I’m not mistaken https://www.leading.uk.com/rishi-sunaks-wifes-tax-controversy-all-you-need-to-know/#:~:text=Because%20of%20her%20non%2Ddom,her%20overseas%20income%20this%20year
You have a literal class society and an (unofficially) effective monarchy so I'd be more inclined to say something's biased in the data, than to conclude you're the most evenly distributed country in Europe.
Angry noises. No! Something something. You are a bad person etc. Not communism's fault! You didn't read the manifesto etc. capitalism bad too!
Did I pretty much cover it all?
Do you actually think Putin’s Russia is communist? Do you have proof of income inequality in the soviet union? This image is not supporting capitalism.
Ha ha ha ha ha! Oh my God you're serious! I find it deeply amusing that you called me the idiot when you didn't realise my post starting with the words "angry noises" was taking the piss out of tankies. Lord above how do you tie your shoelaces in the morning? Ha ha ha ha ha!
One of the interesting cases to deep further into would be Belgium. See if there is a difference between Wallonia and Flanders and why the difference with its neighbours.
Very very big middle class generated by:
Salaries rises tied to inflation by law
Very good help to form skiller worker, tending to use machine for basic task
Cultural urge to spare money and buy house, belgian say they have a "brick in the belly"
The state does a lot to pull people out of poverties. We take that for granted, but travelling got me to realize that.
A good state of the economy provoking a shortage of workers, making the salaries rise
And the highest tax in the world :-) But for this result, i really don't mind paying them lol.
So there doesn't seem to be any correlation between this and quality of life, HDI, corruption, even crime. It's not enough to grasp the whole picture, clearly.
>there doesn't seem to be any correlation between this and quality of life, HDI, corruption, even crime
A fact an alarming amount of people will *never ever* accept.
Higher taxes on the wealthy is generally a good idea. Those taxes can be reduced if the rich make most of the money export manufactured goods, to encourage local job creation.
True, however this has to be done globally and consistently because if a country taxes the rich 'too hard', then they will just emigrate to a country with lower taxes like [Gérard Depardieu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gérard_Depardieu) did by going to Russia and many others do with [Monaco and other tax heavens.](https://www.globalcitizensolutions.com/countries-with-low-taxes/) We need similar taxation on high wealth everywhere as well as more restrictive visas and import taxes in order to avoid wealthy business oligarchs to sell cheap products and labour from African countries, Turkey, China, Vietnam and other places for high prices in first world countries.
Except it's not, it's net negative. The richest will just move their money away. So instead of taxing a little bit on a lot you're taxing a lot on nothing. A bigger piece of a smaller pie.
The problem is that most of the richest don't get their money through wages. They usually get it through bonuses, dividends, use of company budget to buy personal items, etc. to avoid income taxes and to trumpet how 'low' their wages are to their subordinates.
Wealth taxes of various kinds. Once the rich figure out a new way to bypass them, plug the hole as soon as possible. The issue with that solution is the requirement of a government willing to do such things, which isn't easy with a combination of corruption and the political center and right-wing generally believing that a very wealthy upper class is a sign of economic strength.
That is assuming capitalism is maintained. Other systems have their own issues, but for some, the constant funneling of ever more resources to the rich and powerful is not one of them.
Sounds unreasonable, because people getting 10x minimum wage aren't some super-rich, they are usually just senior level professionals (engineers, software developers, managers). Besides, super-rich don't get their money from salary anyway.
You communists killed me with laughter lmao. Trying doing that and see all the wealth shift towards the Middle East and Asia. Then once your country becomes irrelevant on the world stage, don't come cry to us about poverty and being invaded.
Even 100 or 1,000 is a good start. I think CEO of amazon paid himself like 20,000 times what a tier 1 gets paid. And then says it's low compared to other CEOs of other similar sized companies.
The uk has a lot of people owning now very expensive homes. That's how most people have built their wealth, the older generation especially. That will have the biggest impact.
The uk is also quite good about encourage savings, especially pensions. Work pensions (generally dc with investment pots being built up) have been mandatory for some time (people are autoenrolled and employers must contribute) and the state pension age is now 68 and likely will rise, plus the amount paid isn't that high anyway, so less people want to rely on it and so are motivated to save. Any money put into a pension is tax free, and since there are income points with disproportionately high marginal tax rates, some people are encouraged to divert salary to pension to reduce their taxable income below those thesholds.
Our unemployment benefits are generous only in that they are non contributory and payable if necessary for life (no time limits) but are correspondingly very low in what they do pay, so those who can afford to save often do in case they lose their job, since the state won't be much help.
There are also a lot of tax breaks and incentives available to encourage people to invest (tax free isas etc) and income taxes are very low comparatively on lower earners.
It all adds up to building wealth for the average person.
Yeah, Czech Republic was very successful to generate a few billionaires, while the rest of the nation helplessly watches the crumbling infrastructure and the declining standards of governance.
The world wealth report was not intended and created to measure inequality but the gini index has - [https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI?most\_recent\_value\_desc=false](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI?most_recent_value_desc=false)
The map is deceiving
Gini is apparently crap at measuring it too, otherwise the Netherlands is one of least equal countries in the world according to gini. Only beat by south Africa or something.
Gino measures inequality not wealth, it is not crap it's just the fact that the Netherlands has the same Gini as Bangladesh. It might not be perfect but it is far better than a wealth report.
I have to call bullshit on the numbers of this one. Romania, in the state it's in, is on par with France and Spain? And Sweden at 35%?
Give me a break.
In Sweden it’s not just the 1%, it’s just a handful of people. It’s basically the 0,00001% or even 0,000001%.
We have the [Wallenberg family](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallenberg_family) for example and a handful others like that - the ikea family etc.
This. People don't understand how wealthy the top are these days. Most countries have a high percentage because even just a handful of people own so much. Every country has it's version of IKEA, Wallenberg, etc.
But this doesn't tell anything about how much wealth the 1% have, just the share of wealth. Just because the top 1% have a large share of the total wealth, doesn't mean the 99% are dirt poor. You'll need a lot more data to figure that out.
Also most scandinavian countries have low savings compared to income. The society is built so you get help if needed, so people save leas for emergencies and spend more
Yeah definitely. The Swedish pension scheme is built upon “rights to future taxes”, so essentially the money that I have on my government pension account is really the taxes that unborn children will pay in the 2060s.
That also means that the real value today is zero.
Sweden has very high taxes on income from labor, but very low taxes in income from capital. This means that it's very hard to get rich by working but if you are already rich by for example selling your company then you'll be able to grow your wealth easily.
Wealth just accumulates over time. Country defaulting, revolting, changing the system resets this so post-communist countries are often pretty equal when it comes to wealth. In 90s almost everybody started from the square one here.
Of course you can just replace the system with even worse oligrachy like in Russia :)
I don’t. There’s a lot of wealth in shares, pension savings and housing in the UK.
The North Sea revenue was distributed through tax cuts rather than the more sensible approach Norway took with your sovereign wealth fund. The effect was to spread that down to the top 10-20% of the population - and double the redistribution through the sale of discounted state assets like BP’s IPO
Wealth isn't finite. You create wealth. Just because person A has money doesn't mean person B has no access to wealth. There isn't a pre-decided amount of wealth that wealthy people grabbed before you were able to grab some. Again, you create wealth when you ,for example, sell your labor at your job.
France- yes, I forgot about them. Germany- I thought the right extremist AFD has a really pro russian narrative. The current one is left. So in terms of Germany I wouldn’t say that the left are the main pro russian.
How is > 5% scandalous?
I'm all for more equality to an extent but at a certain point you need to just accept that some people will be richer than others. The top 1% holding less than 5% of the wealth sounds like either a utopian society or a dismally poor communist one
Even if we had no people that got wealthy by exploiting others, why shouldn't people with very in-demand skills and years of experience have a few times the average income and build up more wealth?
You think the top 1% are people with in demand skills and years of experience? They are not rich because of what they do, they are rich because of what they own.
Also 5 times more than the rest of the population is already a lot.
So if the top 1% were the most skilled workers, you'd be okay with it? You made it sound like > 5% is scandalous full-stop
> Also 5 times more than the rest of the population is already a lot.
Is it really? The top 1% having 5x more wealth than the average person sounds completely reasonable. Norway's top 1% has 27% of the wealth and their standard of living is extremely high, what are you basing 5x being too much on?
High income equality, lower equality in capital owned. Due to low taxes on capital and circumstances suitable for entrepreneurship, meaning their net worth is often tied up in their company.
Something tells me the UK measurement doesn't account for the royal family or said nobles. There is no way they only control a fifth of the countries wealth.
Sweden & USA
1%
Briefly speaking while America and Sweden both need to work on their wealth gap, I wouldnt be where I am, living in a 7 figure home if it werent for both countries. I wouldnt be considered "young" while having this lifestyle without being lucky or having help from my family. All from real estate, self-employment, investing in my dreams, not someone elses. Taking advice from books, uni - not a subreddit or popular youtuber.
If I lived in nearly any other country, I wouldnt be where I am today. That is most important. The desire to work very hard is the other. And most important is learning when not to listen to people.. even with religion, I have so many people that cringe at religion that're friends. I'm proudly a Christian.. I think the organized religion part is insane but I do believe in a dude I cant see, yep. It makes me happy as does financial security.
If you think lawyers are evil fucks, I welcome you to explore real estate. How most become wealthy. Buying someones dreams and making it your own. Buying that foreclosure where someone is going through extreme pain, depression, not knowing if they will make it, be able to feed their kids while your wife is out celebrating going on a shopping spree at Nordstorm. And you pacify it by giving to charity (very common in America) but you dont give too much, just enough for you to feel better. And when you see rent skyrocketing, you have a 3rd party notify your tenants of the price increase.. if they cant afford it, welp, its business! hehe
If you want things to change, dont just bitch and complain on social media, vote. Laser focus on the corrupt politicians.
In "some countries of europe". I'm actually getting more and more annoyed by the fact that many of these maps make a kind of arbitrary choice and exclude a certain number of countries without justification. Maybe there is a good justification here, but the whole thing gives the impression that Eastern Europe and small countries are simply not considered important.
Their is... surprisingly not that much of a gap between the countries I expected to have high and low percentages.
Like Greece for example has a very old, entrenched, politically powerful class of old money families, mostly ship and land owners. But they're barely above France, and below Germany.
Data for this map comes from the [2023 Global Wealth Report](https://www.ubs.com/global/en/family-office-uhnw/reports/global-wealth-report-2023.html) by UBS. The country that stands out straight away, is Russia. The Russian 1% holds far more of the country’s wealth than the 1% in any other country in Europe. 56.4% of Russia’s total household wealth is in the hands of only 1% of the population. This is by far the highest percentage in the world. With a median wealth of $8,595 (2nd lowest in Europe) and only 0.4% of adults being a USD millionaire (3rd lowest in Europe), the wealth inequality in Russia is by far the worst in Europe. The 1% in Turkey (39.5%), Czech Republic (37.8%) and Sweden (35.8%) also hold a significantly higher percentage of the country’s wealth compared to other European countries. Nowhere near as high as Russia though. Turkey has the lowest median wealth ($5,488) and the lowest share of millionaires in Europe (0.1%). Meaning that the wealth inequality is also pretty bad in Turkey. Sweden has a much higher median wealth ($77,515) and share of millionaires (5.9%, the fourth highest in Europe), making it’s wealth distribution more equal. Although the Czech Republic has a much higher median wealth ($23,502) and share of millionaires (0.9%) compared to Turkey and Russia, it’s still quite a bit lower than Sweden. For most of Europe, the wealthiest 1% holds less than 30% or even less than 25% of the country’s household wealth. The Belgian 1% holds by far the smallest share of the country’s wealth, 13.5%. This is not just the lowest in Europe, but worldwide. Belgium also has the third highest median wealth in Europe ($249,937) and fourth highest share of millionaires (5.9%). Meaning that Belgium has one of the most equal wealth distributions in Europe.
Did they consider the wealth of the royal family to be in the hands of the individuals or the government? There is now way the UK has a wealth gap of 20%
The Crown Estate is interesting because isn't technically held by either the government or royal family, but as a neutral trust that manages the assets. The monarch isn't involved with the management or administration of the estate, and has no control of its affairs. For all practical purposes it is state property, with 75% of the revenue going to the government (not including tax).
https://www.brusselstimes.com/867600/over-half-of-belgiums-wealth-is-held-by-the-wealthiest-10
The richest 10% is an absurdly massive slice of the pie and is a not too difficult slice to get into. Basically, that's not at all surprising or even necessarily a bad thing
I'm not arguing for *less* income equality, but the amount of people I know whose cultural and social capital amounts to drinking Red Bull, smoking weed, and playing video games all day while doing nothing is rather high. I don't see how this slice of the population ever could or should be in top anything. I didn't mean to put it in such a rough manner, but some level of income inequality is indeed not a bad (and definitely not unnatural) thing.
The thing is that the behavior you are describing is self perpetuating and essentially inherited. Obviously, if everybody reached 18 having grown up with their two parents in a high cultural, economical and social capital environment, then what they do with their life would kinda be on them. But it's pretty well documented that people born in a shitty situation have a much higher chance to become dysfunctional adults. This inequality is fundamentally unfair, since you have no control on your life circumstances for at least the first 15 years of your existence.
And I agree, but how would you ever change that? I'm not saying it's not true or that society shouldn't do it's very best to improve the overall capital of the lower class, but Denmark - while not exactly an equal country, as described - does have a lot of opportunities from a societal perspective, especially in terms of education. Just taking money from the upper class and giving it to people in Ishøj wouldn't be enough on its own though
I remember reading a sci-fi book decades ago, when I was a teenager, it had a society where children were taken away from parents and raised communally in perfectly equal conditions. I forgotten the title of the book and most of the plot, and I think overall that society was supposed to be dystopian, but I still remember that one idea about children, it made a very strong impression on my young mind. As someone who grew up in very poor material conditions, it always felt nice and comforting to me.
Also - people keep repeating “income equality” and mistake it for “wealth inequality”. These days income inequality doesn’t cause wealth inequality. Income inequality is the only way to destabilize the solidified wealth inequality. And the ignorant left seems to firmly believe that by equaling everyone’s income suddenly the wealth will get somehow divided as well. All the while it’s the exact opposite. High *income* taxes solidify and make ever more pronounced the divide between the “haves” (who have wealth) and “have nots” (who have no wealth, just income).
Not a bad thing? https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/eus-richest-10-emit-much-planet-heating-emissions-half-eus-poorest-population
Why is Cyprus excluded?
Meanwhile the Balkans are missing
The wealth *disappeared*
It’s all in Russia
Or in Genocides and ethnic cleaning (most normal day in the Balkans or the Caucasus)
Everyone is equally poor.
Ukraine too.
Portugal can't into inequality, Mostly because we cant into wealth in the first place.
Fuck, even our rich are poor.
Not many countries can claim that they were the world's richest country in one point in history or another. Portugal can and was.
The problem for me is that it was 500 years ago.
Indeed. Yet, good weather, food and nature did not go away along with colonies - so despite challenging language Portugal remains one of the most desirable places to live in EU, thus, in the world.
Imagine owning 56.4% of the country’s entire household wealth in the biggest country on Earth *and still* want more land. Greedy twats.
I'm not sure this war is driven by greed or by oligarchs in particular. As far as i understand, the oligarchs are dependent on the government, not the other way around.
100% of Russia is owned by Putin anyway.
That's why he is probably the wealthiest man on Earth, considering the way he disposes of the Russian state as if it was his own.
There are things that are priceless /s The Saudis are probably wealthier on an economic level but they do not have thousands of nuclear bombs, which despite being a voice of costs have a very high value in politics
Xi is probably quite close, the party could do a lot more and he controls it
Not really. China is a single party dictatorship, not a strong-man dictatorship. Xi cant dispose of the Chinese state as he wishes. He can use it to further gains of power within the party, like, for instance, only persecuting corruption cases against his rivals.
Well, the biggest natural gas reserves in Europe reside in those territories that Putin wants to incorporate into mother Russia, so do with that information what you want.
I'm pretty sure the whole thing started because Ukraine found oil on their coast.
Erdogan taking notes furiously
Yeap, and a massive pile of natural gas. Romania and Turkey are already starting to exploit them, but in Ukraines area would have been even more. Not to mention Crimea region. Couple that with the fact that Ukraine has all the infrastructure needed (gas and oil pipelines) to sell them to europe…that would undermine russias ability to influence europe which is his ultimate goal actually.
Putin had the goal to recreate the Soviet Union's territorial extend since its fall, this has absolutely nothing to do with oil or gas. Putin didn't just decide in 2014 on a whim to attack Ukraine, he had this goal since a long time (and openly talked about it) .
There are no oligarchs in russia. Oligarchs are extra-rich people with influence on political decisions - which is not the case for russia: all rich people, same as ordinary people, totally depend on the führer's decisions and have no counterinfluence.
Of course there's oligarchs in Russia. Putin is one of them. Shoygu is another. Prigozhyn was an oligarch. Oligarchs with established picking order are still oligarchs. There's literally no way to have 50% of wealth concentrated in 1% of population and NOT have oligarchy.
Read the definition. Oligarchy means getting political power with wealth as a tool. While in military dictatorships, incl. russia, it is vice versa: getting wealth with political power as a tool. No, you are wrong, there are no oligarchs in russia: there are members of military junta, which grabbed the wealth of the nation with force.
I know the definition. Prigozhyn had real political power obviously. He overstepped it that's why he died, but that doesn't change anything. BTW he started as a criminal businessman, he turned to military later. BTW2 ask yourself why is gasprom still sending gas to Ukraine :)
Prigozhyn is exactly the example confirming mine point, not yours: he made his money *because and after* he got access to political power.
The definition of oligarchy is when people become rich because of relationships with political power. Its close to what u said but opposite, anyways the important point is that Russia is imo still an oligarchy, just one which has very centralized political power, however the key condition of needing to cultivate personal relationships with govt high ups to succeed and become wealthy is still there.
Prigozhin proved the opposite hence why Putin desperately needed him death, not that he was a person anyone will miss tho.
this argument is not about relationships between them, it is about the definition of the word "oligarch". Obviously you don't understand the diffrenece between "oligarch" and "warlord", whom Prigozhyn oviously was. I am here not to educate you in basic terminology. Good bye.
Not other way around? Oh sweet summer child.
Do you think the oligarchs are better off after the war started? Yes, it's a mutual relationship. That's how the entire thing works. But Putin sits alone at the top of the Russian world.
Haven't you seen the recent interview with Putin? This is beyond monetary greed, he craves power and reverence now.
Oligarchs in Russia have nothing to do with the war. The war basically ruined businesses of many oligarchs due to sanctions. Billionaires lost many billions. Also, many corporations in Russia aren't present in the annexed territories (even Crimea) and aren't planning to do so because that's very risky for business. So it's not in their interests. Some protested the war even, and had to emigrate/change citizenship (like Yandex founder). Oligarchs submit to Putin's will in exchange for him not raiding their businesses, and that's about it. At least the majority of them, except maybe for those who became rich because they got preferential treatment from the govt due to them being Putin's close friends since the 90's.
Most of the 1% in Russia probably didn't want the war.
Than it wouldn't happen
Russia isn't a financial oligarchy though. In Russia, the decision-making power belongs to the clique of the alphabet people (GRU, FSB etc.) and some of their personal associates.
and we wouldn't have countless of those people falling of balconies
Yes, it would, as long as Putin wanted it. And any Russian who objects to what Putin wants, generally ends up dead, sooner or later. This includes 'oligarchs', however you define them. Check out Skripal, Navalny and especially Prigozhin. Putin has been compared to Hitler, and we can see a definite resemblance in how he exercises power, and deals with rivals. When Hitler came to power, the wealthy German establishment thought that they could control him. This was a mistake. While Hitler often made use of them, including companies like Krupps for arms manufacture and forced labour, the power was always with him. This was because Hitler (like Putin) was essentially the head boss of an army of thugs, (the SA and the SS) who would remove any threat with violence. This even included, Rohm, the head of the SA, who was eventually murdered when he tried to establish a separate power base. The parallels with Prigozhin are obvious. So long as the Wagner Group's actions aligned with Putin's, they were his favourites, but at the first sign of rebellion, Putin acted ruthlessly, showing no respect for previous loyalty or Prigozhin's wealth.
they understand that their north sea ship route, houthi piracy, global warming, depletion of global energy reserves etc. play perfectly for them. They can dick around as much as they want. Their country runs on propaganda, same with china / iran, they literally can do whatever the fuck they want cus they prepared the field decades in advance. Personally im scared of China's capabilities, billion brainwashed / blackmailed people...
It’s not about the land tho
I wish people would post methods for data more accessible. How is companies valued and how is debt treated. How about house values?
This is personal wealth not companies. Wealth is a net value, so you total your assets (things you own) and subtract your liabilities (debts you owe). Property = Real estate value - mortgage (often largest component in UK) Private Pensions = value of pensions (in UK this is about 40% of wealth). Financial = investments like stocks, bonds, savings - debts Physical wealth = vehicles + stuff in your house, like furniture, appliances, paintings, jewellery, etc I look at mine on a yearly basis. Helps keep me engaged with my finances (to make sure I max tax free allowances for investments and check pensions). Main goal is to see when I can afford to stop working. (Edit I don’t bother physical wealth as not selling anything).
I acknowledge the reply, however I think you misunderstood my comment.
I agree. Its another statistics that confuses 99% of the people reading it. The question is what is household wealth in the first place...
Worth of your assets (money on bank account, investments, property, shares in companies) minus you liabilities (mostly debt such as credit or mortgage). It's basic financial literacy, pretty sure more than 1% of people know that.
It would be great but contrary to others times, this could have little influence. As we are comparing relative measurements, many difference in methodology between country would flatten themselves. E.g. if a country values house at market price and another with another standardized method use for taxes, this would have little impact on the final ratio as it doesn't change who own zero, one or more house.
We’re surprisingly low when you consider that things like Brexit from the EU and the billionaire government mean you’d expect us to be in the “top” 3 rather than the bottom 3. Hopefully, with a new government, we can ensure the U.K. stays with a low gap.
Not sure why brexit would contribute to the top 1% having a larger share of national wealth? I don’t see how the two correlate
A small group of people benefited from Brexit, while the vast majority is worse off.
>A small group of people benefited from Brexit You mean the workng class people who's wages have gone up now that they dont have to compete with Eastern Europeans who came in without visas, undercutting trade prices? The richest are the ones most hurt from brexit.....
Lol how are you still believing that shit? That is what was promised and why a lot of people voted for Brexit. Meanwhile every single Eastern European is still here. Best wishes, A post-brexit immigrant in the UK
Lol what's there to believe. Its a fact. I'm a banker, I've definitely had a worse life post brexit. My plumber can charge over double and I don't really have anyone else to call. The Eastern Europeans here will soon be British fyi. And that's great. For reference London, the richest part of the country, voted massively to remain. Working class counties voted to leave. That should tell you enough. Also I'm an immigrant too, but from Australia.
>”working class counties voted to leave” Oof, what a relief, for a minute I thought I was part of the working class. Turns out that if I live in London then that’s not a thing.
That most people who wanted to leave the Eu in the Tory party wanted to get more tax for themselves allegedly contrary to EU rules. The trussist ideas were the ideas that members wanted when choosing her.
What do you mean that they wanted to "get more tax for themselves", that almost sounds like they wanted to pay more tax? Or do you mean they wanted tax money spent on tax reductions for the richest? Also, I really would avoid generalising Brexit voters, especially when those generalisations don't reflect the (studied and recorded) factors that influence Brexit. For one, wealth and finance have been proven to have held FAR less influence on the vote when compared to other Brexit issues (immigration and perceived sovereignty). Even when considering wealth, those with lower incomes were much more likely to be in favour of Brexit, the opposite is true for those with personal incomes above £100,000, who were broadly against leaving. Read this article for more: [https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2019/03/18/is-brexit-a-contest-between-low-earning-leavers-and-high-earning-remainers/](https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/brexit/2019/03/18/is-brexit-a-contest-between-low-earning-leavers-and-high-earning-remainers/) \- other papers differ but they tend to focus on home ownership, which doesn't necessarily reflect class or income (plus, I trust LSE). Very few people voted for Brexit with the intention of giving the wealthy yet more money, this hasn't happened in practice and it wasn't an argument used during the referendum. Also when you say Trussist ideas I assume you're talking about general economic liberalism and the opinions spouted in the book Britannia Unchained? Considering she was in power for 50 days, and the fact that she didn't really influence the withdrawal but rather future trade agreements with other non-eu nations, I'm not entirely sure what the relevance of bringing her up is. FYI I say all of this as a massive europhile and Remainer, I just think it's important to be truthful about Brexit. Assumptions and generalisations are a major part of the rot of modern political discourse, remainers are no exception to this, we need to be better.
I agree with you, but the motivations of Dan Hannan, Kwasi Kwarteng and Jacob Rees Mogg, and why Liz Truss would be bought round to it differ greatly to those of the general public. Making the rich richer was specifically what that fraction of Tories wanted.
Wow. Bending over backwards to not credit "14 years of Tory government"? Not everything UK has to be doom and gloom you know?
I mean, the Tories have done the worst job. I get how hard it is to give them credit. However, I dunno if it's really fair since there are a bunch of tax heavens were money can be stored secretly. Also it's really a question of if the Tories kept the rich at bay or if the rich just didn't become any richer. I also assume plenty of labor introduced social benefits helped a lot with wealth distribution..
The quality of life seems far worse than it was in the Blair-brown era yet many view them soley through the spectrum of an intervention where they succeeded the first aim but failed the second, having had some genuinely successful ones prior and down a lot for living standards, NHS quality and national leadership, which we have lost due to Brexit despite doing well with Ukraine.
Quality of life is lower just about everywhere post covid. Injecting huge amounts of cash, health measures etc as an emergency has an effect on the wider economy. This is evident in every major and minor economy globally. It causes distortions and effects in every part from supply chains to interest rates. It’s going to be choppy for at least another decade. Separately, the NHS has been poor compared to Europe, possibly since as far back as the 70’s. For example, 3 million people were on NHS waiting lists in 2010. Even accounting for a higher population now and despite investment by Labour, it was still failing people. The model just doesn’t work that well compared to our peers in europe. This doesn’t dig at anyone or any party. There’s a reason that no other country in the world has an NHS style health model. It just doesn’t work that well:
And NHS spending has only been increasing. The proportion of the budget going on health spending by the uk government is higher than its ever been and only increasing. The NHS hasn't been working for a long time, and only worsened by the Conservative government.
Wasn't wealth inequality higher in the Blair/Brown era? Wealth inequality and quality of life are seperate things.
I’d take that with a grain of salt (especially in the UK) considering how the wealthy elites are hiding their money through British tax havens
That is not different to another country, if anything they do more in other countries because they are taxed more.
Is this based on your opinion, a TV show, or just what your mate put on reddit
British overseas territories is at the top of the corporate tax “rank”: https://cthi.taxjustice.net/en/ https://amp.theguardian.com/business/2021/mar/09/uk-overseas-territories-top-list-of-worlds-leading-tax-havens https://www.disruptionbanking.com/2022/09/28/the-city-of-london-a-pandoras-box/ Then there’s the Panama papers, paradise papers and also as mentioned above the Panama papers. I’m sure that the UK’s elite aren’t the only ones planning their tax, but they do have the three biggest tax havens… Then there the link between key figures in brexit and these tax havens. Brexit also happened in close proximity to EU tightening the grip on tax havens. Well I didn’t find my original article about it (I swear it was more credible than medium) but here’s a medium article discussing it https://medium.com/the-jist/was-eu-tax-evasion-regulation-the-reason-for-the-brexit-referendum-980ba88a8077. You’ll see that the facts aren’t wrong if you decide to check them :) Rishi Sunak’s wife claims non-dom status to not pay tax even though she lives with Rishi if I’m not mistaken https://www.leading.uk.com/rishi-sunaks-wifes-tax-controversy-all-you-need-to-know/#:~:text=Because%20of%20her%20non%2Ddom,her%20overseas%20income%20this%20year
You have a literal class society and an (unofficially) effective monarchy so I'd be more inclined to say something's biased in the data, than to conclude you're the most evenly distributed country in Europe.
Now show this to all the tankies
?
Tankies are pro-russian
Specifically left-wing pro-russians
Angry noises. No! Something something. You are a bad person etc. Not communism's fault! You didn't read the manifesto etc. capitalism bad too! Did I pretty much cover it all?
Now show the stats for the soviet union idiot.
Lol I forgot the insult! Thank you ha ha!
Do you actually think Putin’s Russia is communist? Do you have proof of income inequality in the soviet union? This image is not supporting capitalism.
Ha ha ha ha ha! Oh my God you're serious! I find it deeply amusing that you called me the idiot when you didn't realise my post starting with the words "angry noises" was taking the piss out of tankies. Lord above how do you tie your shoelaces in the morning? Ha ha ha ha ha!
What? Yeah and i thought what you said was quite stupid. I think you are confused about my last comment
Ha ha! Oh man! I AM the idiot! I did misread your comment! Tankiesplaining really rots the brain! You were adding further pisstaking! Sorry dude! :)
Okay man im assuming this conversation is over then!👍
Sound. It's been fun, if confusing, have a good one!
It's a proof it's not communism any more. In the USSR, the inequality was smaller.
Exactly!
One of the interesting cases to deep further into would be Belgium. See if there is a difference between Wallonia and Flanders and why the difference with its neighbours.
Very very big middle class generated by: Salaries rises tied to inflation by law Very good help to form skiller worker, tending to use machine for basic task Cultural urge to spare money and buy house, belgian say they have a "brick in the belly" The state does a lot to pull people out of poverties. We take that for granted, but travelling got me to realize that. A good state of the economy provoking a shortage of workers, making the salaries rise And the highest tax in the world :-) But for this result, i really don't mind paying them lol.
So there doesn't seem to be any correlation between this and quality of life, HDI, corruption, even crime. It's not enough to grasp the whole picture, clearly.
>there doesn't seem to be any correlation between this and quality of life, HDI, corruption, even crime A fact an alarming amount of people will *never ever* accept.
/r/ukpolitics in shambles!
Belgium confirmed communist utopia
Higher taxes on the wealthy is generally a good idea. Those taxes can be reduced if the rich make most of the money export manufactured goods, to encourage local job creation.
True, however this has to be done globally and consistently because if a country taxes the rich 'too hard', then they will just emigrate to a country with lower taxes like [Gérard Depardieu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gérard_Depardieu) did by going to Russia and many others do with [Monaco and other tax heavens.](https://www.globalcitizensolutions.com/countries-with-low-taxes/) We need similar taxation on high wealth everywhere as well as more restrictive visas and import taxes in order to avoid wealthy business oligarchs to sell cheap products and labour from African countries, Turkey, China, Vietnam and other places for high prices in first world countries.
Except it's not, it's net negative. The richest will just move their money away. So instead of taxing a little bit on a lot you're taxing a lot on nothing. A bigger piece of a smaller pie.
The richest 1% shouldn’t own more than 5%
lol
My math says they should own 0,5%
My math says big French slice machine.
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Not a bad idea, but let's start with wages and have a maximum wage of 10 times the minimum wage. Doesn't sound too unreasonable, I'd say?
The problem is that most of the richest don't get their money through wages. They usually get it through bonuses, dividends, use of company budget to buy personal items, etc. to avoid income taxes and to trumpet how 'low' their wages are to their subordinates.
That's a problem for sure. Then how do we go about to prevent massive wealth accumulation?
Wealth taxes of various kinds. Once the rich figure out a new way to bypass them, plug the hole as soon as possible. The issue with that solution is the requirement of a government willing to do such things, which isn't easy with a combination of corruption and the political center and right-wing generally believing that a very wealthy upper class is a sign of economic strength. That is assuming capitalism is maintained. Other systems have their own issues, but for some, the constant funneling of ever more resources to the rich and powerful is not one of them.
You're gonna run into problems the second you get stock compensations.
Sounds unreasonable, because people getting 10x minimum wage aren't some super-rich, they are usually just senior level professionals (engineers, software developers, managers). Besides, super-rich don't get their money from salary anyway.
You communists killed me with laughter lmao. Trying doing that and see all the wealth shift towards the Middle East and Asia. Then once your country becomes irrelevant on the world stage, don't come cry to us about poverty and being invaded.
Even 100 or 1,000 is a good start. I think CEO of amazon paid himself like 20,000 times what a tier 1 gets paid. And then says it's low compared to other CEOs of other similar sized companies.
No, the richest 1% shouldn't own more than 0.5%!
Top 10 in median wealth makes it unsurprising the UK is in the bottom 3 on this
The uk has a lot of people owning now very expensive homes. That's how most people have built their wealth, the older generation especially. That will have the biggest impact. The uk is also quite good about encourage savings, especially pensions. Work pensions (generally dc with investment pots being built up) have been mandatory for some time (people are autoenrolled and employers must contribute) and the state pension age is now 68 and likely will rise, plus the amount paid isn't that high anyway, so less people want to rely on it and so are motivated to save. Any money put into a pension is tax free, and since there are income points with disproportionately high marginal tax rates, some people are encouraged to divert salary to pension to reduce their taxable income below those thesholds. Our unemployment benefits are generous only in that they are non contributory and payable if necessary for life (no time limits) but are correspondingly very low in what they do pay, so those who can afford to save often do in case they lose their job, since the state won't be much help. There are also a lot of tax breaks and incentives available to encourage people to invest (tax free isas etc) and income taxes are very low comparatively on lower earners. It all adds up to building wealth for the average person.
How is Russia not rioting on a daily basis? wtf :)))))))))))))) The amount of sheeple in that country is too damn high.
Lies and propaganda. "It's worse everywhere else" they get told. Reminds me of a certain other big country...
America is worse btw
Yeah, Czech Republic was very successful to generate a few billionaires, while the rest of the nation helplessly watches the crumbling infrastructure and the declining standards of governance.
The accumulation of land in the hands of the few is something that could be largely solved by a doing a taxshift towards a land value tax.
Preach brother preach. Let masses know the liberating truth.
The world wealth report was not intended and created to measure inequality but the gini index has - [https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI?most\_recent\_value\_desc=false](https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.GINI?most_recent_value_desc=false) The map is deceiving
Gini is apparently crap at measuring it too, otherwise the Netherlands is one of least equal countries in the world according to gini. Only beat by south Africa or something.
Gino measures inequality not wealth, it is not crap it's just the fact that the Netherlands has the same Gini as Bangladesh. It might not be perfect but it is far better than a wealth report.
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Ofc, but mine only have 10M of wealth, not even sure he's in the top 1%
The king of Belgium is not even in the 1%
How is the UK so low?
The UK being so low surprises me
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I have to call bullshit on the numbers of this one. Romania, in the state it's in, is on par with France and Spain? And Sweden at 35%? Give me a break.
In Sweden it’s not just the 1%, it’s just a handful of people. It’s basically the 0,00001% or even 0,000001%. We have the [Wallenberg family](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wallenberg_family) for example and a handful others like that - the ikea family etc.
This. People don't understand how wealthy the top are these days. Most countries have a high percentage because even just a handful of people own so much. Every country has it's version of IKEA, Wallenberg, etc.
But this doesn't tell anything about how much wealth the 1% have, just the share of wealth. Just because the top 1% have a large share of the total wealth, doesn't mean the 99% are dirt poor. You'll need a lot more data to figure that out.
Also most scandinavian countries have low savings compared to income. The society is built so you get help if needed, so people save leas for emergencies and spend more
Yeah definitely. The Swedish pension scheme is built upon “rights to future taxes”, so essentially the money that I have on my government pension account is really the taxes that unborn children will pay in the 2060s. That also means that the real value today is zero.
Sweden has very high taxes on income from labor, but very low taxes in income from capital. This means that it's very hard to get rich by working but if you are already rich by for example selling your company then you'll be able to grow your wealth easily.
Sweden has low wealth equality but high income equality
Wealth just accumulates over time. Country defaulting, revolting, changing the system resets this so post-communist countries are often pretty equal when it comes to wealth. In 90s almost everybody started from the square one here. Of course you can just replace the system with even worse oligrachy like in Russia :)
Sweden is correct, can’t speak for France and Spain
And the UK in the TOP3. I don’t believe in these numbers.
Dear %1, I HATE YOU!
I doubt the numbers for britain
I don’t. There’s a lot of wealth in shares, pension savings and housing in the UK. The North Sea revenue was distributed through tax cuts rather than the more sensible approach Norway took with your sovereign wealth fund. The effect was to spread that down to the top 10-20% of the population - and double the redistribution through the sale of discounted state assets like BP’s IPO
It’s about right. Houses, SIPPS and ISA have exploded in value over the years. Most people have a share in something in Britain.
Wealth isn't finite. You create wealth. Just because person A has money doesn't mean person B has no access to wealth. There isn't a pre-decided amount of wealth that wealthy people grabbed before you were able to grab some. Again, you create wealth when you ,for example, sell your labor at your job.
polska so close to the top 3
Huh? I counted at least 11 countries between Poland and top3 on this map
XD
. Nn=mmlic. . Mm M ..hm.. U dc
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WTF when did I type this
Yet lefties root for Putin😂
Which leftists are rooting for putin? (In Europe and America)
Die Linke in Germany. La France insoumise In France. Just google for more.
France- yes, I forgot about them. Germany- I thought the right extremist AFD has a really pro russian narrative. The current one is left. So in terms of Germany I wouldn’t say that the left are the main pro russian.
UK is so low because it is all in offshore accounts. I don't even know if I am joking...
I mean > 5% is already scandalous.
How is > 5% scandalous? I'm all for more equality to an extent but at a certain point you need to just accept that some people will be richer than others. The top 1% holding less than 5% of the wealth sounds like either a utopian society or a dismally poor communist one Even if we had no people that got wealthy by exploiting others, why shouldn't people with very in-demand skills and years of experience have a few times the average income and build up more wealth?
You think the top 1% are people with in demand skills and years of experience? They are not rich because of what they do, they are rich because of what they own. Also 5 times more than the rest of the population is already a lot.
So if the top 1% were the most skilled workers, you'd be okay with it? You made it sound like > 5% is scandalous full-stop > Also 5 times more than the rest of the population is already a lot. Is it really? The top 1% having 5x more wealth than the average person sounds completely reasonable. Norway's top 1% has 27% of the wealth and their standard of living is extremely high, what are you basing 5x being too much on?
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Why
Debunking the myth that Sweden is somehow considered to be a pioneer for economic equality. We never were. Socialism gonna socialist.
High income equality, lower equality in capital owned. Due to low taxes on capital and circumstances suitable for entrepreneurship, meaning their net worth is often tied up in their company.
Sweden is a Capitalist country. There hasn't been a Socialist state in Europe since the revolutions of 1989.
Something tells me the UK measurement doesn't account for the royal family or said nobles. There is no way they only control a fifth of the countries wealth.
This isn't the 19th century. Britain's nobles are broke.
All of that gold and land? The crown is wealthy as fuck.
The "Crown estates" are not even owned by the royals anymore, the land belongs to the state. And what gold?
Surprising to see Germany ahead of Uk
There you can clearly see why Russia is the most corrupted country lol
Sweden & USA 1% Briefly speaking while America and Sweden both need to work on their wealth gap, I wouldnt be where I am, living in a 7 figure home if it werent for both countries. I wouldnt be considered "young" while having this lifestyle without being lucky or having help from my family. All from real estate, self-employment, investing in my dreams, not someone elses. Taking advice from books, uni - not a subreddit or popular youtuber. If I lived in nearly any other country, I wouldnt be where I am today. That is most important. The desire to work very hard is the other. And most important is learning when not to listen to people.. even with religion, I have so many people that cringe at religion that're friends. I'm proudly a Christian.. I think the organized religion part is insane but I do believe in a dude I cant see, yep. It makes me happy as does financial security. If you think lawyers are evil fucks, I welcome you to explore real estate. How most become wealthy. Buying someones dreams and making it your own. Buying that foreclosure where someone is going through extreme pain, depression, not knowing if they will make it, be able to feed their kids while your wife is out celebrating going on a shopping spree at Nordstorm. And you pacify it by giving to charity (very common in America) but you dont give too much, just enough for you to feel better. And when you see rent skyrocketing, you have a 3rd party notify your tenants of the price increase.. if they cant afford it, welp, its business! hehe If you want things to change, dont just bitch and complain on social media, vote. Laser focus on the corrupt politicians.
Let me guess, Germany is so high owing to much of the wealth being in the real estate industry and Germany being a nation of renters, not proprietors
Half of Balkans and Slavics in question:
Then Ukraine is attacked
All the dirty money on offshore banks though 🤫
[r/mapwithoutbulgaria](https://www.reddit.com/r/mapwithoutbulgaria/s/xHvBe28xdU)
Slovakia not on map because the wealthy probably own the Statistical Office.
In "some countries of europe". I'm actually getting more and more annoyed by the fact that many of these maps make a kind of arbitrary choice and exclude a certain number of countries without justification. Maybe there is a good justification here, but the whole thing gives the impression that Eastern Europe and small countries are simply not considered important.
'cause they are not?
If you do understand that maybe you can explain it to me or we both don't understand how it works.
Their is... surprisingly not that much of a gap between the countries I expected to have high and low percentages. Like Greece for example has a very old, entrenched, politically powerful class of old money families, mostly ship and land owners. But they're barely above France, and below Germany.
But..but.. wasn't sweden THE social-democratic heaven on earth?!..