Global wealth distribution numbers

[GandK]

http://blogs.marketwatch.com/thetell/20 ... it-suisse/

[vivacious]

1/5 of people will be a millionaire?

I hope we don't get to that much inflation.

Or if we do why not chop a few 0s off of everything and make it easier.

[Felix]

Also, millionnaires will move to china over the next 60 years and they will outlaw earning under $10.000 there it seems.

[workathome]

Woo hoo! With enough inflation we can all be rich!

[Dragline]

Yes, but how many will be Slumdog Millionaires?

These things always make me chuckle, because they are based on the implicit belief that the future -- even 50 years out here -- is likely to be just like recent past trends. They are usually just way wrong.

Historically -- as in for hundreds if not thousands of years, 80 percent of the wealth is held by 20 percent of the people and vice-versa, at least in stable societies. When things get too far out of whack for too long you end up with political redistributions in the easy cases and violent revolutions in the worst cases. I would bet that that simple rule of thumb is likely to be more accurate than what is predicted here.

But the total amount of wealth in the future world is almost impossible to predict, because slight variations in the growth or decline rate of cheap/available energy are likely to create exponential growth or decline in overall wealth.

[vivacious]

Ya. And the population can't even be agreed on. There are wildly varying predictions of what the population is going to be coming up.

[Seneca]

Some related numbers on recent millionaire creation- http://www.cnbc.com/id/101099732

[anomie]

Some related numbers on recent millionaire creation- http://www.cnbc.com/id/101099732

The data sources for that article if anyone interested:
Global Wealth Reaches New All-Time High

Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report 2013. (pdf)

Was interested in the definition of "millionaires". The pdf report mentions "Dollar millionaires" , then page 24 of report looks at "High net worth individuals" ---

" ... This produces plausible estimates of the global pattern
of asset holdings in the high net worth (HNW) cat-egory from USD 1 million to USD 50 million, and in the ultra high net worth (UHNW) range from USD 50 million upwards. "

So millionaire = 1,000,000 in asset holdings. (Sometimes is defined in terms of income or other ambiguousness..)

pdf report seems pretty upbeat, mentions lots of millionaires in future. And lots of colorful pictures!
tl&dr.

glad to know I will have company ...

[FreeyourShackles]

So i am researching suppressed inventors from the 1900-2000's, and noticed many "Capitalists" existed in the Early 1900's. Most of them had the freetime to witness these economy changing inventions from some very brillant young men and skilled scientists. Yet, then some disastrous turns of events would occur to these inventors that would destroy, confiscate, or buy and shelf their wonderous technology and discoveries, which would then wither into urban folklore.

You can change the world once and they applaud you for it. Try changing the world a second time, and they force you to retire early. The mindset of the average person is greed, and how to industrialize to maximize profits. Though the Mexican fisherman's mindset is to share his discoveries with the village and experiment to find new ones, as he is already retired extremely early.

[pooablo]

http://www.capgemini.com/thought-leader ... management

I prefer the Capgemini RBC Wealth Report's definition of a millionaire:

Total investable assets excluding consumer durables, consumables, primary residences, and collectibles.

I like this definition more because this metric focuses on assets that are more likely to be cash flow positive. Give me a $1 million permanent portfolio over a $1 million house any day!

The total number of millionaires based on this definition is much smaller.

For example, the Credit Suisse indicates there are approximately 993K millionaires in Canada while the RBC Capgemini report indicates that there are approximately 298K millionaires in Canada.

There are a lot less true millionaires in the world than one would think!