The very interesting-sounding statistic that launched a thousand retweets is once again making the rounds because oxfam is milking it yet again has updated their annual report.
That’s right, it’s time to find out about wealth inequality. Statistic wording of choice this time, “Eight richest men are worth the same as HALF the rest of the world.”
Now, this statistic sounds interesting, but is actually very stupid highly misleading. The actual interesting statistic, courtesy of Jacob Falkovic, is that the total net worth of the bottom 37% is a tiny smidge above zero. I imagine this will need updating with the latest report, but I doubt it changed much.
That’s right, if you have a positive net worth, you are wealthier than the bottom 37% combined. I suspect this is related to the fact that China and India have about 36% of the world population and not a huge amount of its wealth, and when you add in a few dozen million of the people who have the largest negative net worths (new doctors, lawyers, etc.), you get to a negative figure.
Try not to be too hard on anyone who shares the stupid fact, they are smart enough to know there is something interesting there.