Would the world be a better place if the wealthiest gave their fortunes away to the bottom billion? We tried to answer the question by creating the Robin Hood Index.
We took a spattering of 42 countries with radically different demographics and economies, then compared the wealthiest individuals to the percentage of the populations living in poverty. By the way, only in Chile, the Netherlands, France and Australia is the richest person a woman.
The index shows how the net worth of each country’s wealthiest person compares to the livelihood of his fellow countrymen by calculating the lump sum in dollars each person living in poverty would get if the assets of the richest citizen were liquidated and redistributed. The Bloomberg Billionaires Index and the CIA World Factbook were our reference points.
India’s large population means Mukesh Ambani’s $19.2 billion net worth amounts to the smallest payout to the poor of any other country analyzed. His net worth is 13.6 million times more than the gross domestic […]
This is an absurd poll. Why not include ALL of the billionaires, not just one. And why not include millionaires as well as billionaires? I wonder what a graph of the spreading of all the wealth of a nation between all of the people in a nation, or better yet why not distribute all of the wealth of the world’s billionaires to all of the people in the world? That would be a good graph to see, and the results actually happen. We are one race, the human race. Why should anyone not want to help their fellow species members have the same advantages in life? I truly believe peace would be the final result of such an equitable action. Sharing is very fruitful. I try to share all that I produce from my garden (which is my greatest asset) and it gives me great joy in doing it. The billionaires would be uplifted by the great warmth that comes to them from those in need and that joy would be worth more than all their wealth has provided them.
This is nothing but propaganda by the rich to support the status quo. Ownership of assets is almost always highly concentrated. The problem we have is with the concentration of income.
In the world of propaganda this is what is known as a red herring. It’s an irrelevant fact which proves nothing but which is proclaimed as proof of something.