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Comment by nabla9 | Hacker News Reader

relative wealth is a zero sum game.

Some countries have less inequality, but also have less average wealth. People do not migrate to those poorer countries seeking to be richer than their neighbors. Instead, people tend to migrate to areas of higher wealth, even though it means they will have less relative wealth. It's clear that absolute wealth is more important to people than the zero-sum game of relative wealth.

Median wealth is what's interesting.

Compare list of countries by net mean and median wealth.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_pe...

It's more interesting in chart form: http://imgur.com/GZxm0hD

That's a rather biased chart.

Net median wealth per adult.

  Australia	219,505
  Luxembourg	182,768	
  Belgium	148,141	
  France	141,850	
  Italy	138,653	
  United Kingdom	111,524
  Japan	110,294
  Iceland	104,733
  Switzerland	95,916
  Finland	95,095
  Norway	92,859
  Canada	90,252
  Netherlands	83,631
  New Zealand	76,607
  Ireland	75,573
  Spain	63,306
  Denmark	57,675
  Austria	57,450
  Greece	53,937
  Sweden	52,677
  Germany	49,370
  Slovenia	44,932
  United States	44,911

...

PS: US only has high wealth if you ignore debt. Owing 200k on a 200k house is not wealth.

There was some slight of hand on my part, the ratios are plotted, not the absolute numbers. The wealth inequality is more interesting than absolute country wealth in the context of the simulation I feel. I agree regarding the debt, that's why net and gross values are included in the chart. For the top 3 it makes no difference. Iceland as an outlier isn't something I would have expected though

Edit: Also the mean probably isn't defined for whatever power law is generating wealth distribution in each country anyway

Relationship between inequality and economic growth is interesting subject.

Inequality seems to have a negative impact on economic growth.

http://www.oecd.org/els/soc/trends-in-income-inequality-and-...

1. By that logic, everyone who doesn't migrate from such a country is voting in favor of equality over absolute wealth and they constitute a much larger number.

2. To some degree, people do migrate to poorer areas and countries, including those of retirement age, to improve their perceived quality of life which is solely due to greater difference in wealth.

I would argue it's not the difference in wealth, but the cost of living, that entices these people to move to poorer areas.

The greater difference in wealth may in fact hold them back, for fear of criminals with even less to lose than the criminals in their home country.

>Some countries have less inequality, but also have less average wealth. People do not migrate to those poorer countries seeking to be richer than their neighbors.

Of course they do. Retiring abroad in low cost locales is very common these days.

How do you reckon?

Wealth can be created or destroyed. Relative wealth has to operate in a sea of transactions that can either create wealth, destroy wealth, or, very rarely, maintain wealth.

In such a frothy environment how does the wealth of one entity hope to balance against all other wealth?

> > relative wealth is a zero sum game.

> How do you reckon?

... Basic mathematics? By definition, there's only and always 100% of the current-wealth to subdivide. Never 101%.

Your gain of +1% always means -1% somewhere else.

What is your operational definition of wealth?

The key word here is "relative", not "wealth".

Wealth is so dependent on circumstance that I don't think it makes sense to say there is a cohesive body of wealth to make up 100%.

It is like saying you have 100% of the talent.

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