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Comment by apsec112 | Hacker News Reader

I'm richer than the poorest two billion people in the world combined, and I'm an upper-middle-class programmer with some modest savings.

Please stop adding up the wealth of the poor: http://blogs.reuters.com/felix-salmon/2014/04/04/stop-adding...

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that's a really interesting article.. I think the more surprising fact is that 7.5% of the bottom 10% are in the US. That's 50 million US citizens. That's pretty shocking.

Edit: although since we're talking about people who have negative net worth.. perhaps it's only because they're able to borrow so much. I doubt a poor Indian or Nigerian would be able to borrow $100K for college.

It would look less shocking once one understand US poorest 5% are equal to India's richest 5%

http://mjperry.blogspot.com/2011/01/americas-poor-indias-ric...

Also interesting.. but it took me a minute to figure out how to sync this info with the article... the article is for net worth, and this is for income. It is surprising how little the top 5% Indians earn.. I actually had to verify it to believe it.

In terms of money perhaps, but in terms of life security, leisure time, etc I am in doubt the comparison really holds.

I would be interested to see the relative poverty of the US poor vs the relative poverty of Indian poor. Things like affording food, shelter, and transportation based off their income.

It would be interesting to add up the annual income of the world's poorest and richest people instead of net worth. This isn't entirely fair either, given than some unemployment is voluntary, but there would still be a massive inequality between the richest and poorest working people.

Excellent post. It's never ceases to amaze how hard this stuff is to quantify.

That was great, thanks for posting it.

However, I think these kinds of shock headlines are still somewhat useful. They help remind me that money doesn't really work the way I imagine it does in everyday life. It also reflects the control that a few individuals have over money, if not wealth/resources.

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