# I am the 1% and chances are so are you **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 6, 2012, 10:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-the-1-and-chances-are-so-are-you/608675 "2012-01-06T22:54:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2012, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-the-1-and-chances-are-so-are-you/608675/41 "2012-01-07T14:20:29Z")
> [@IMfez](#): > > If it makes anyone feel better, money has a fairly weak correlation with overall happiness above a certain point, so some citizens of poorer countries are just as happy (if not more) than their US counterparts. Also their dollar tends to go further due to purchasing parity & good personal habits The ones that live, that is. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2012, 3:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-the-1-and-chances-are-so-are-you/608675/42 "2012-01-07T15:53:33Z")
> [@Dangerosa](#): > > You aren’t seriously proposing they don’t, are you? Our lifestyle is made possible by taking advantage of low cost labor and cheap imports We’d be much, much better off if the rest of the world was rich, too. Other people being poor is absolutely not to our advantage. Would it make imports more expensive? Sometimes, yes. But we’d have way more people to sell stuff to. ---
**Author:** ![Steve\_MB](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/steve_mb/32/5339_2.png) [@Steve\_MB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Steve_MB)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2012, 4:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-the-1-and-chances-are-so-are-you/608675/43 "2012-01-07T16:23:44Z")
> [@Shodan](#): > > Why does the Third World have to wait to have its much worse problem addressed, while your much milder problem is addressed? That’s like claiming people starving to death in Somalia need to wait until we address the problem of obesity in America. > > Un uh. Fix the worse problem first. > > Regards, > Shodan Wrong. We fix our problem; they fix theirs. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2012, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-the-1-and-chances-are-so-are-you/608675/44 "2012-01-07T16:31:18Z")
The top 1% would be the wealthiest 70 million. Of those, I’ll posit about 40 million will be in the US - I’m just guessing, but other industrialized nations total more population than the US but generally have fewer in the wealthiest cohort. 40 million is about 13% of 300 million. After googling around a bit, I get $136k household income to make it into this club. Is **OMG** seriously suggesting that only 40 million Americans make over $34k? ---
**Author:** ![Algher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Algher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algher)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2012, 5:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-the-1-and-chances-are-so-are-you/608675/45 "2012-01-07T17:52:48Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > What does “evened out” mean? There’s currently a mechanism where wealth is apportioned unevenly; this whole private property thing is a social invention, not some natural state of the universe, so there’s no particular reason why we shouldn’t fiddle with it. Private property rights (most importantly the lack thereof) is one of the key things that keeps the rest of the world in the 99%. That said, **OMG’s** OP raises a good point. If the 99% of the US are legitimately enraged at the system that appears to benefit the 1% of the US, then the 99% of the world are legitimately enraged at the 1% that is represented in the middle class and above of the 1st world nations. That said, I am a citizen of the United States, more specifically a Californian. I am NOT a citizen of the world. This is where \*\*OMG’\*\*s OP falls apart. There is no global political body that taxes, writes regulations, and ensures the pursuit of happiness for all global citizenry. ---
**Author:** ![Wendell\_Wagner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/8491ac/32.png) [@Wendell\_Wagner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wendell_Wagner)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2012, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-the-1-and-chances-are-so-are-you/608675/46 "2012-01-07T17:57:43Z")
Here is a list of the mean household income in 2007 in 34 countries: > **[Median income](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income)** > > The median income is the income amount that divides a population into two equal groups, half having an income above that amount, and half having an income below that amount. It may differ from the mean (or average) income. Both of these are ways of understanding income distribution. > Median income can be calculated by household income, by personal income, or for specific demographic groups. > The following table represents data from OECD's "median disposable income per person" metric; disposable i... (The mean is the middle value, chosen so that exactly half of the households make more than that value and half of the households make less than that value.) (Note that this list is selected countries, not the richest countries.) In those twenty countries, the mean household income is $19,179 or below. I’ll guess that with inflation the mean household income in all those twenty countries is more than $20,000. So at least half of the households in those countries make more than $20,000. To figure out the population of those countries, we’ll use this table: > **[List of countries and dependencies by population](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population)** > > This is a list of countries and dependencies by population. It includes sovereign states, inhabited dependent territories and, in some cases, constituent countries of sovereign states, with inclusion within the list being primarily based on the ISO standard ISO 3166-1. For instance, the United Kingdom is considered a single entity, while the constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands are considered separately. In addition, this list includes certain states with limited recogni... Somebody else can add up those population numbers more exactly, but in any case it’s well over 500 million. So at least 250 million people in those countries live in households making over $20,000. In the world then, certainly over 300 million people live in households making over $20,000. I would say that 70 million people in the world living in households making over $34,000 is a serious underestimate. ---
**Author:** ![Broomstick](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/broomstick/32/246_2.png) [@Broomstick](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Broomstick)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2012, 6:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-the-1-and-chances-are-so-are-you/608675/47 "2012-01-07T18:03:29Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > [Link](http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/04/news/economy/world_richest/index.htm) > > I make more than $34K a year. Does this mean I’m taking advantage of the other 99%? Am I (part of the reason) the rest of the world is poor/struggling? My household makes half that in a year. Is it your fault we don’t make more money? Does that mean my choices have no impact on people even worse off than we are? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2012, 6:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-the-1-and-chances-are-so-are-you/608675/48 "2012-01-07T18:26:27Z")
> [@Gorsnak](#): > > The top 1% would be the wealthiest 70 million. Of those, I’ll posit about 40 million will be in the US - I’m just guessing, but other industrialized nations total more population than the US but generally have fewer in the wealthiest cohort. 40 million is about 13% of 300 million. After googling around a bit, I get $136k household income to make it into this club. > > Is **OMG** seriously suggesting that only 40 million Americans make over $34k? That’s actually in the OP’s link. But I think the OP (and the title of the linked article) is doing the math wrong. You can’t be a single person, making $34k/year and be in the top 1%. A single person making $34K/year can’t live the same lifestyle as a family of 4 making $134k. > [@](#): > > It only takes $34,000 a year, after taxes, to be among the richest 1% in the world. That’s for each person living under the same roof, including children. (So a family of four, for example, needs to make $136,000.) ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2012, 6:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-the-1-and-chances-are-so-are-you/608675/49 "2012-01-07T18:28:00Z")
> [@](#): > > Here is a list of the mean household income in 2007 in 34 countries: > > [Median income - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Median_household_income) > > (The mean is the middle value, chosen so that exactly half of the households make more than that value and half of the households make less than that value.) That’s not what “mean” means, and that’s not a list of mean household incomes. But the definition you gave is the correct definition of “median”, which is what’s listed in that link, so that was probably just a brain fart. Back to the OP, it looks to me like he has a fundamental misunderstanding of the point the 99% protesters are making. Their objection is not to the mere _existence_ of the 1%; that would be absurd, since no matter what situation you have, you’re always going to have a top 1%. Their objection is to the unfair circumstances which enabled those 1% to get where they are. Now, to be fair, one might then ask whether the advantages Americans enjoy relative to the majority of the world are also due to unfair circumstances. And honesty compels the answer that yes, to at least some extent, they are. But that’s a _different_ set of unfair circumstances than those at work domestically, and the 99% protesters have decided for various reasons to address the domestic issues first. I’d wager, though, that most of them would _also_ like to address all those other global circumstances, and many of them are probably already taking steps in that direction, too. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2012, 6:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-the-1-and-chances-are-so-are-you/608675/50 "2012-01-07T18:57:59Z")
> [@Algher](#): > > Private property rights (most importantly the lack thereof) is one of the key things that keeps the rest of the world in the 99%… Sez who? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2012, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-the-1-and-chances-are-so-are-you/608675/51 "2012-01-07T19:10:05Z")
Truth be told, I’m not sure what conclusions can be drawn from the OP’s link (let alone the OP itself) other than “Americans are lucky to have been born into their society - most of the rest of the world is pretty bad by comparison.” Follow that with a sigh of relief, a murmur to thanks to whatever god(s) one believes in, and move on. ---
**Author:** ![Gorsnak](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gorsnak/32/7587_2.png) [@Gorsnak](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gorsnak)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2012, 7:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-the-1-and-chances-are-so-are-you/608675/52 "2012-01-07T19:19:10Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > That’s actually in the OP’s link. But I think the OP (and the title of the linked article) is doing the math wrong. You can’t be a single person, making $34k/year and be in the top 1%. A single person making $34K/year can’t live the same lifestyle as a family of 4 making $134k. Ah, so what you’re saying is that I didn’t RTFA and the OP didn’t understand TFA. I suppose that’s somewhat predictable. To be 99th percentile globally you have to be (roughly) 87th percentile in the US, which makes the “chances are so are you” element of the OP false unless board membership skews differently than I think it does. ---
**Author:** ![Lamia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Lamia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lamia)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2012, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-the-1-and-chances-are-so-are-you/608675/53 "2012-01-07T20:14:08Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > > [@](#): > > > > It only takes $34,000 a year, after taxes, to be among the richest 1% in the world. That’s for each person living under the same roof, including children. (So a family of four, for example, needs to make $136,000.) > > [Link](http://money.cnn.com/2012/01/04/news/economy/world_richest/index.htm) > > I make more than $34K a year. Does this mean I’m taking advantage of the other 99%? Am I (part of the reason) the rest of the world is poor/struggling? Your quote says $34,000 a year _after taxes_, not a salary of $34,000. I’m no tax expert, but I believe an American needs to have a salary somewhere in the mid $40ks in order to take home $34,000. The “family of four” figure included in your quote is also after taxes, so the actual combined income of this family would need to be what, close to $200,000? ---
**Author:** ![John\_Mace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/john_mace/32/185_2.png) [@John\_Mace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/John_Mace)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2012, 8:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-the-1-and-chances-are-so-are-you/608675/54 "2012-01-07T20:31:56Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > Your quote says $34,000 a year _after taxes_, not a salary of $34,000. I’m no tax expert, but I believe an American needs to have a salary somewhere in the mid $40ks in order to take home $34,000. The “family of four” figure included in your quote is also after taxes, so the actual combined income of this family would need to be what, close to $200,000? Probably pretty close. At any rate, the whole premise of the OP’s article is silly, and is just a made up complaint about the Occupy movement. Still, that’s a good point about how the OP took things even further than the article. ---
**Author:** ![Algher](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Algher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Algher)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2012, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-the-1-and-chances-are-so-are-you/608675/55 "2012-01-08T02:43:10Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Sez who? Private property rights are directly linked to economic development. There are many journal articles on this subject, and the right to private property is in many of the so-called “freedom indexes” that are published as well. [http://my.mercatus.org/uploadedFiles/Mercatus/Publications/Well%20Being.pdf](http://my.mercatus.org/uploadedFiles/Mercatus/Publications/Well%20Being.pdf) > [@](#): > > The freedom to exchange allows individuals to make trades that both parties believe will make them better off. Private property provides the incentives for individuals to economize on resource use because the user bears the costs of their actions. When private property is combined with market exchange, the price system that results provides the information and incentives for the many anonymous individuals in society to coordinate their activities to channel available resources to the people with the most urgent demand for them. If you don’t own your land, you are not going to want to develop it because it is not yours. This keeps a middle class from emerging as well. Anecdote time: have dealt with this in Niceragua where some work I did with a health clinic was constantly at risk due to poor official records and a lack of governmental recognized property rights. Once we poured concrete, all of sudden our (our being my Niceraguan partners - I was working as a volunteer) title came into question. This anecdote is symbolic of the challenges faced when people try to step up a bit in some nations. I am happy to support this in another thread if you are really questioning the need for property rights as a key component in economic development of both the individual and the nation. I will continue to also argue that economic development is how you start balancing the scales of the 1 vs 99% ---
**Author:** ![Hi\_Medlo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a183cd/32.png) [@Hi\_Medlo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hi_Medlo)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2012, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-the-1-and-chances-are-so-are-you/608675/56 "2012-01-08T15:16:32Z")
Stepping in where angels fear to tread… I think an aspect of the OP that has been ignored is this: One of the goals of OWS seems to be redistributing the assets of ‘The 1%’ to better serve the rest of the population. Considering that we (Americans in general) live better than most of the world, what are you going to do when they come for ‘yours’ ? How do you justify living in even a modest home while much of the world is living in huts? A meal at a neighborhood restaurant while others exist on a bowl of rice? Aren’t we advocating being compassionate with someone else’s money while we’re still living pretty high on the hog, globally speaking? ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2012, 4:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-the-1-and-chances-are-so-are-you/608675/57 "2012-01-08T16:04:28Z")
OWS is a pragmatic movement, not an ideological one. While global economic justice might be desirable, it is currently unattainable in the short run. So, they’re starting smaller. The United States is currently run such that a tiny minority benefits at the expense of the great majority. Money is pooling at the top, so that the economy stagnates, and life becomes harder and harder for the average citizen. The plan of OWS is to reverse that trend by raising taxes on the wealthy, imposing much tougher controls on corporations, and focusing government spending on programs that benefit broad swaths of Americans. The goal is a stronger middle class, more social mobility, and liberty and justice for all. Once the United States has been reclaimed from the wealthy elites, we’ll be in a better position to help fix the rest of the world. This will not take the form of just giving money away. As with the United States, the goal will be not to simply steal from the rich and give to the poor, but to restructure the global economy so that the rich are no longer able to game the system. ---
**Author:** ![Rand\_Rover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/db5fbb/32.png) [@Rand\_Rover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rand_Rover)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2012, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-the-1-and-chances-are-so-are-you/608675/58 "2012-01-08T16:37:00Z")
> [@The\_Hamster\_King](#): > > OWS is a pragmatic movement, not an ideological one. While global economic justice might be desirable, it is currently unattainable in the short run. > > So, they’re starting smaller. The United States is currently run such that a tiny minority benefits at the expense of the great majority. Money is pooling at the top, so that the economy stagnates, and life becomes harder and harder for the average citizen. The plan of OWS is to reverse that trend by raising taxes on the wealthy, imposing much tougher controls on corporations, and focusing government spending on programs that benefit broad swaths of Americans. The goal is a stronger middle class, more social mobility, and liberty and justice for all. > > Once the United States has been reclaimed from the wealthy elites, we’ll be in a better position to help fix the rest of the world. This will not take the form of just giving money away. As with the United States, the goal will be not to simply steal from the rich and give to the poor, but to restructure the global economy so that the rich are no longer able to game the system. Except that . . . this is completely idiotic, from start to finish. Your premises are wrong, so your solutions are not necessary, and in fact your solutions would make things worse. OWS is indeed idealogical–it posits the existence of something called “social justice”–that’s about as idealogical as you can get. The tiny minority you mention actually provide value in exchange for the money they make (except for the very very tiny minority of them who steal it or win the lottery or whatever). That’s how capitalism works–if people like something, they buy it, and if you make something that lots of people like, then lots of people buy it and you get rich. The economy is not stagnating because there’s too much money concentrated at the top. It’s stagnating for lots of other reasons, including that that’s just how economies work (i.e., booms and busts). OWS’s policies would not make the economy not stagnate–they would actually further the stagnation. Imagine you own a grocery store. How much harder do you think it would be to grow the business if someone came in every day and took 10% of the cash from the till? That’s what OWS’s policies do–they saddle businesses and entrepeneurs with additonal expenses and make it more expensive to hire people, which inevitably would have the effect of increased unemployment and a slower growth economy. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [January 8, 2012, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-the-1-and-chances-are-so-are-you/608675/59 "2012-01-08T22:00:03Z")
I’m thinking that you don’t actually know any of these people. Your snarkastic analysis of what you think they think reflects entirely your own set of prejudices, firmly grounded in ignorance. Which of their position papers did you analyze, which official policy are you reflecting upon? Blind, you grasp the elephant’s tail and start telling us about the snake. Perhaps you’re right, perhaps they know little about the economy, but you know even less about them. ---
**Author:** ![Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omg_a_Black_Conservative)\ **Post date:** [January 9, 2012, 6:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-the-1-and-chances-are-so-are-you/608675/60 "2012-01-09T18:11:37Z")
> [@John\_Mace](#): > > Probably pretty close. At any rate, the whole premise of the OP’s article is silly, and is just a made up complaint about the Occupy movement. Still, that’s a good point about how the OP took things even further than the article. Is it? I don’t think so. You never did correct me if my understanding of the arguments put forth by the OWS movement was wrong (post #20), so I’m led to believe that it isn’t. (And, indeed, it isn’t.) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-the-1-and-chances-are-so-are-you/608675.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/i-am-the-1-and-chances-are-so-are-you/608675.md?page=4)