Is this true?

[Dave2002]

In an interview with Jeremy Paxman on TV (Newsnight) last night, the film maker Michael Moore made the statement that 400 people in the US had more wealth than more than 100 million US Americans combined. Or was it 100,000? Maybe I heard it incorrectly.

If the former, that's around 25% of the US population. I've tried to check this again using iPlayer, but either way this doesn't seem good. If the figure really is huge, then it is truly appalling. However, I'm not sure that I'd always believe MM on details like this. He does sometimes inflate his figures to make a point, I suspect, even though his points are often significant.

[mercia]

http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2011/mar/10/michael-moore/michael-moore-says-400-americans-have-more-wealth-/

http://blogs.wsj.com/wealth/2011/03/07/billionaires-own-as-much-as-the-bottom-half-of-americans/

I wonder what the equivalent figures for the UK would be. One for Dave to work out ! (our Dave I mean)

[Lateralthinking1]

Yes. The higher figure. He has said this many times. I believe many of these individuals would have wealth that is far bigger than that of many countries. Considered as a group, I doubt that many countries in the world would be bigger economically. The Chancellor and other members of the Cabinet regularly attend the Bilderberg Group - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bilderberg_Group. So do the financial elites. It is there and in other similar situations that most of our futures are decided. "Make it less equal".

As a test of the extent to which democracy works or not, perhaps look at Caroline Lucas as an example. A hard working MP and not naturally ineffective, to what extent could she have the ability in such a structure to represent the will of her constituents? Not much. The same is true of Galloway or Farage. To some extent, it is true of all backbench MPs. The apparent nut cases in this world can provide insights. On one level, David Icke is a showman who is good at making money and/or completely crackers. Notions though of a secretive, privileged, lizard people who are in charge of everything are near to the mark. Sure, the lizard bit makes it sound particularly far-fetched but that is presumably allegory and people accept such things in the Bible.

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

it is my belief that we are close to the USA distribution, and in any case decidely unequal

The extent of the unequal distribution of wealth
varies according to the type of wealth. In 2006/08,
the Gini coefficients for the components of wealth
were:
• 0.62 for net property wealth
• 0.81 for net financial wealth
• 0.46 for physical wealth and
• 0.77 for private pension wealth

from

Gini Coeeficient is 0 = Equality 1 = Inequality and ranges from 0 to 1 ....

[mercia]

I guess we should be grateful to the wealthiest for the amount they pay in tax...... what's that statistic ............ something like ....... the tax paid by half-a-dozen premiership footballers would pay for the running of a small hospital ...... something like that anyway.

[MrGongGong]

. Notions though of a secretive, privileged, lizard people who are in charge of everything are near to the mark. Sure, the lizard bit makes it sound particularly far-fetched but that is presumably allegory and people accept such things in the Bible.

the Lizard thing is NOT an allegory for Icke he really believes that the rulers of the world are an Owl worshipping bunch of Lizards
conspiracy theories are easy to come up but hard to substantiate

(the chapter in Jon Ronson's "Them" about Bohemian Grove is hilarious in the way that a group of people who have seen exactly the same thing place a completely different interpretation on it, what to Ronson is a rather cheesy amdram "wicker man" style pageant is a deeply disturbing occult ceremony to the conspiracy theorists)

[vinteuil]

ah, but the conspiracy theorists believe that Jon Ronson is secretly in the pay of the Bilderberg Group, to divert attention from the reality of their lizardy ploys...

[Ferretfancy]

I guess we should be grateful to the wealthiest for the amount they pay in tax...... what's that statistic ............ something like ....... the tax paid by half-a-dozen premiership footballers pays for the running of a small hospital ...... something like that anyway.

Ninety percent of so called British companies practise perfectly legal tax avoidance by moving assets overseas. This includes most of the British press.

[Stillhomewardbound]

There's the 1966 Economist statistic which said the 84% of the nation's wealth was owned by 7% of the population (this is where John McGrath's agit-prop theatre company took its name from, '7:84').

I don't know how much that balance will have changed. Possibly not at all.

However, as is said, the meek shall inherit the earth ... if no one else has any objections.

[Flosshilde]

Not expressed in the same terms, but wealth distribution has become more unequal -

"The top 10% of individuals in the UK now receive 40% of all personal income, while the bottom 90% receive 60%.
The top 0.1% get 4.3% of all income - the highest figure in the UK since the 1930s, and three times as much as they received as a share of income in 1979.

From http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7193904.stm (dated 2008)