What if I told you something about the 10 richest people living today that would absolutely turn your world upside down?
What if I presented you with a statistic that demonstrated global inequality existing on an unbelievably massive scale?
What if I showed you something that would make you think everything you know about money is wrong (or, even more strangely, tragically correct…).
Recently, I was intrigued by much discussion going on about income inequality in this world, and how much money the richest people in the world have.
So, I added up the wealth of the 10 richest people in the entire world, and discovered something shocking…
Now, I’m still not over this, and probably will never be…
What’s worse is that the situation is not likely going to change anytime soon.
This is my shocking discovery…
Nearly 1% of the entire world’s wealth lies with the richest 10 living people.
That’s right, you heard me correctly.
Nearly 1% of the world’s entire wealth is sitting comfortably in the safes of just 10 people.
TEN PEOPLE!
Last I checked, the population of the entire world was about 7 or so billion people.
And ten of them have 1% of everything.
Don’t believe me? Let’s add up the wealth of the richest ten people, talk about how they came upon their handsome riches, then compare it to how much money actually currently exists in the world.
I take all of my sources for figures per rich person from this recent article in Forbes Magazine.
So let’s get to it – here are the ten richest people. After we go through them, we’ll look at how much money exists in the world, and you will see that my shocking discovery – that 1% of the world’s wealth lies with 10 people – is astonishingly correct.
10. Liliane Bettencourt (Worth: 40.1 Billion)
Ninety-two year old Liliane Bettencourt, one of the major shareholders in the L’Oreal shampoo company, is the tenth richest person in the entire world, according to the Forbes article listed above.
At $40.1 billion, Liliane could spend approximately one million dollars every single day for 80 years and still have 10 billion dollars left to spare by the end of it.
9. Jim Walton (Worth: 40.6 Billion)
The youngest son of Wal-Mart founder Sam Walton, 66-year-old Jim Walton is actually not the only Walton member on this list.
With a net worth approximately a half billion more than Liliane Bettencourt, Jim Walton too could spend one million dollars every single day for the next 80 years and still be considered one of the world’s 500 richest people, according to today’s standards.
8. Christy Walton (Worth: 41.7 Billion)
The other major heiress to the Wal-Mart fortune is Christy Walton, who, like her brother, is worth over a staggering 40 billion dollars.
Interesting fact about Wal-Mart: last year alone, the company made $405 billion in revenue, which, according to Business Insider, makes it the 23rd-largest economy in the world ahead of Sweden.
None of these guys are really interested in moving from the list, methinks being on it means more than even the zeros in the bank acc. the solution will happen @ time when some the good guys who are generally less hardworking decide to totally apply themselves, totally reject greed and work their behinds off to regain their rightful positions, with the understanding that their talents are given to them in order to help others.
Well, If they worked with integrity and were smart and talented enough to generate those large sums of moneys is the first question. If the answer is yes, in any case anyway, we ought to question our values and consciousness as societies in the face of poverty on the the planet which is totally human made political problems. How we create societies lies the questions and answers for individual and collective understanding, responsibility and accountability to reinvest in sustainable endeavor beneficial to better human conditions in the world at large.
What is the formula for net worth? Assets + Liabilities = net worth so we are colparing apples to oranges here. The net worth of a country becomes impossible to calculate!
Neverheless it is a thought provoking article.
Stop caring about Income Inequality 😉