Wealth gap

Businessweek recently published ranking of countries with most millionaires.  Not surprisingly, US topped the list and China is moving up fast in third place.

What caught my attention was the percentage of wealth controlled by this elite group in each country.  In US, millionaires comprise of 1.5% of population but control 56% of total wealth.  Similar number for other countries:
Japan:         1%    control   21% of wealth
China:        0.5%  control  50%
UK:            0.8%  control  23%
Germany: 0.5%  control  22%
Italy:         0.5%  control  27%
Switzerland: 4% control  44%
France:      0.4% control  19%
Taiwan:       1% control    37%
Hong Kong: 3% control   73%

China region (if you include HK and Taiwan) and US are leading the world in concentration of wealth.  One is leading the world in growth and the other is struggling to hold on to its wealth.

Another interesting graph that shows how the wealth distribution has changed over the last century in US.  Major driver has been the reducing tax rates for the top bracket.

Here’s another article from Business Insider that chronicles the growing disparity in the US with some sobering charts that show how the wealth since 60’s has gone to from masses to top 1%.  Here’s the chart from BI that shows tax rates and wealth concentration:

Warren Buffett laments that his tax rate is lot lower than his secretary’s.  While giving the profligate US government more money through higher taxes on the rich seems like a bad idea, the growing disparity is not sustainable either.   Americans like the government to stay out of their lives, but they also don’t like the feudal system that is rigged to help the rich.