Where do you stand on the rich list?

November 26, 2003 12:19 PM

I am in the top 1.72% richest people in the world!!! Find out where you stand on the list, then get some sobering but unsurprising facts. Global Rich List. Just type in your yearly worth in U.S. or UK funds and voila!
(note: global rich list supports Care International UK, a global humanitarian organisation, working with over 30 million disadvantaged people each year in 72 of the world's poorest countries.)
posted by ashbury (24 comments total)

Sorry, seen it before here.
posted by Jimbob at 12:24 PM on November 26, 2003

Hey---I'm only in the top 2.59% richest. No fair!
posted by goethean at 12:30 PM on November 26, 2003

Comparing global wealth on a dollar by dollar basis doesn't make any sense at all. I can buy a lot more stuff with $20,000 a year in Beijing than I can in New York City.
posted by gd779 at 12:32 PM on November 26, 2003

Income is IMO not a great way to measure wealth. It is not how much you earn, it is how much you save.
posted by stbalbach at 12:33 PM on November 26, 2003

Hey, ashbury, thanks for telling us all you make $45000 a year. We all needed to know that.
posted by jon_kill at 12:35 PM on November 26, 2003

The guilt! The guilt! It's burning my eeeeeyes!
posted by stupidsexyFlanders at 12:37 PM on November 26, 2003

eh. I did a search for the url, but not without the index.php added to it. shite. I'm becoming a bit of a pro at double posts.

jon_kill, it was an arbitrary number.
posted by ashbury at 12:40 PM on November 26, 2003

There are lies, damned lies, and well, you know. It doesn't take into account cost of living. Accordingly, here's an international cost of living calculator.
posted by pedantic at 12:42 PM on November 26, 2003

Correction, salary calculator. My bad.
posted by pedantic at 12:43 PM on November 26, 2003

I am in the double digits of top-richest: 11.59%. Last year I made about a third as much and I only moved down to 14% or so. Then again, there's nothing to buy in Vermont with that except ammo and syrup.
posted by jessamyn at 12:55 PM on November 26, 2003

What a cool tool, pedantic! And still very useful for comparing the cost of living in various countries.
posted by mr_roboto at 12:55 PM on November 26, 2003

If you make $100,000 in Washington DC then you would need to make $67,000 in Kabul, Afghanistan

These numbers don't seem right. I would think my standard of living in the USA could be met in Kabul very reasonably.
posted by stbalbach at 12:55 PM on November 26, 2003

I could not help but notice...
posted by inpHilltr8r at 12:58 PM on November 26, 2003

Those other people wouldn't be so poor if they'd just get a job.
posted by keswick at 12:58 PM on November 26, 2003

It seems like a pure salary conversion tool. It doesn't take into account that with the $67,000 in Afghanistan, the purchasing power is unlike that of $100,000 here. That's a lot of cowbells.
posted by pedantic at 12:58 PM on November 26, 2003

And I mean by that, Christopher Walken could get all the cowbell he wants.
posted by pedantic at 1:00 PM on November 26, 2003

I should quit writing in haste. I posted the link without reading much about it to debunk the FPP link a smidge. It sort of annoys me that there is a guilt trip associated with it.

Anyway, after reading the FAQ for the salary converter, it does take into account cost of living—housing costs, utilities, consumables, transportation and other services. Now if what one would have with $100,000 in Washington D.C. equates exactly to the same style of living in Kabul, $67,000 in Kabul would afford you the opportunity to choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three piece suit on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on a Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pishing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarassment to the selfish, fucked-up brats you have spawned to replace yourself.

Can you tell I'm feeling a little cynical today?
posted by pedantic at 1:30 PM on November 26, 2003

...
posted by pizzasub at 1:52 PM on November 26, 2003

Pedantic: I love Trainspotting as much as the next guy, but that monologue has always been a false dichotomy. A person making a middle class income could just as easily "choose" none of those things, never watch game shows, have lovely children, and lead an extremely meaningful life.

Also, $100,000 in Albany, NY apparently equals $99,442 in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. There, as in many places, cost of living does not lower the poverty line by much. We can try to spin it any way you like, but we (citizens of the industrialized world) are insanely rich compared to the average human being.
posted by 4easypayments at 1:59 PM on November 26, 2003

> The guilt! The guilt!

Anybody in the top half ($868 a year) is a running dog oppressor of the people. Liquidate 'em.


> That's a lot of cowbells.

You have to tailor your needs to your circumstances. In DC I would want a house with a good high brick wall, a live-in tutor for my kids, a bulletproof limo, an entourage armed with Colt M4's, and a few lawmakers and judges on the take. In Kabul, on the other hand, I would want AK47's.
posted by jfuller at 2:08 PM on November 26, 2003

Thay salary calculator is soooo wrong.
It said that $14000 in Santiago, Chile equates to $18000 in San Francisco.

Right.
posted by signal at 2:28 PM on November 26, 2003

How creepy! I put in my income and it says I'm in the .911% which also happens to be my birthday. That's a little weird. But it makes me feel good to know that I'm the 54,675,565th richest person in the world.
posted by fenriq at 2:28 PM on November 26, 2003

As tharlan noted, the hourly wage calculation is severely whacked. That rather calls into question their ability to calculate at all, and thus I'm forced to not believe what they say about my rank in the world.
posted by jacquilynne at 2:30 PM on November 26, 2003

4easypayments: I agree regarding your Trainspotting assertion. The solioquy illustrates Renton's character change—going from addict to clean; not a life philosophy for everyone to assume. It is about choosing life...which is relative for everyone else.

Thay salary calculator is soooo wrong.
It said that $14000 in Santiago, Chile equates to $18000 in San Francisco.

I'm inclined to trust the salary calculator give or take a few thousand dollars. What isn't apparent is the mode of living as I wrote in my previous post. It seems to me, people react to the calculator as if we would be living the lifestyle we envision living in that country would be like. I think it is quite the opposite...that it is maintaining a similar lifestyle that we have now.

Say for instance I were to move to Ecuador—if I chose to change my lifestyle according to the middle class in Ecuador, I know I could live for quite a while with my savings. If I chose to maintain a computer with high speed access, a comfortable apartment with the amenities in an affluent neighborhood, chances are, I probably wouldn't be able to live off my savings too long. Many things that I have now quite possibly are luxuries and might be more expensive in Ecuador than they are in the States.

All told, a healty dose of skepticism is useful with any of these calculators. Unlike the FPP though, it does not have the underlying tone that the rest of the world should live like us.

For some non-US residients, it is a blessing. For some US residents, it is a curse.

To each their own.
posted by pedantic at 3:07 PM on November 26, 2003