Yes, it was sarcastic. The housing bubble has hurt a lot of people. The unwind (if it happens) will be just as painful. Low central bank interest rates have benefited speculators at the expense of regular people. Even people who own homes don't benefit as they pay more taxes, and can't realize their "gains" unless they sell and move to a cheaper area or country. I suppose their heirs will come out ahead.
Iceland was a surprise considering the massive drop of the ISK with the bank crisis in 2008. They value of the currency is still down from what it was, against the USD the value is about half of what it was. So either they were really rich or wtf? Also.. if I read that source material right (skimmed) the data for Switzerland is from 1997? Maybe I mistook that. That's a while ago too.
not to individuals ; during European Middle age abbeys were fairly rich, monks not.
And even when we consider the institution only, Vatican is considerably rich of masterpieces of art in its museum but its financial wealth per se is also a myth.
I wouldn't be surprised, honestly. I live just outside of Vancouver and I feel like I'm going to live with my parents forever :/ Either that or I'll live in an apartment with like 2-3 other people.
There's a difference between expensive and unaffordable. In London and Barcelona wages are more commensurate with costs of living. Not so in a city like Vancouver, where some employers have difficulty finding and retaining staff since many workers can no longer afford to live there.
@redsplat: the facts do not support your thesis. The average wages in Canada are higher than in London or Barcelona (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_average_wage)
most people sadly have to build their own houses there. ive seen it, and it is really depressing. this does not mean that not being able to own a house in a 1st world country is not a problem though.
Also, Switzerland... and this goes for many other countries on the list... I don't think a country really gets to claim it is "wealthy" so long as they're going to charge for ketchup at McDonald's. I would say that that is some ghetto-ass 3rd world bullcrap... but... they don't even try to pull that sh*t in the Philippines or Thailand or India or Ethiopia (and in Ethiopia it's not even a true McDonald's just a cheap knock-off)... so... I don't actually know what that is. But it's stingy and low.
or working hard and investing wisely perhaps. Lucky enough to be in this group of many people... can't remember me or my husband looting or being a financial criminals. In fact, my husband paid more personal income tax for many years that was more than my gross wage. I earned a good wage too btw. Just saying. :)
That's a very idealistic way of looking at it. Millions of people work hard and get nowhere, or start out with considerable wealth and do no work because the passive income gives them everything they need, or work in a field that isn't well paying - like a lot of scientific research. Saying you "just need to work hard and invest wisely" is not only blinkered, but incredibly insulting.
point taken, but I find getting wealthy from financial crimes and colonial looting a little insulting as well! :) And whilst I understand what you are saying, very few people become wealthy by not working hard and investing wisely. Just saying.
Mean != median. For example, let's say Bill Gates visits a homeless shelter. The mean wealth in that homeless shelter could be over $1 billion even though everyone but Bill Gates is poor.
Yes, while the mean for the US is $432K, the median is only $66K. Switzerland, on the other hand, has a much more even distribution of wealth, with a mean of $565K and a median of $228K.
The quiz is made up of either countries where everyone has a relatively large amount of money, or countries where there are quite a few (or very few sometimes) extremely wealthy people that skew the figures. Unfortunately, most of these fall into the latter category.
Actually, scratch that. It looks like $218,321 is just a dummy value they're using when they don't have good data. The exact same figure is given for Andorra, Liechtenstein, etc.
From the source: "Germany and Sweden remain below this level, probably reflecting generous state provision of
pensions and healthcare, which reduces the
incentive for individuals to save for their retirement
needs."
It should be added that employees have to directly transfer a significant part of their income to finance these security systems, instead of "sav[ing a significant part of their income] for their retirement needs". It is actually strange that these "state fonds" are not considered for the wealth calculation.
Neither Germany nor Sweden has a sovereign wealth fund with substantial assets. Why would we consider future government spending an asset? If anything we should subtract the value of the government debt.
Andorra should be included in the caveat at the beginning. There's no data, but based on the housing prices and the number of inhabitants, I'm sure it would be in the list.
And, not only is China only a middle income country today, it was recently a very poor country, so there hasn't been any opportunity to accumulate substantial intergenerational wealth, unlike countries that have been economically developed for a long time.
Me too. Germany is the fourth biggest economy in the world. But, I suppose that since the population is so high, it fizzles out when taken per capita. Remember that East Germany was a poor country until the 1990', as well.
I don't think East Germany was all that poor. I think it was the wealthiest 'country' under Communist rule during the Cold War, and would still be considered one of the wealthier countries by world standards.
And it's a pretty stark difference for the US. The 2022 Credit Suisse report gives mean US wealth as $579,051 and the median as $93,271. I feel like the median figure is the more representative measure of central tendency in general and very much so here. And on that measure, the US falls behind the likes of Australia, Japan, Italy, Spain and Qatar.
Credit Suisse seems to have put out two reports on a very similar topic, with one being much more detailed than the other. While this quiz cites the 'Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report 2022', the relevant Wikipedia article cities the 'Global Wealth Databook 2022'. For some reason the former doesn't include Luxembourg, but the latter does. It also contains a lot more data that could be a good basis for other quizzes on this general topic, such as wealth composition, wealth growth, etc.
And Japan, just based on property values. I once read that at one point the land under the Imperial Palace in central Tokyo was worth about as much as all the land in California.
The only reason QM put the caveat "they're not better, they just have more money" is that he didn't want to admit there was anything good about Belgium.
And even when we consider the institution only, Vatican is considerably rich of masterpieces of art in its museum but its financial wealth per se is also a myth.
pensions and healthcare, which reduces the
incentive for individuals to save for their retirement
needs."
It should be added that employees have to directly transfer a significant part of their income to finance these security systems, instead of "sav[ing a significant part of their income] for their retirement needs". It is actually strange that these "state fonds" are not considered for the wealth calculation.
Quite surprised that none of the small Persian Gulf nations make the list.
All the people with more debt, like mortgages and college tuition, than assets are offset by people with way more money than the average bear.