Seems we have alot of wealth, wealthy people among us. Actually surprised how much

Discussion in 'Property Market Economics' started by Illusivedreams, 1st Jun, 2018.

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  1. Illusivedreams

    Illusivedreams Well-Known Member

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  2. Xenia

    Xenia Well-Known Member

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    Would be interesting showing the amount of poverty in the wealthiest countries too.

    I prefer it more distributed rather than huge gaps between rich and poor.
     
  3. Pete Arendt

    Pete Arendt Well-Known Member

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    Yes, this would prevent a recession or depression.

    There is an old saying in politics - look after the middle class and the middle class will look after you.

    It makes reference to the fact that if you distribute $1k to the middle class (or someone on the poverty line), that $1k will find its way back into the economy - though retail spending, underpinning jobs. Those jobs can then pay the rent or the mortgage.

    Distribute $1k to the rich, and it's likely to disappear overseas or in a non productive investment.

    If you look at the number of Australian's in stress at the moment, you can see a recession coming. Retail shops are closing, and jobs are being lost.

    I think consumer spending makes up something like 60% of Australian GDP?
     
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  4. radson

    radson Well-Known Member

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    Me too, even disregarding ethics, a prosperous middle class is better for the economy as a whole rather than wealth concentrated in the hands of a few.

    The Inefficiency of Inequality
     
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  5. Gestalt

    Gestalt Well-Known Member

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    The most commonly accepted measure of inequality is the Gini Coefficient. Australia does pretty well by that measure.
     
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  6. Illusivedreams

    Illusivedreams Well-Known Member

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    Having alot of rich in a county and. A good middle class is not mutually exclusive.
    Australia is one of the leaders with an aggressive taxation system that distributes wealth fairly well. We also have amazingly socialist welfare system.

    Australia's middle class no longer the world's wealthiest


    Australia has the highest percentage of its population, 66 per cent, classified as middle class, which was defined by Credit Suisse as having more than $US100,000 in wealth, followed by Belgium and Singapore, both on 60 per cent
     
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  7. Eric Wu

    Eric Wu Well-Known Member Business Member

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    Wealth disparity, class war, social hatred, just name a few.

    However, these big gaps could inspire more ppl with big ambitions to chase theirs dreams.

    Ppl might call them land of opportunities.
     
  8. Scott No Mates

    Scott No Mates Well-Known Member

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    Totally agree, we need more genies. :p
     
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  9. Kangabanga

    Kangabanga Well-Known Member

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    For moment there thought u guys were talking about da Gina. Lol...
     
  10. Noobieboy

    Noobieboy Well-Known Member

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    I agree. In long run a huge disparity is never a good thing. Have more people in upper middle class than in any other class generally amplifies wealth of everyone else. It creates stability, more opportunities and higher growth prospects.

    High disparities are usually a short term phenomenon and usually results in violent social events or diminished opportunities for growth.
     
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  11. Scott No Mates

    Scott No Mates Well-Known Member

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    Not sure how banks use those to assess stability of income
     
  12. Kangabanga

    Kangabanga Well-Known Member

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    What most people don't realize is we are still very dependent on mining. A lot of consumer spending, comes from flow down effects of new mining investment as well as ongoing profits/taxes from mines/wells. IMHO it's mostly about mining. The only other major sector would be investments in both public and private construction\property sector which will flow on to consumer spending. Agriculture and tourism are important, but don't really contribute that much.
     
  13. Lemmy a fiver

    Lemmy a fiver Well-Known Member

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    Whilst Mining is no doubt important, more of our population % wise is employed either directly or indirectly in our Real Estate market.
    Thats not so good imo.

    We may well need another mining boom ta shore things up somewhat if our RE markets go pear shaped.
     
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  14. Pete Arendt

    Pete Arendt Well-Known Member

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    Yes, trickle down economics. That's working well !!

    Family Debt Crisis
    Households struggle with electricity, water bills
    In Western Australia, home of Mining:

    Power Company Synergy has last month 150,000 households in arrears owing $61 million.
    In April, Water Corp has 118,502 households in arrears owing 120 million.
     
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  15. radson

    radson Well-Known Member

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    Water Minister Dave Kelly said the number of families who had had their water cut off for non-payment had dropped by more than 50 per cent since last year. Since the start of 2018, 319 Water Corp customers have had “supply restrictions” imposed — which cuts water to a trickle — compared with 836 over the same period last year.

    Another sign Perth is on the mend?
     
  16. Pete Arendt

    Pete Arendt Well-Known Member

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    I would probably wait for an interest rate rise or two, before making a decision. Aussie household's are so indebted, a single rate rise will probably tip the scales back the other way.
     
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  17. highlighter

    highlighter Well-Known Member

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    To be honest this graph doesn't really tell us much, because it doesn't control by population at all, it just lists high net worth individuals per country. That really tells us nothing much about how many wealthy live in that country or if that country has an unusually high number of millionaires. Of course USA has a lot of them, as it is the only developed nation with a population nearing its present size.

    Singapore at the bottom of the list has a population of 5 million people, but has the highest average wealth per adult in the world. The GDP per capita in many countries not included on the list is much higher than in those countries listed e.g. Lichtenstein, Qatar, Monaco are the three highest by GDP per capita (all with far higher GDP per capita than USA or Australia).

    What you really want is millionaires per capita. USA has more millionaires by raw numbers, but Switzerland has the most millionaires per capita (at 8.6 per 100,000). Sweden also ranks higher than USA. Australia doesn't really have more millionaires than any other advanced economy of comparable size.
     
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  18. sash

    sash Well-Known Member

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    It sounds like a lot...but it isn't

    People with more than $30m USD - about 3000
    People with more than $5m USD - about 15000 in Australia

    Consideriing there are about 300,000 people with $1m AUD in Australia...per capita it is high...second only to Swtizerland...
     
  19. Pete Arendt

    Pete Arendt Well-Known Member

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    Australia has the 2nd highest level of household debt in the world. My understanding Switzerland has the highest level of household debt.

    Sounds like there is a correlation to excessive leverage? So it might not be "wealth" after all, but a liability when things go wrong.
     
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  20. highlighter

    highlighter Well-Known Member

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    Yes, there's also that. Another thing the graph doesn't show is buying power. e.g. in USA wages and house prices in most areas are a lot lower, so a "millionaire" is more impressive there than in Australia and probably Switzerland. Even between US states there's a huge discrepancy. Being a millionaire in the Bay Area isn't very impressive. You just have to own a basic house.