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0 pointsadventured10y ago0 comments

The top 50% specifically would not be the median at all.

The net median wealth per adult is higher in America than in Sweden however. That number was roughly equal as of 2013, since then US real estate and equities have gone up significantly. US median wealth tends to be heavily influenced particularly by real estate (with US real estate values nearly back to the all-time highs).

I'm suggesting the top 50% in America are better of than the top 50% in Sweden. Not that the median is better in America.

In nearly every respect. Access to culture. Economic opportunities. University opportunities. The types of businesses you can build. The variety of industries and jobs you have access to. The sheer scale of things you can work on or have access to economically or otherwise. The research and innovation, the scale of the scientific output you can be part of. The cultural output you can tap into or contribute to that will be consumed in pretty much every corner of the globe. And on it goes.

Sweden does amazingly well for 7 or 8 million people. America does amazingly well for ~160 million people. Sweden isn't going to scale - their population has increased by 2 million in 55 years or so (they can't scale much for obvious reasons). I consider America's accomplishment, that it has benefited so many more people to such a high degree, to be drastically more impressive. In the US, the top 50% are better off than Europe's top 50%, and the bottom 50% in the US are also better off than Europe's bottom 50% (see: Eastern Europe).

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3 comments · 3 top-level

Litost10y ago

Anyone else find it slightly revealing, and obviously disappointing, that any conversation about wealth nowadays only seems to encompass financial wealth, as though all other forms of wealth [1] were either redundant or meaningless. I often wonder when i see headlines like "1 percent of the world's people control 50 percent of its wealth" how the other forms of wealth are distributed and if indeed having more of one predisposes you to have less of all the rest?

[1] - Whatever they may be, spiritual, happiness, obviously off the top of my head, i've ran out here because it's not a topic i usually hear discussed, any other suggestions?

notahacker10y ago

Surely the shift in the net median wealth based on real estate prices rather than any meaningful change in the real assets held by the average Swede or American in the past couple of years calls into question the validity of net median wealth as a meaningful measure of prosperity...

Not that there's much doubt about the relative prosperity of the top 10% of US citizens compared with the top 10% of Swedes, especially if they're not living somewhere like SF or NY, but I can't help thinking the people in the lower brackets notice the difference more. It's not like a Swede who's sufficiently smart to go to Harvard (and wealthy enough to pay for the course) can't go there if they're dissatisfied with the free higher education on offer in their own country. The parents whose kids are vastly more likely to die in infancy in the US than Sweden have rather fewer options.

I think you're probably underestimating Europe's "access to culture" too...

jbapple10y ago

> I'm suggesting the top 50% in America are better of than the top 50% in Sweden.

I'm asking you what that sentence means. Comparing groups is a tricky business. The richest half of Americans are better off in total? In the mean? In the median? Does it mean that the Pth percentile American is richer than the Pth percentile Swede, for all P>50?

I'm ignoring, for the moment, the ambiguity in which Americans are the "top" ones and what if means to be "better off". (wealth? income? education? lifespan? self-reported happiness?)

Maybe it would help if you point to some actual numbers by some social scientists that back up your claim.

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