I saw an interesting link today in a post in the Wall Street Journal Wealth Report Blog. It highlighted the Global Rich List.
Using World Bank income data, it lets you put in your income and find out how you compare to the rest of the world. Granted, it does so based on income rather than assets, but it's illuminating nonetheless. Out of curiosity, I played with the numbers until I found out what the top percentile would be. At aboout $47,500/yr, you'd be the 60,000,000th richest person in the world and would in the top 1% of all people.
According to the website:
We are obsessed with wealth. But we gauge how rich we are by looking upwards at those who have more than us. This makes us feel poor.
We wanted to do something which would help people understand, in real terms, where they stand globally. And make us realise that in fact most of us (who are able to view this web page) are in the privileged minority.
We want people to feel rich. And give some of their extra money to a worthwhile charity.
It certainly helps us to put our relative wealth into perspective.
