How Rich Are You?
Maybe you are wealthier than you think!
I was reading Consumerism Commentary BLOG which pointed me at a website that calculates your position of wealth in the world based on your income.
The describe why they created the website as:
"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."
They then describe the way they calculate your place in the world, and show the graph below which shows how the distribution of wealth exists...that is no where it is distributed, but how across how many people.Of course this isn't a totally fair picture of things because the cost of living isn't exactly equal across the world either.
They then go off and describe who is behind this site, and ask you to go visit their main website....Poke in the UK.
"Poke are a creative company based in London. Our aim is to inspire people through interactive media.I'm not sure if this is all that accurate, but it is interesting to play with it to see where you stand. (But I'm not telling you where I stand)
We built this site because we wanted to challenge people's perception of their personal wealth. And while we're at it hopefully raise some money for a good cause. For contact details visit: Poke
With thanks to: Meghann Mackenzie for bringing us donuts and number crunching."
Labels: 12-17-2006, money, personal finance, salary, wealth
posted by Bigqueue at 11:35 PM
2 Comments:
I earn my state minimum wage, pay more to rent a small studio unit than my next door neighbor pays to own his house, and have a net worth of minus $20K.
Where am I on the scale?
It is true that this is in no way a totally fair assesment of wealth because of the cost of living in any area vs another....but there is some value in looking at only income and not debts because I know people who make six figures who are all upside down when you look at their net worth!
As amazing as it seems, they are just pretty poor with their savings, and not at all good with their investing. (they are consumers to the core and don't even have a nickel saved in their house....they go to that well as often as possible)
So who is wealthier? Tough call....I would say the person with the 6 figure income certainly has more potential to be wealthy.....and because they have a TV, eat three means a day, have running hot water and a car, they are well ahead of many people in this world.
It's an measurement imperfect scale at best. (nothing is perfect for sure)
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