World Wealth

coorslite21 · April 15, 2022

NEY

Visualizing the Distribution of Household Wealth, By Country

Published

2 days ago

on

April 13, 2022

By

Eleonora Nazander green checkmark icon

Featured Creator

Article/Editing:

Carmen Ang

Visualizing the Distribution of Household Wealth, By Country

A majority of the world’s wealth is concentrated in just a few countries. In fact, almost a third of household wealth is held by Americans, while China’s population accounts for nearly a fifth.

Using data from Credit Suisse, this graphic by Eleonora Nazander shows the distribution of household wealth worldwide, highlighting the wealth gap that exists across regions.

Top 10 Wealthiest Countries

To help simplify things, this graphic shows how much household wealth each country would have if the world only had $100.

As the graphic illustrates, the top 10 wealthiest countries would hold an estimated $77, or 77% of global household wealth. Here’s a breakdown of what their cut of $100 would be:

Country	Total Wealth ($B)	Share of $100
Total	$278 Trillion	$77.09
United States	$105,990	$29.40
China	$63,827	$17.71
Japan	$24,992	$6.93
Germany	$14,660	$4.07
United Kingdom	$14,341	$3.98
France	$13,729	$3.81
India	$12,614	$3.50
Italy	$11,358	$3.15
Canada	$8,573	$2.38
Spain	$7,772	$2.16

The U.S. comes in first place, holding $29.40, or almost a third of total wealth, while China comes in second, accounting for $17.71.

This makes sense considering the high concentration of ultra-wealthy individuals in both countries—China and the U.S. are home to more than half of the world’s billionaires, and eight of the 10 richest people on the planet are Americans, including the world’s richest, Elon Musk.

Japan ranks third on the list, accounting for $6.93. Like the U.S. and China, Japan also has a high portion of ultra-high net worth citizens, or individuals with a net worth of $30 million or more.

Interestingly, India ranks seventh on the list, despite having the third-highest number of billionaires worldwide and a massive population of 1.4 billion. One contributing factor to this could be the country’s relatively high levels of poverty.

Wealth Inequality

It’s important to note that, while the U.S. and China hold a majority of the world’s wealth, both countries still struggle with wealth inequality.

Currently, the top 1% of U.S. households hold 31.7% of the country’s household wealth. And while China has made progress on poverty in the last decade through rapid economic growth, the wealth gap between the country’s rich and poor has widened in recent years.

Governments in both countries have announced plans to tackle wealth inequality. For instance, the Biden administration is working to pass legislation that would increase taxes on businesses and wealthy Americans. Meanwhile, the Chinese government announced its five-year plan to crack down on private enterprise, in an attempt to break up monopolies and ultimately achieve “common prosperity.”

This article was published as a part of Visual Capitalist's Creator Program, which features data-driven visuals from some of our favorite Creators around the world.

MARKETS

Objects of Desire: Record Breaking Auction Sales in 2021

Do you have an eye for rare collectibles? See which items made the list of biggest auction sales in 2021.

Published

1 week ago

on

April 6, 2022

By

Marcus Lu

Record Breaking Auction Sales in 2021

2021 may have been the year of the NFT, but wealthy collectors still dropped plenty of cash on physical objects. This included the usual items like paintings and cars, as well as some more obscure ones like meteorites.

To gain insight into the world of rare collectibles, this infographic summarizes the biggest auction sales of 2021, spread across 12 different item categories.

The Numbers

The key details of these sales are listed below in tabular format. Some broke all-time records, while others set the record for 2021 specifically.

Object	Category	Sale Price (USD)	Auction House
Pablo Picasso’s Femme assise près d’une fenêtre	Paintings	$103.4M	Christie’s
Final text of the United States Constitution	Printed texts	$43.2M	Sotheby’s
15.81-carat Sakura diamond	Purple-pink diamonds	$29.3M	Christie’s
1995 McLaren F1	Automobiles	$20.5M	Gooding & Company
1933 Double Eagle coin	Coins	$18.9M	Sotheby’s
The revolver used to kill Billy the Kid	Firearms	$6.0M	Bonhams
Grande et Petite Sonnerie	Watches	$5.3M	Phillips
1993 Ron Arad “D-Sofa”	Furniture	$1.6M	Phillips
Pair of Michael Jordan’s Nike Air Ships	Shoes	$1.5M	Sotheby’s
Necklace featuring a 56.87-carat emerald	Emeralds	$1.0M	Phillips
4.5B year old Fukang meteorite	Meteorites	$702K	Christie’s
Hermès Black Togo Birkin 35	Handbags	$155K	Bonhams

The Details

Here are some interesting facts and details about these rare collectibles, starting with:

Pablo Picasso’s Femme assise près d’une fenêtre (Marie-Thérèse)

This 1932 painting is a depiction of Picasso’s lover, Marie-Thérèse Walter (1909-1977). Walter is believed to have had a significant impact on Picasso’s work, and the pair had a child out-of-wedlock in 1935.

He loved the blondeness of her hair, her luminous complexion, her sculptural body.
– BRASSAÏ

Sold by Christie’s in New York, this was the first painting to auction for over $100 million in nearly two years. The all-time record holder is Leonardo da Vinci’s Salvator Mundi, which sold for $450 million in 2016 to Mohammed Bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia.

1995 McLaren F1

Produced between 1992 and 1998, the McLaren F1 is widely regarded as one of the most desirable supercars in the world. It features many innovations that are still rare in modern road cars, including a carbon fiber monocoque (the main structure of the car), active aerodynamics on the underbody, and a centered driving position.

The F1’s legacy is cemented by the fact that only 106 were ever produced, many of which have been owned by celebrities. That includes Elon Musk, who famously crashed his F1 in 2000 without insurance.

The specific car highlighted above was sold by Gooding & Company, a classic car auction company. It has just 242 miles (390 km) on the clock, which translates to an average of 9.3 miles (15 km) being driven on the road per year.

1933 Double Eagle Coin

The 1933 Double Eagle is one of the last $20 gold coins ever produced in the United States. It dates back to an era when the U.S. dollar’s value was tied to gold, which is a system known as the gold standard. The coins were melted down when the U.S. transitioned to fiat money, and only 13 examples are known to exist today.

After selling for $18.9 million, this Double Eagle holds the title as the most valuable rare coin in the world.

The Revolver Used to Kill Billy the Kid

The Colt single-action revolver that was used to kill Billy the Kid is now the most expensive firearm ever sold at an auction. It belonged to Sheriff Pat Garrett, who killed Billy in 1881.

Billy is one of the most notorious figures from America’s wild west era and was responsible for the deaths of eight men, including two sheriff’s deputies during an escape from jail.

Because of Billy’s legacy, this revolver is lauded as one of the most desirable Western firearms in existence. Surprisingly, it was the gun’s first appearance in a public auction.

Final Text of the United States Constitution

This first-edition copy of the U.S. constitution is an incredibly rare and historically significant artifact. The story of how it sold is equally as impressive.

Bidding came down to two parties, one of which was Ken Griffin, billionaire CEO of Citadel. If you’re an investor, that name may sound familiar—Citadel was a hedge fund involved in the r/wallstreetbets saga of 2021.

The other party was ConstitutionDAO, a group of 17,000+ crypto investors who pooled together $47 million worth of Ethereum. The term “DAO” refers to a decentralized autonomous organization, which is an online entity that’s collectively owned by its members without centralized leadership—and that takes action based on transparent rules set on a public blockchain.

In the end, the copy was sold to Griffin for a total of $43.2 million. Organizers of ConstitutionDAO could not place a higher bid because they wouldn’t have had enough money to insure, store, and transport the document.

About Those NFTs…

NFTs only exist in the digital realm, but they’ve quickly become some of the world’s most valuable collectibles. How valuable, you may ask?

For starters, consider the $7.6 million sale of CryptoPunk #3100, a profile picture (PFP) NFT that depicts a blue zombie. Then there’s The Merge, a digital artwork comprised of 312,686 pieces. In December 2021, it was sold to a collective of 28,983 buyers who, altogether, paid $91.8 million.

All of this hype has led some of the world’s oldest auction houses to begin selling NFTs through online events. This includes Christie’s (founded in 1766), which surpassed $100 million in NFT auction sales in less than a year.

Whether this momentum can carry forward is questionable. Interest in NFTs has plummeted, and crypto markets remain incredibly volatile.

MONEY

The Richest People in the World in 2022

Elon Musk. MacKenzie Bezos. Zhang Yiming. This infographic is a snapshot of the richest people in the world during this turbulent time.

Published

2 weeks ago

on

March 29, 2022

By

Dorothy Neufeld

The Richest People in the World in 2022

Today, the 10 richest people in the world control $1.3 trillion in wealth.

This scale of wealth is equal to approximately 1.4% of the world economy, Amazon’s entire market cap, or spending $1 million a day for 3,000 years. In fact, it’s double the amount seen just two years ago ($663 billion).

As billionaire wealth accumulates at a remarkable speed, we feature a snapshot of the world’s richest in 2022, based on data from the Forbes Real-Time Billionaires List.

Top 10 Richest People in the World

Elon Musk, with a fortune of $212 billion, is the richest person on the planet.

Tesla delivered nearly one million vehicles globally in 2021. Despite facing a computer chip shortage, Tesla deliveries rose 87% year-over-year. Musk, who is also CEO and chief engineer of SpaceX, plans to send the largest rocket ever built into orbit in 2022. It spans 119 meters tall.

Here are the richest people in the world, based on data as of March 14, 2022:

Rank	Name	Source	Net Worth (Mar 2022)	Net Worth (Mar 2021)	Change 2021-22
1	Elon Musk	Tesla, SpaceX	$212B	$151B	$61B
2	Jeff Bezos	Amazon	$168B	$177B	-$9B
3	Bernard Arnault & family	LVMH	$159B	$150B	$9B
4	Bill Gates	Microsoft	$130B	$124B	$6B
5	Warren Buffett	Berkshire Hathaway	$119B	$96B	$23B
6	Larry Page	Google	$108B	$92B	$16B
7	Larry Ellison	Oracle	$105B	$93B	$12B
8	Sergey Brin	Google	$105B	$89B	$16B
9	Mukesh Ambani	Diversified	$91B	$85B	$6B
10	Steve Ballmer	Microsoft	$90B	$69B	$21B

With a net worth of $168 billion, Jeff Bezos falls in second place. Bezos is the only billionaire in the top 10 to see a decline in wealth (-$9 billion) over the year. Since last March, Amazon shares have risen just 3% in light of weaker earnings and lagging retail performance.

Most notably, Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Meta (formerly Facebook) fell off the top 10 for the first time since 2016. Meta shares plunged after reporting the first-ever drop in global daily active users since 2004.

Growth Rates of the Top 10 Overall

Among the 10 richest people in the world, here’s who saw their wealth rise the fastest:

Richest People in the World

Musk saw his fortune rise more than any other in this top 10 list. In 2021, Tesla became a trillion-dollar company for the first time, and Musk’s wealth jumped by 29% over the past year.

Crypto Billionaires in 2022

At least 10 people worldwide have seen their wealth climb into the billions thanks to the stratospheric rise of cryptocurrencies.

Sam Bankman-Fried, founder of the FTX crypto derivatives exchange, is at the top, with a jaw-dropping $24 billion net worth. Bankman-Fried launched the exchange in 2019 when he was 27.

FTX now has one million users and a $32 billion valuation.

Rank	Name	Net Worth	Age (as of Mar 14)
1	Sam Bankman-Fried	$24B	30
2	Brian Armstrong	$6B	39
3	Chris Larsen	$4B	61
4	Cameron Winklevoss	$4B	40
5	Tyler Winklevoss	$4B	40
6	Barry Silbert	$3B	45
7	Jed McCaleb	$3B	47
8	Fred Ehrsam	$2B	33
9	Michael Saylor	$2B	57
10	Matthew Roszak	$1B	49

Following Bankman-Fried is Brian Armstrong, the co-founder of cryptocurrency exchange Coinbase. It is the second-largest cryptocurrency exchange globally after Binance.

Also on the list are co-founders of Gemini cryptocurrency exchange Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, each with a net worth of $4 billion. Like their rival, Mark Zuckerberg, they have their sights on building a metaverse.

Larger Shifts

Will billionaire wealth continue to accumulate at record rates? If the invasion of Ukraine presses on, it will likely have broader structural outcomes.

Some argue that war is a great leveler, a force that has reduced wealth inequality, as seen in the aftermath of WWII. Others suggest that it increases wealth divergence, especially when the war is financed by public debt. Often, costs have become inflated due to war, putting pressure on low and middle-income households.

Whether or not the war will have lasting effects on wealth distribution is an open question, however, if the pandemic serves as any precedent, the effects will be far from predictable.