What is the total net worth of the 1% in the USA?

[viralvideowall]

Regarding the Occupy Wall Street protests, I'm trying to run some calculations in a hypothetical situation.

Anyone have a rough idea of the total net worth of all individuals and corporations in the top 1% within the USA?

Curious if you found this total and divided it by the remaining 99% of the population, how much each person would get as a one time lump sum payment?

[Leosghost]

For a minute there I thought you wanted a guess at the net worth of the biker MC clubs :)..Hells ' , Bandidos etc...:)

Just shows, sometimes we live in different worlds..

[rocknbil]

... how much each person would get as a one time lump sum payment?

It would depend on the distribution, obviously not all of the 99% would receive the funds equally, for as we know, that's not how welfare works.

A more interesting calculation might be how long it would take for 99% of the dispersed funds to wind up back in the hands of 99% of the original upper 1%. My guess: not very d**n long. People are rich for a reason, and contrary to what most would believe, it's not just greed.

[g1smd]

I once read a stat along the lines of "100 families own 90% of the entire world's wealth". Don't remember the exact figure, but it was cetainly a tens of millions of people to one, ratio.

[hoosierdraft]

From the authoritative Wikipedia:

[en.wikipedia.org ]

1% at 30% of wealth. 10% at 71%. Darn, there goes that catchy catchphrase of the "the 99%". Next loser cause.

[Frank_Rizzo]

If you put all the money in a pot and shared it out equally ... in a short few months time the money would have flowed back to the wealthy 1%.

[Demaestro]

If you put all the money in a pot and shared it out equally ... in a short few months time the money would have flowed back to the wealthy 1%.

I highly doubt that. If you think Paris Hilton or any Kardashian would out earn the guy working 2 full time jobs for minimum wage despite the fact that he is a licensed doctor/lawyer in his native country you are nuts.

There is a prevailing premise that the rich work harder than the poor. However this is almost never the case. For every self made uber rich person there is a slew of slacker coattail riding family members who just do enough to get by, and for that 1 rich guy who works hard for what he gets there are 1000s of minimum wage workers putting in 80 hours a week that will never get ahead because of the start they got in life.

[Frank_Rizzo]

I never said Hilton would out earn a lawyer if the starting stakes were level.

I said the money would flow back to the wealthy 1%. It may not be the same 1% as now but it will flow back to the wealthy 1%.

[wheel]

I highly doubt that. If you think Paris Hilton or any Kardashian would out earn the guy working 2 full time jobs for minimum wage despite the fact that he is a licensed doctor/lawyer in his native country you are nuts.

What exactly do you think is going to change the 'second time around'?

Paris Hilton and the kardashians will out earn the common person because these folks are being marketed. All the 'hard working' joes are the ones eager and willing to enable these folks to earn their big bucks - and that ain't going to change, and it's why those people earn the big bucks.

Today is Jersday, the day of the week I get a houseful of screaming teenagers watching a bunch of absolute idiots for an hour on TV. You know how much those people are making? And if you took it all away, people would still pay again to watch these clowns.

[cmendla]

If they ever did redistribute the wealth, it would have to have a caveat that the occupiers BUY BATH SOAP AND USE IT... Man, that crowd literelly STINKS.

Seriously though, if someone were to confiscate all the wealth of the 1 percent and redistribute it, my contention is that the gain for the receivers would be temporary. The wealthy don't hold their assets in cash (Our dollar is based on wishful thinking anyway, not hard assets). Their estates, art, jewelry, companies etc would have to be sold or divested. The shock effect of that would most likely collapse the economies of the world. GDP dropping by 80 percent would probably cause mass starvation.

THe funny thing is that when the OWS protestors went to protest outside the homes of New York's one percent they marched right by George Soros's home without protesting their. ... probably just an oversight on their part.

Oh, and look at motives.. Buffett with his inane 'My sexterary pays more than me' is a point. If taxes are raised, buffet will pay some more federal tax (If he pays it at all, he is supposedly a billion in arrears)..

however, it's like when I go to a magic show. Quite often, I figure the trick out by ignoring the distractions. The truth is that buffet stands to make millions if not billions from a tax increase. It has to do with the fact that he can't liquidate say, his shares in coca cola easily without totally disrupting the market. A private investor can.. An increase on the cap gains SCREWS THE LITTLE GUY TO BUFFETs BENEFIT. Also, he does a lot of business in tax shelter funds.. Guess where money will go with a change in the tax law?

[mhansen]

It all goes back to one statement... "Socialism is great, until you run out of other peoples money to give away."

Anyone who wants to redistribute my wealth is welcome to it. In fact they can have everything I own... but I guarantee, they will take every bullet, from every gun I own... first!

[rocknbil]

What exactly do you think is going to change the 'second time around'?

Exactly what I was saying, . . or the third . . or the fourth . . or jeeze, just look at history . . . .

There is a prevailing premise that the rich work harder than the poor.

Incorrect. The rich know how to manage money and make it grow, the poor do not (and some blame the rich for this difference.) Take any poor man who has started with nothing and built an empire, there are many.

<rant> I'll come out and say it. I'm what most of you would call poor. I work hard, not smart. I try to change, and in some ways do, but it's just who I am, I make choices to live in the now and don't do the wisest things with my money. But that's my doing, not the government's, or Wall Street's, or anyone else's. I'm sick to death of the protesting and whining about the fat rich man. It didn't work before, it's not going to work now. </rant>

occupiers BUY BATH SOAP AND USE IT... Man, that crowd literelly STINKS.

ROFLMAO . . . so you're saying, like Facebook is (melodramatically) being flooded with, "they are the 99%?" haha . . .

[Demaestro]

The rich know how to manage money and make it grow

Ya ok?!?!? Is that why they needed to be bailed out? Because they know how to manage money so well?

These guys killed their businesses and the economy and tax payers picked up the check. If they hadn't of picked up the check these so called people who know how to manage money would be living off food stamps but instead they are getting millions of dollar in bonuses because they were saved.

I am all for a capitalist society. In fact that is what the USA needs but don't have.

In a free market capitalist society when a group of people have to give a company money to pay it's bills or else said company will die, when every dollar a company has comes from an outside group, then that group owns said company.

How many of your businesses when about to go under get a next to 0% interest loan that transfers 0% ownership to the group providing the money?

Redistributing the wealth is a stupid idea, and yet they took money out of your pocket and gave it to high interest companies and you got nothing for it. In a true free market those companies should die and make way for new companies that aren't as stupid.

[lexipixel]

Paris Hilton is a great-granddaughter heiress to the Conrad Hilton fortune. If she never earned a dime in her life and spent $1000 an hour she'd still be rich forever.

Corporations headed by Bilderberg group members set all world political and economic policy.

Politics is entertainment for corporations.
-Frank Zappa

[lawman]

Corporations headed by Bilderberg group members set all world political and economic policy.

Thank goodness we have the John Birch Society to keep tabs on the Bilderbergers, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission, and the Men In Black.

[wheel]

Ya ok?!?!? Is that why they needed to be bailed out? Because they know how to manage money so well?

they didn't bail out rich people. They bailed out corporations. Like Chrysler. And not everyone agreed that it should've been done - including people that are being branded in the 1%. In fact, perhaps particularly the 1% may have disagreed. And the point behind the bailouts was so that the 99% didn't suffer. You want to wake up and your bank is closed and your money gone? Does that hurt the rich, or the rest of us?

And it was your elected representatives that did this, not some faceless machine.

[lexipixel]

John Birch Society to keep tabs on the Bilderbergers, the Council on Foreign Relations, the Trilateral Commission

Good, now the everyone will have some reading to do instead of trying to eloquently phrase generalizations of "the rich" and "the poor".

Men In Black

That's just a movie. (...or is it PR for the descendants of the ancient astronauts who visited the Mayans?)

[lexipixel]

(OP's question)...

Anyone have a rough idea of the total net worth of all individuals and corporations in the top 1% within the USA?

The numbers would not mean anything. The USA's richest people are mostly tied to multi-nationals, or investment in foreign exchanges, etc.. Better to look at the wealthiest of the entire world, (plus "Occupy" has grown beyond the US borders)...

United Nations Development Program Report, which showed the distribution of global income to be very uneven, with the richest 20% of the world's population controlling 82.7% of the world's income
Distribution of world GDP, 1989

Quintile of population ... Income

Richest 20% .............. 82.70%
Second 20% ............... 11.75%
Third 20% ................. 2.30%
Fourth 20% ................ 1.85%
Poorest 20% ............... 1.40%

- [en.wikipedia.org...]