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Ha! Letter in The Guardian

Nesrine Malik tells us the system is rigged in favour of the 1% by wealth (Opinion, 23 January). Entry into the global 1%, by the definition used by Oxfam, requires $1m in assets. As the Office for National Statistics tells us, that’s around the 75th percentile of British households by wealth. In other words, 25% of British households are in the top 1% of the global wealth distribution. I’d be willing to bet a substantial sum that 25% of the Guardian’s readership is too. As Pogo said in Walt Kelly’s strip cartoon for Earth Day in 1971: “We have met the enemy and he is us.”
Tim Worstall
Senior fellow, Adam Smith Institute

10 thoughts on “Ha! Letter in The Guardian”

  1. I counted 4 links in that letter, 3 of which were excellent and difficult for a lay person to find searching the key words. That’s well impressive by the pendant and though it was short, I’d bet that it took a surprising amount of time to write.

  2. That was edited down by them – they took out my references (so, light proofs really) to their own readership demographics.

  3. @gunker
    Interesting point but I wonder how many families of 4 with a commensurate house in Greater London, initially financed by 2 high earners continue to be financed by 2 high earners? On the death of one of them, the wealth transfers to the other and the wealthy household becomes a wealthy house owner

  4. And pension wealth. Wealth can be measured as the income you can get from it, I’ve built up 28/35ths of a state pension, consequently I have wealth of about £1/3million.

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