Funny Money Friday: Dividing all the world's money

Money doesn't have to be boring! Each week, CreditBloggers.com takes a look at the lighter side of the personal finance world in a series called Funny Money Friday.

There is a lot of money in the world these days. According to estimates, there is about $44 trillion in total world wealth. $2.6 trillion of that amount belongs to the world's 793 billionaires tracked by Forbes. Bill Gates, the world's richest man, has about $50 billion to call his own.

All this brings up an interesting question: What would happen if we divided the world's wealth evenly between every single person? A London reader of Yahoo asked that question earlier this summer. The answer is that each person would get $6,685.92.

Whoa! Talk about taking from the rich to give to the poor! It's amazing how much the world's wealthiest would have to give up in this deal. This little exercise really highlights the international division of wealth and income gaps.

Would you earn or lose money if all the wealth in the world were divided this way? Share your feedback in the comment section below. Happy Friday!

Comments

[Emma]

Heh,I think what amazes me the most is what non-wealthy folks would have to give up. Simply put, we'd be no better off, financially, than welfare folks. That's exactly what it is.

I'm not big on the "taking from the rich to give to the poor" mentality. Most of the Forbes 500 are first generation rich. They started out like the average Joe. To diminish their accomplisments and punish them for being intelligent about how money works, is a slap in the face of capitalism and free market economies. The poor will remain poor because they see free handouts as a chance at survival. When they learn to look beyond that, well, then they will prosper. There's no excuse to be poor in America.

[econruth]

First of all - 6 of the top 20 billionaires either inherited their money or took over a family business. The youngest made his money trading ENRON stock.. nice. I bet all the Enron employees who lost their pensions feel better about that now. Why couldn't they just work harder and then be prosperous? If the poor don't have any "handouts" they starve, not become prosperous my dear Emma. Corporations in this country have no problems taking "handouts" from the government. If they stopped taking them would they too become "prosperous"? My guess is that you have never lost your job, had a family member with a catastrophic illness, been wiped out by a flood, or any other reason to be one paycheck away from being on the street.
Consider yourself lucky, pray to God that it nevers happens to you, and have a little compassion. Adam Smith would roll over in his grave if he found out that we equate capitalism with corporate greed, a me first mentality and unethical laissez faire.