the world’s households owned property and net financial assets worth almost $256trn in mid-2016. That is about 3.4 times the world’s annual GDP. If this wealth were divided equally it would come to $52,819 per adult.
I can understand why it's tempting to perform this calculation (you've got two numbers, may as well divide them), but I kind of wish people would stop doing so then trying to draw conclusions about the result. Especially if they work for an organization that calls itself "The Economist", which implies that the author knows something about Economics.
Because all it serves to do is convince people who don't understand how economies work that there is in fact some big fixed pile of "wealth" out there, and that all those rich people have hoarded it already and are now sitting on it, preventing anybody else from having any of it.
... which is, of course, silly. And the author should know that.
I can understand why it's tempting to perform this calculation (you've got two numbers, may as well divide them), but I kind of wish people would stop doing so then trying to draw conclusions about the result. Especially if they work for an organization that calls itself "The Economist", which implies that the author knows something about Economics.
Because all it serves to do is convince people who don't understand how economies work that there is in fact some big fixed pile of "wealth" out there, and that all those rich people have hoarded it already and are now sitting on it, preventing anybody else from having any of it.
... which is, of course, silly. And the author should know that.