Saturday 14 July 2012

Wealth accumulation in the UK - very few of us succeed in doing it.

We come into this world with nothing. We leave it with nothing. In between, we can accumulate wealth.

According to the UK statistics office, at least a quarter of households can not even do that. Around 24 percent of families are upside down; their financial assets (bank accounts, savings, shares, etc) is less than the money they owe in loans.

Median net household wealth is about £5,000, which is in the grand scheme of global wealth accumulation is bugger all.

Around 80 percent of households have net financial wealth of £50,000 or less. Does £50k sound like a lot? Perhaps it is my la-di-da London upbringing, but that doesn't sound like much. It certainly wouldn't last long in the Capital.

So according to the UK statistics office, we come in with nothing, few of us accumulate much wealth, and we all leave with nothing.

6 comments:

Woodsy42 said...

We don't accumulate much wealth for ourselves, we probably create quite a bit for governments.

Alice Cook said...

Woodsy42

While understanding and sympathizing with the sentiments behind your comment, the government have negative net wealth.

Private households don't accumulate much, but nor does the government.

Alice

Anonymous said...

whilst drinking the laat of my wine following an excellent evening at a family wedding I have looked at this and would make the following observation,the majority of peole have nothing and never will have and it is the task of politicians to persuade you otherwise.2013 will be an uphill year :-)

AC said...

I don't see why this is a shock ? More socialism = more poverty. When countries have given up on the future they pull more and more on socialism but it never works.

If you want more wealth the path is clear:

Ban public sector unions
let the market decide what is and isn't money
free banking with no central bank
no copyright longer than 10 years
tax only unimproved land values and nothing else
small government
global free trade
competition and free floating prices in everything (especially health and education)
high barriers to voting (e.g. a degree and a private sector job ?)

Kitz said...

I am going to Sinapore next week .
One in six households have 1 million us dollars apart from houses and businesses .
Little crime and a multicultural multi religious society.
Their success may be something to do with the way it's run .
If its as impressive as Munich I am in for a treat .!

Nick Drew said...

Kitz it certainly is, and you are

Disneyland with the death penalty, as they say

bit pricey in Raffles, though