Although we can classify the people of the world into
various categories, I hereby classify them as ultra-super-rich, super-rich,
upper class rich, middle class rich, middle class poor, poor and very poor. Of
course, this classification is based on the economic levels of people. We can
put these categories of people in terms of numbers in a form of pyramid,
keeping the very poor as the base and the ultra-super-rich as the tip or top of
the pyramid. It tells us that in the world, irrespective of countries, the poor
are in largest numbers. This has been estimated by world statistical
organizations. Similarly, the ultra-super-rich are relatively less in number.
In between these two classes we find a range of categories from the poor to the
rich.
Let us consider the ultra-super-rich people in the
world. Some of the world renowned magazines used to publish the names of such
people along with their assets. Based on their assets they are classified.
These people are also referred as ultra high-net-worth individuals. They, in
fact, constitute roughly 0.003 per cent of the world population. It appears
that they hold 13 per cent of the world’s total wealth valued as $27 trillion.
This population is largest in USA followed by China, Germany, UK, and Japan.
India comes next to Japan.
These people are generally engaged in business,
industries, IT companies and the like. Some have the inherited properties from
their ancestors. In fact, they employ large number of other category of people
and pay them. In a way, they are the
employment creators. Apart from that they always think forward to make more
wealth. Thus they are the backbone of a country’s economy. They have good
connections with the ruling government and its politicians. Most of them are
honest (?), but some among them earn their wealth through illegal means and at
times they end up in prisons.
The other extreme of the pyramid – the very poor and
poor, suffer a lot because of various reasons. Most of them do not have enough
to eat, shelter to stay and work to do. They do have family with children and old-age people. The conditions in which they live are
not generally hygienic and clean. Therefore they are exposed to all kinds of
diseases. The poor look up to the next category to move up. For
which they need help. Such helps are provided by the governments to a certain
extent. Invariably these helps in the form of various schemes are implemented
not so effectively of course.
Health care, education and employment are the three
important things to uplift the very poor to poor, and poor to middle class
poor. Some people use these opportunities to come up life. Of course, we do see
in the news every day the poor drink and live a careless life. They do not make
a significant number as I think. A good number of men and women are hard
working and associate with their society.
The
intelligentsia of the educated world are doing all sorts of research in the
name of ‘development economics’ to
narrow down the gap between these categories. They discuss and debate to come
to propose changes in the minds of not only the poor but also in the minds of
the well-to-dos. They say that the thinking of the poor is totally different
from the rich. In this regard Steve Siebold in his book, How Rich People Think enumerates the differences between the poor
and the rich people’s views on each other. He says that the poor earn money to save, whereas the rich earn for investing and make more
money. The poor people view being rich is a privilege. On the other hand, the
rich feels that being rich is a right. These differences in opinions will not
change unless we narrow down the gap between these two categories. It is
difficult but not impossible. Let there be a day when the bottom two categories merge into middle-class poor.
- NARA
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