{"id":99222,"date":"2015-09-27T19:15:48","date_gmt":"2015-09-27T17:15:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/?p=99222"},"modified":"2015-09-25T15:33:24","modified_gmt":"2015-09-25T13:33:24","slug":"what-if-south-africas-richest-men-gave-all-their-money-away","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wealth\/99222\/what-if-south-africas-richest-men-gave-all-their-money-away\/","title":{"rendered":"What if South Africa’s richest men gave all their money away?"},"content":{"rendered":"

Bloomberg has created the Robin Hood Index<\/a>, which looks at the richest men and women in 42 countries – and asks the question: how much could they improve the lives of the poor if they gave all their money away?<\/p>\n

The index aims to draw comparisons\u00a0between the super-rich and the sheer number of poor people found in their countries, which in turn serves as a basis of comparison between the billionaires themselves, and how they fit into their respective society.<\/p>\n

“The index\u00a0shows how the net worth of each country’s wealthiest person compares\u00a0to the livelihood of his fellow countrymen by calculating the lump sum in dollars each\u00a0person living in poverty would get if the assets\u00a0of the richest citizen were liquidated and redistributed,” Bloomberg said.<\/p>\n

\"Robin<\/a>

Robin hood index (click to enlarge)<\/p><\/div>\n

The numbers are impacted by a number of factors, including population sizes, and varying poverty lines – and don’t take into account purchasing power parity.<\/p>\n

As an example, India’s richest man, Mukesh Ambani, has a net worth of $22 billion – yet with over 370 million people living in poverty in the country, this only translates to $59 per person.<\/p>\n

In contrast, small population countries, like Cyprus and Sweden, where there are fewer poor citizens, the wealth distribution is more significant – $46,000 and $33,000 per person, respectively.<\/p>\n

Even when looking at the net worth of the world’s richest man, Bill Gates – his wealth seems diminished, when his entire fortune would ‘only’ turn into a one-off payment of $1,736 if distributed to the neediest 15% of Americans.<\/p>\n

The Index uses the Bloomberg Billionaires Index and the CIA World Factbook as reference points.<\/p>\n

South Africa’s richest<\/h3>\n

According to Bloomberg’s data, there are approximately 19.2 million impoverished people in South Africa.<\/p>\n

BusinessTech has taken the index a step further, and calculated what impact could be made if all of South Africa’s richest people had to give their wealth away – individually and collectively (using Forbes’ latest billionaire data).<\/p>\n

\n
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n
#<\/th>\nBillionaire<\/th>\nNet worth<\/th>\nZAR Per person<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n
1<\/td>\nChristo Wiese<\/td>\nR92.96 billion<\/td>\nR4 841.67<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
2<\/td>\nNicky Oppenheimer<\/td>\nR88.86\u00a0billion<\/td>\nR4 628.13<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
3<\/td>\nJohann Rupert<\/td>\nR87.49\u00a0billion<\/td>\nR4 556.77<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
4<\/td>\nKoos Bekker<\/td>\nR28.71\u00a0billion<\/td>\nR1 495.31<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
5<\/td>\nAllan Grey<\/td>\nR17.77\u00a0billion<\/td>\nR925.52<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
6<\/td>\nStephen Saad<\/td>\nR17.77\u00a0billion<\/td>\nR925.52<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
7<\/td>\nPatrice Motsepe<\/td>\nR17.77\u00a0billion<\/td>\nR925.52<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
<\/td>\nCombined<\/strong><\/td>\nR351.33\u00a0billion<\/strong><\/td>\nR18 298.44<\/strong><\/td>\n<\/tr>\n<\/tbody>\n<\/table><\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Currency exchange at 1 USD = 13.66 ZAR<\/small><\/p>\n

More on wealth<\/h3>\n

World\u2019s richest people under 35<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

The richest and poorest countries in the world<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

How much the richest 1% of South Africans earn<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Qualifications of South Africa\u2019s richest people<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bloomberg has created a new index, which asks the question: how much could the world’s richest people improve the lives of the poor if they gave all their money away?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":99240,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9880],"tags":[1850,26,10534],"class_list":["post-99222","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-wealth","tag-bloomberg","tag-headline","tag-robin-hood-index"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99222","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=99222"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99222\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":99424,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/99222\/revisions\/99424"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/99240"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=99222"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=99222"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/businesstech.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=99222"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}