Australia Still the Richest Country on Earth

[Renato1]

This year's CreditSwisse Global Wealth Report shows the same result as last year for Australia. On a Median basis of net wealth per adult, we're the world's wealthiest country by a country mile. Next closest is Belgium, followed by Britain, Italy and France at equal third place (with half the net wealth per adult that we have).


Check it out at,
https://publications.credit-suisse.com/tasks/render/file/?fileID=60931FDE-A2D2-F568-B041B58C5EA591A4

I feel like buying another telescope.

The following extract from page 57 of the report says it all.

"Despite this recent slowdown,
Australia’s wealth per adult in 2014 is USD 430,800, the
second highest in the world after Switzerland. Its median wealth
of USD 225,400 is the highest in the world.

Interestingly, the composition of household wealth in
Australia is heavily skewed towards real assets, which averaged
USD 319,700 and form 60% of gross household assets. This
average level of real assets is the second highest in the world
after Norway. In part, it reflects a large endowment of land and
natural resources relative to population, but it is also a result of
high urban real estate prices.

Only 6% of Australians have net worth below USD 10,000,
which can be compared to 29% in the USA and 70% for the
world as a whole. Average debt amounts to 20% of gross
assets. The proportion of those with wealth above USD
100,000 is the highest of any country – eight times the world
average. With 1,783,000 people in the top 1% of global wealth
holders, Australia accounts for 3.8% of this wealthy group"

[Solitarian]

Exactly why the money market fabricates meaningless reports like this :rofl:

[OzStarGazer]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_wealth_per_adu lt

[Renato1]

Yes, that shows last years figures. We seem to have gotten nearly US$6000 wealthier in the last year.

Interesting how relatively poorly off the median US adult is.
Regards,
Renato

[Renato1]

Not really meaningless. I now know that the amount of money I've spent on telescopes, eyepieces and other accessories is greater than the total net wealth per person in 70% of the rest of the world.

And I don't even own a Tak!
Regards,
Renato

[AndrewJ]

And yet if you look at GDP per person, we are way down.
( who doesnt believe wikipedia :-) )
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_%28PPP%29_ per_capita
Does this mean that whilst we may have it now, we probably cant afford to keep it???
Statistics and lists can tell you whatever you want to hear.
( as long as you use the correct list )

Andrew

[RB]

Oh for goodness sakes, let him buy his new telescope...... :P

[JB80]

Richest also equates with the most expensive which doesn't bode well for those relying on pensions or low wage jobs.
It's all relative. Maybe when the crash finally comes we can afford to move back.

[DavidU]

Sure doesn't feel like it.

[Renato1]

Hi Andrew,
Hard to say. Take the case of the USA. If GDP increases because all their millions of multi and mega millionaires makes lots more money, average wealth may increase, but median wealth can still go backwards.

On the other hand, when lots of production winds up more evenly distributed - providing the goose that lays the golden egg isn't killed off - even static GDP will increase median wealth.

One thing to remember is that it is GDP per person rather than GDP per adult. So, as Australia still has a higher birth rate than most other comparable western nations, our GDP per person figure will be lower relative to theirs for an equivalent GDP.
Cheers,
Renato

[AndrewJ]

Gday Renato


Well then, i dont like our chances.
Our current economic model seems to be to kill of all the pesky costly research and manufacturing and just sell dirt.

Andrew

[Renato1]

Well, one can be optimistic.

I remember a lecturer at uni back in the 80s saying that when one looks at the parameters of where wealth comes from relative to other countries, Australia wasn't a First world country, but the most advanced Third World country.

As best I can see, things have gotten a lot worse in that respect, but we've gotten richer.

The easiest way to see that the wealth isn't illusory is just to go on an overseas trip. You just keep running into Aussies everywhere, and not just in the main tourist centres. They're everywhere.
Regards,
Renato

[Nikolas]

It's because of house prices. Houses are most expensive in Australia than in the USA. Rubbish like that article is meaningless.

[Tandum]

My last water bill was more than the rates bill :(

[Renato1]

Actually, it seems pretty meaningful to me.

With 29% of the adults in the USA owning less than US$10,000, and presumably the 20% of those above them not being all that well off either, one would expect house prices to be cheaper in the USA. People can't afford to pay much for them, or to pay big enough rents to make the houses more valuable.

If one lives in a rich country, one expects house prices and rents to be higher than in poorer places.
Regards,
Renato

[xelasnave]

Land is very cheap $1000 an acre if you look.
We have a secure title system so getting 100 acres is easy really...that is one way to get some wealth.
And even city real estate is cheap.
Investing in real estate is subsidised via negative gearing.
Do we have slums ..no I don't think so.
The poorest guy I know can still buy a lap top and a car while on the dole.
I think we are very well off....just spend less than you get in and you will be ok.

[AndrewJ]

Gday Renato
I agree partly, and a lot of that is due to our high ( relative ) dollar, and the fact that the cost and time of international transport has dropped dramatically.
Also, ( as mentioned by a friends young daughter ), a holiday cant be repossesed later, whereas trying to buy something real that you cannot afford can :-)
I also agree we are "currently" really well off relative to a lot in the world, but part of me also says thats because we have squandered the legacy of our parents generation to get there, and are starting to steal from the future to stay there.
Sorta like having a party with the credit card.
Somewhere underneath it all, we will need to make "real" money to pay for it, and the current trends for that in this country arent looking as good as they should be.

Andrew

[brian nordstrom]

:thumbsup:yes. I agree, that article is so 1 eyed I almost puked , there are to many non-productive shiny assed middle managers getting to much money for doing nothing while the back bone of this country (the workers.) are getting slowly screwed at every turn .
As said. , the party has to stop!.
Brian.

[brian nordstrom]

:shrug:Yes land might be cheap but we get robbed blind to develop it to a stage where the councils allow you to even consider to build a house.
Brian.

[casstony]

High house prices result from easy money and are currently more indicative of the wealth of banks than the wealth of individuals.

[mithrandir]

High prices reflect people wanting to live in specific locations.

You want harbour views? Pay for them.
You want to be close to good public transport (eg rail)? Pay for it. Prices around our old house have about doubled in a year as investors move in to buy up land where they can build blocks of flats in walking distance to North-West Rail's "Showground" station.

[AndrewJ]

Where i am, a lot of the higher prices are now being paid by foreign investors. In many cases, they dont want to live in the house or rent it out, as it is merely purchased as a means of getting an address that gives them access to a "good school".
Locals cant compete against people cashed up like that.

Irrespective of anything else, comparing the increase in median house price against median income as a percentage shows something is wrong.

Andrew

[Renato1]

Hi Andrew,
You aren't wrong, there is certainly cause for concern about the future unless we live within our means now. Borrowing for infrastructure is fine, as future generations get to use it too. But borrowing for consumption now, so that they have to pay it back later, isn't fine.

Certainly, all that very high median wealth that Italy has isn't doing it much good. In my 11 week trip to Italy last year, catching up with relatives and friends in a rich part of the country, several themes kept coming out of the mouths of most of the people I spoke to - the crisis, and how their kids couldn't get jobs - and just about everyone knew of someone who had recently migrated to Australia to find work.
Regards,
Renato

[Renato1]

But even if so, the banks are owned by individuals and indirectly by their investment, superannuation and annuity funds.

The average superannuation account makes most adult Australians have more wealth than most of the rest of the world.
Cheers,
Renato

[gaa_ian]

When you have worked or lived in a developing country, you realise just how "Lucky" we are .... Now if the house prices fall dramatically ...Opps we may not be #1 !
Either way, we have it pretty good.

[Renato1]

Hi Ian,
House prices would have to fall quite a bit or our dollar fall quite a bit for Belgium to knock us off the top perch.

But then again, when in Belgium last year, house prices out in the middle of nowhere seemed pretty high to me compared to Australian prices.
Cheers,
Renato

[gaa_ian]

I think you are right Renato, you don't have to get too far out of the city to find very affordable properties in Australia. We all seem to love our coastal cities though (me too !) and we pay the price for that. Go 1 hour inland and land prices are often 1/10 of the coastal prices.

[xelasnave]

That is why we don't have slums.

[Nikolas]

We have a few slums in Melbourne, in particular East Heidelberg. There is one area called "little chicago."
What you consider slums is not third world standards but it is slummy none the less.

[Nikolas]

And we pay through our teeth for essential services (sometimes with our lives due to slow ambulance responses) as a result.

[xelasnave]

Around here they call the Wespac helicopter and it's free.
Mind you we run various functions to raise money for them

[Nikolas]

One helicopter aint the issue. you are looking at it rather simplistically

[el_draco]

Without reading it, sounds like the same self justification tripe. If you take a gander at most of the mugs you see on the street, they aren't dancing with joy, in fact you're flat out seeing a smirk in most places. Those that are, probably doped on anti-depressants or high on something else. Wealthy? in terms of the all mighty $, maybe, but it's a worthless measure. Bugger GDP; that measures greed. Try a "happiness index" and you'll find we are quite impoverished.

[jenchris]

You live in the wrong place.
I walk around my area and see a lot of happiness.

I just spent 6 months in uk.
They are less able to find the spark than aussies.

[Irish stargazer]

I hate to be the prophet of doom, but I saw a similar situation back in 2006/2007 based on over inflated house prices and easy money here in Ireland. An economy not based on output/export is never stable long term. Hopefully it won't crash like it did here and leave many in negative equity and out of work. House prices where we lived in Sydney were getting really silly though. Its one of the reasons we decided to return home.

Mind you, since I came back here in June this year, things have really improved in Ireland. Lots of optimism and unemployment falling. New car sales are way up (always a sign of improving economy). Also had a great Summer.;)
Dublin house prices have gone nuts again though (will they ever learn:rolleyes:)

[Nikolas]

How many natural resources does Ireland have?
I tell you now if China's economy ever goes south we are stuffed!

[jenchris]

Our export trade to China seems to mainly be real estate. .

[JB80]

There are worrying similarities and problems which may even surpass what went on in 2007.
Who knows what will happen if anything?
I don't think Oz will fall anywhere near like what Ireland and Spain have done but don't be surprised if it did.

[Irish stargazer]

The peak of the "Celtic Tiger" back in 2002 was fuelled by very strong exports. Its was only when the growth started to stabilise back to realistic but sustainable levels that the housing boom took over and well....the rest is history. It was the banks that killed the country back in 2008.

Ireland has a very big and world renowned agricultural export business. It is also a major global hub in the medical device and pharmaceutical industries as well as in IT combined with a highly educated workforce. We are also self sufficient in natural gas. That's is what is driving growth back again.
You are correct about China's economy-lets hope that doesn't happen.

Visit Ireland. (we need the money !!):D

[Irish stargazer]

I really hope it doesn't happen in Oz like it did in Europe but the similarities are there. The banks were better regulated than in Europe but you don't really know what has happened behind closed doors.
You have escalating housing prices combined with low interest rates and banks that are willing to lend ridiculous amount so money. Its like pouring petrol on a fire.
A good indicator is the amount of personal debt per capita.

[Renato1]

People have a right to get up in the morning, suck a fresh lemon, and go around with a scowl the rest of the day.

When they are affluent, people have the luxury of, and some a propensity for, engaging in irrational thinking to make themselves feel miserable, for example, by constantly telling themselves how the world isn't fair and it should be, and it's corollary about "why does this always to me?" - rather than being happy and acknowledging that the world doesn't give a s##t about them. Also very likely is that they get into the self-esteem trap, trying to get more and more of it, while failing to realize that it is an artificial construct and and that self-esteem and self loathing are two sides of the same coin.

By way of contrast very poor people in most of the world, spend from sun-up to sun-down just trying to make ends meet, and don't get much time to indulge in make-miserable thinking.

That said, I still haven't seen thousands of Australians taking boats to try find happiness in say Sri Lanka.
Cheers,
Renato

[el_draco]

Can you imagine what will happen when the Chinese house of cards falls? Our standard of living is tied to that looming mess and the capitalist bubble will once again burst. The difference next time will be that the cookie jar will be empty to start with. :eyepop:

[Renato1]

I can only compare to where I live in Italy, another fairly wealthy country. If you get sick you either make an appointment to see a Doctor in a couple of weeks, or go to the local hospital emergency area like we have over here, and wait two, three, four .... eight or nine hours till someone sees you.

Essential services like electricity aren't so expensive, because you only get 3.6KW of power into your house (unless you pay big amounts to get 4.5KWor 6KW into your house). So it's pretty hard to spend a lot on electricity, ulike here where you typically get 20KW into one's house (I have 40KW coming in).

I know where I'd rather be living if I got sick, or wanted to keep warm with two 2KW fan heaters.
Regards,
Renato

[Renato1]

Wasn't Ireland's problem mainly a banking problem, which wasn't the case with Australian banks?
Regards,
Renato

[AndrewJ]

Gday Renato

I think a lot of the irish problem was all their eggs were in one basket ( bit like their prev effort with spuds :-) ), and they didnt see it coming.
We are going that way by killing off a lot of our manufacturing diversity.
Just remember, in the goldfields, the only guaranteed way to make money was to supply the miners with their various needs for equipment and supplies ;-)



I dont think anyone disagrees with you there for now. I think its more down to whether the status quo is robust, or we are living on tick, and it will fall apart ( to some extent ) if china etc goes down.
ie people like Skase, Bond, Groves, Tinkler, Edelstein all looked good when they looked good.

Andrew

[Irish stargazer]

According to the Minister for Potato's, our GDP was doing just fine thanks during the crash (gross domesticated potato);)

[Renato1]

Hi Andrew,
I think you'll upset a lot of Irish about the potatoes. The destitute peasants were utterly oppressed and had no choice but to eat potatoes. It was the same story in much of Scotland and the only reason they didn't have huge famine casualties was because some people took pity on them and organized relief.

I still think Skase was very hard done by. I remember seeing an interview with him in Spain saying that the Channel Seven assets would cover his debts. As I recollect it, the banks foreclosed on him and sold off Channel 7 at $2 a share and took a loss on the debt. In almost no time, the shares doubled to $4. At that price, Skase would easily have paid all his debt and had tens of millions of dollars left over.

But I take your point about manufacturing. Australian industry policy has been a dog's breakfast. Places like France and Germany had policies to make sure they were competitive internationally. Germany for example has the government sitting down with industry and creating tight national standards and requiring all industry to work to those tight standards, and thus create economies of scale - which helps whichever manufacturer comes out on top. Whereas in Australia, people get together and create standards that are broader and which encompass what everyone is producing. What the German's do would be considered as unwarranted government interference in Australia.
Regards,
Renato

[xelasnave]

Yes perhaps you are right but living in the bush on 200 acre dark site 80 Klms from a hospital to pursue my passion for astronomy does cause me to be a little simplistic so I do like the idea of helicopter rescue.

The opening post indicates we are a wealthy nation and I tend to agree.
Some folks complain about stuff like your reference to ambulance service or people looking sad but the fact seems to be we are the wealthiest .

I am just a mug and I am doing ok and looking around all I see suggests that we have it pretty dam good.

I thought your post trivialised just how wonder
ful this country is and was not fair comment upon our wonderful ambulance service

[AndrewJ]

Gday Renato

I dont disagree.
My comment was specifically linked to what can happen very quickly when your economy is too narrowly based ( for whatever reason )
I always liked this as a good example
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rxfzm9dfqBw

Andrew

[Nikolas]

Tell that to the people that wait up to 40 minutes in regional Castlemaine.
Mates neighbour died because of the long wait.
Happens a lot in Victoria, maybe not in your state.

[Nikolas]

Iceland (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-01-27/let-banks-fail-becomes-iceland-mantra-as-2-joblessness-in-sight.html) seems to have a great way of dealing with the banks, they jailed the bankers when their economy nosedived. Now they are coming back hard.

[xelasnave]

A negative personal experience can give one a distorted view of the overall picture.
I have heard there is public concern on response times.
Do you have figures that indicate average response times as such figures may show if there is an overall problem or if folk focus on stuffs upa.d.
There is no point in me telling stuff to folk my response was to your post and can be limited to that.
My concern is that you may let the odd negative cause you to be sad rather than see all the good things.
My original post was an attempt at humour to lessen the negativity I saw in your post.
So have a nice say and be happy

[Nikolas]

It's not an isolated case, Ambulance response times (http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/ambulance-victoria-fails-to-meet-code-1-response-targets-20131031-2wja8.html) across metropolitan rural and regional (http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/victoria/rural-ambulance-response-times-falling-short/story-e6frf7kx-1226458461913) Victoria are a joke (http://www.heraldsun.com.au/news/breaking-news/vic-response-times-to-be-released-labor/story-fni0xqi4-1227090935463). That is fact backed up by solid evidence from the state auditor. I just illustrated a case in point.

[Nikolas]

Oh as for my own personal circumstances? I'm pretty comfortable and happy.

[xelasnave]

Thanks Nik for those links.
I hope things improve.
Alex

[raymo]

I just tried to have another look at the figures shown at the beginning of
this thread, and it says that the organisation has had it's certificate revoked; does this mean that I should take their figures with a pinch
of salt?
raymo

[Nikolas]

bahahahahahahahahahahaha

[Renato1]

Their main research page is at
https://www.credit-suisse.com/au/en/news-and-expertise/research/credit-suisse-research-institute/publications.html
and I get the same message as you when I click on "Download PDF".

I also tried it on Chrome, which suggests the site may have been attacked.

The report is only 4Mbytes in size, so I can email it to you if you PM me your e-mail address.
Regards,
Renato

[raymo]

Thanks Renato, I'll do that.
raymo

[jenchris]

Here in Oz, we ask a question like "what car do you drive?"
That results in a "I drive a xxx and my partner drives a xxx"
If you ask the question in Indonesia it may result in "our family has a 250cc m'cycle"
In Africa it might be "our village has a weekly bus"
It's relative, "are you happy?" is where wealth is measured.

[xelasnave]

Hi Jennifer
You are so right.
I was involved in making a wealthy man a great deal of money in a short time.
I handed him a cheque for the profit $40,000 in 1970 when you could buy a house for $12 k
All he could say was...oh Alex this is such a lot of money , how can I invest it wisely...we did not celebrate in any way at all...to him it was a burden.
I learnt so much from that experience..he would always remain poor no matter how much money he had.

[Nikolas]

Well said Alex, some of the poorest people are also the happiest.