Financial Assets

According to one account, the World total of financial assets is about $200 trillion, or something like $28,000 per person, on average. Of course they aren't distributed anything like that. About 2/3 of these assets are held in the US and Europe, with another quarter in Japan and China. Latin America rates less than 3.5%.

Despite these imbalances, recent history has seen a dramatic increase in both overall wealth and a decrease in inequality. In the US and some of the Europe the middle class has taken a hit, but their loss (or stagnation) has been the gain of newly middle class populations of China, India,and other rapidly developing countries. The percentages of the very poor have declined sharply globally, though they still represent billions.

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