Not quite three trillion dollars in hedge funds, or $2.848.000.000.000? So claims Investors Offshore. Although such a sum may sound enormous and indeed amounts to more than twenty percent of the entire GDP of the European Union, it is modest compared to the real private money that is out there. Merrill-Lynch and Cap Gemini have recently published their twelfth annual World Wealth Report , a trustworthy source given that Merrill-Lynch wants to manage as much wealth as possible and therefore has an interest in getting the figures right. Their Report for 2008 counts a shade over ten million "High Net Worth Individuals" in the world-about one in every 670 people. These HNWIs, including the far richer and more exclusive group of "Ultra-HNWIs", in 2007 together controlled $40.7 trillion, that is, $40.700.000.000.000.
(...) The main WIDER findings were not surprising for those who have studied the subject: In the year 2000, 2 percent of adults in the world owned more than half of global household wealth. The richest 1 percent alone accounted for the ownership of 40 percent of global assets while the top 5 percent captured 71 percent and the top 10 percent held 85 percent of the wealth. The bottom half of humanity got along on barely 1 percent of total assets. These figures show the operation of the power law in high gear, especially since the WIDER definition of "wealth" was broader than that of Merrill-Lynch. The WIDER scholars used the classic "net worth" definition, meaning all physical and financial assets, including homes, the principle asset for most people who own anything, less debts.