Rich man’s world

Reuters reports on the reason for the continued brain drain from India:

A survey of affluent households around the world — defined as having wealth of more than $100,000 — by research firm TNS found 80 percent of such people live in Western countries.

While the number of affluent households in China and India is 3 million each, the U.S. has more than 31 million, the survey shows.

The results challenge hopes that the boom economies of Asia can supplant an ailing U.S. as the world’s consumer of last resort, and keep global growth ticking over.

Reg van Steen, a director of business and finance at TNS, said researchers had to drop the wealth threshold to $40,000 for Brazil to make it possible to find a large-enough sample.

“What really surprises is China has surpassed Germany, France and the UK when it comes to the number of affluent. (But) it will take some time before we really see a shift from West to East,” he said.
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The incidence of affluence in the U.S. is 27 percent, the study shows, 20 percent in Canada and 11 percent in the UK, while the proportion in China is 0.75 percent. India’s affluent make up 1.25 percent of the country’s population.

A global study of wealth published this year by Merrill Lynch and global consulting firm Capgemini found China has the world’s fourth-largest population of millionaires.

However, the top three — the U.S., Japan and Germany — account for more than half of the world’s millionaires.

Another reason for the UPA to be uncomfortable: twenty years after Manmohan Singh’s revolution wealth has not trickled down to you me and the family next door which lives on Rs. 32 a day.