Rich list a reminder of growing inequality
New Zealand was founded on egalitarian ideals but extremes of wealth and poverty have emerged. Making lists is supposed to be one of the things that effective people do often in the course of being effective people.
Someone who was obviously good at making lists to the point of being smug, once said: ‘‘people who want to appear clever, rely on memory, people who want to get things done make lists’’.
An online search reveals claims that making lists can ‘‘quell anxiety and breed creativity’’. It provides a ‘‘positive psychological process whereby questions and confusions can be worked through’’ so that ‘‘true purposes surface’’.
When I amoverwhelmed by feelings of too much to do and not enough time, I turn to making a list. My hope is that it will be like the emergency escape-path lighting on a plane floor, and guide me to safety.
However, on my list of things I’m not good at, is making lists.
Before I even get past three items, I amjust reminded of the many things I have to do. The feelings of being overwhelmed return and get worse.
In order to not completely flip out, I have to list really simple things that I know I’ll be able to tick off. Things like ‘‘wake up’’, ‘‘breathe’’, ‘‘drink too much coffee’’ and ‘‘ignore to-do list and instead spend hours procrastinating by reading random things on the web’’.
It’s while one spends hours procrastinating by reading random things on the web, that you really notice lists.
In lieu of articles with sentences and paragraphs that connect and flow, many sites just feature lists. There’s everything from ‘‘10 ways you can legally discriminate in the US’’ to ‘‘10 Fascinating Mysteries Involving Spiders’’ to ‘‘10 Creepiest Incidents Involving Surveillance Footage’’.
New Zealand’s annual list of its richest people came out this week and as usual, it was depressing. Not for the people on it, of course. Especially the top 190 individuals and families, who have a combined worth of $60 billion. While the rich list may be useful in measuring how well our 1 per cent is doing, it can also be a depressing reminder of how we have a 1 per cent. In fact, the top 200 names don’t even make up 1 per cent of our population, more like 0.0044.
In a recent study of 46 major economies, Swiss bank Credit Suisse found that prior to 2007, wealth inequality was on the rise in 12 of them. After 2007, and despite the global economic recession that followed, that number doubled to more than 35. Even in the brief span since then, membership of the world billionaires club doubled to more than 1800.
I’m happy for the people on the list. It just doesn’t seem fair that our country can generate that much wealth for a few, while the number of families sleeping in cars is going up. New Zealand is a country founded upon egalitarian ideals such as everyone being equal. These days that’s only true on election day. Aotearoa is just as prone to the growing inequality around the world.