"The fact that black and Hispanic wealth is a fraction of white wealth also reflects a history of discrimination". After accounting for inflation, net worth increased 17percentt for white households from 1996 to 2002 and 14percentt for Hispanic homes, to about $7,900.
Far more so than many of those with just a fraction of his wealth and talent.
When executives have been personally penalized, the fines have been a fraction of the wealth they amassed during the bubble.
In 2004, he featured at No 62 in the Sunday Times Rich List, which reported he was worth £600m - although sceptics believe this was a fraction of his wealth.
Only a fraction of the wealth accrued from extraction is left in the host country – to say nothing of the communities often "resettled" – ergo forcibly removed – from the land concerned.
But the winners of the 1956 Nobel Prize in Physics, John Bardeen, Walter H. Brattain and William B. Shockley, who have been widely credited with inventing the semiconductor, did not receive even a fraction of the wealth that their invention would help create.
As I have noted in the New York Times, athletes whose stars burned brightly and briefly, such as Marcus Giles or Joe Magrane, never received a fraction of the wealth they generated for their employers.
They would be perplexed that the high court they created believes their Constitution permits a father to remain in jail for 50 years for petty theft, but does not tolerate taking a fraction of the wealth from a company that kills people.
In fact, the direct contribution of Indian business to social causes is so low that a law soon taking effect will require companies of a certain size and profitability to spend a fraction of their wealth on what is ambiguously termed corporate social responsibility, or explain to the government why they have failed to do so.
Open image in new window Fig. 3 Annual inheritance flow as a fraction of private wealth: Switzerland, France and Germany.
Open image in new window Fig. 7 Cumulative stock of inheritances as a fraction of private wealth.
