The scale of inequality

Y axis: Amount of wealth in Euros. X axis: population. This data is for Germany. We see the poorest on the left, who are actually in debt or insolvent, a majority population who have very few if any assets, and the richest on the right where wealth increases exponentially. In the scale of this graph the white area is the size of an ordinary A4 sheet of paper. Note the last 1-2% of the population axis is off the edge of the page. The following image draws on the rest of the graph's line at the same scale.

With the rest of the population confined to the bottom of a single A4 sheet, the wealth of the richest 1%, here represented by the 33 billion Euros of wealth and assets owned by the Reimann family business, according to Manager Magazine, climbs to 6.6 kilometres on the same scale graph, half again as tall as Switzerland and Italy's Matterhorn mountain.

For reference, the three richest men in the world (the order or which changes regularly) are Bernard Arnault at US$185 billion, Elon Musk at US$190 billion, and Jeff Bezos at US$199 billion, as of September 2021. That's 178.3 billion Euros for the purpose of this graph, or a line reaching 35.6 kilometres high on this graph. On Earth this extends above where aircraft can fly, above the Ozone layer, and well into the Ionosphere where the auroras occur.

Image credit: DW Documentary, Inequality – How wealth becomes power