Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/List of wealthiest people by percentage of GDP (2nd nomination)


 * The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review).  No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was   delete. –Juliancolton Tropical Cyclone  00:09, 17 March 2009 (UTC)

List of wealthiest people by percentage of GDP
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This article has several severe problems: Besides, the list is pointless because net worth and GDP are in no meaningful way comparable. It had been nominated last October; the discussion closed with no consensus. The article hasn't improved, and I doubt it ever will or even can. Huon (talk) 17:56, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
 * 1) It's factually incorrect. The five people listed are not the five richest people by percentage of GDP. For example, by a quick cross-checking of the List of heads of state and government by net worth and the List of countries by GDP (PPP), the princes of Liechtenstein and Monaco should both make the list.
 * 2) There are no sources available to correct it - for many countries, we don't know the richest inhabitant, especially for countries with low GDPs whose richest inhabitants are more likely to have a large net worth compared to their countries' GDP. Thus, we cannot produce a factually correct list of the richest people by percentage of GDP.
 * 3) As a consequence of 2), what we have is original synthesis of published information (namely, of some people's net worth and of their countries' GDP), expressly forbidden by WP:OR.
 * Delete per nominator. This is textbook original research combining two sources to different sources to create something new that gives the impression it's a common standard. I agree with the nominator that it's not a meaningful comparison and it's impossible to get right without calculating percentages for all the countries in the world. - Mgm|(talk) 23:48, 12 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete This is still stupid original synthesis. How does Hassanal Bolkiah have 1,358 percent of his nation's gross domestic product?  Because GDP is the value of from the sale, in a year's time, of a nation's goods and services; and it's being compared--- for no particular reason other than it makes an impressive, but pointles statistic --to a person's accumulation over many years worth of wealth.  What's that supposed to prove?  "Year of peak earnings" is thrown in there for no apparent reason, but it's misleading, since it suggests that Bill Gates earned 90 billion dollars in 1999-- but 90 billion is Bill's worth, not his earnings in any year.  This type of idiot statistic has no place in an encyclopedia, online or paper.  It would be one thing if we compared Bill's revenues in 1999 against the nation's revenues; or if we compared Bill's net worth to the worth of the nation.  This is kind of like saying, "Babe Ruth had 714 home runs in his career; there were 922 home runs hit in both leagues in 1927, Babe's peak year-- and that's an incredible 77 percent!!!"  It's idiotic. Mandsford (talk) 02:12, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete. Useless way of measuring wealth. If someone moves to a smaller country with a smaller GDP, their ranking on this list will shoot up since the new GDP is lower. They have not become any wealthier. Sjakkalle (Check!)  08:20, 13 March 2009 (UTC)
 * Delete as original synthesis involving meaningless comparison of two distinct economic measures. In addition to the fact that GDP is more comparable to income than wealth, GDP is country- and year-specific whereas accumulated wealth is not. Straightforward comparison of GDP and wealth figures fails to produce meaningful results. The idea for this list was well-intentioned, but it was flawed from the beginning. –Black Falcon (Talk) 20:13, 15 March 2009 (UTC)


 * The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.