Money supply and wealth distribution 

A person prints a million dollar counterfeit money. If he is not busted, he will own a million dollar wealth. A person prints a million dollar real money. He can’t be busted. He will own a million dollar wealth. How much money is out there? The following are the ratio of money supply (M2) to GDP in some countries.

US: 0.7,   Canada:  0.7, France:  1,  Korea: 1.6,  Japan: 1.9, China: 2.2. 

Among these countries, US and Canada have the least amount of money related to their economic output, China has the greatest amount of money issued. US doesn’t exactly run a tight ship. It practices quantitative easing. But for the sake of simplicity, we assume the amount of money issued by US, 70% of GDP, is just enough for economic activities. The rest are profits for money issuance agencies, such as central banks.

In China, money supply is 2.2 times of the amount of GDP. 2.2 - 0.7 = 1.5. This indicates the surplus money is 1.5/2.2, or about 2/3, of the total money supply, which is 182 trillion Chinese Yuan. So the monetary wealth owned by the issuing agencies is roughly 120 trillion Yuan. Suppose China is controlled by about one thousand families. These families have direct or indirect access to the money issued. On average, each family would possess 120/1000 = 0.12 trillion or 120 billion Yuan of wealth.

There is no official statistics of wealth owned by the most prominent Chinese families. Last time, a minister of the Chinese government fell out of favor. It was reported that his family has more than 100 billion asset. So the estimated number of 120 billion Yuan (over 10 billion USD) per family is probably close.

Where is the vast amount of wealth from China originated? On average, Chinese workers work 2200 hours a year, compared with 1610 hours by US workers.