a 44% wealth share for the top 10% (and a 12.5% wealth share for the top 1%, according to the FT) would mean that Britain is currently one the most egalitarian countries in history in terms of wealth distribution; in particular this would mean that Britain is a lot more equal that Sweden, and in fact a lot more equal than what Sweden as ever been (including in the 1980s). This does not look particularly plausible
Having lived both in Sweden and in Britain you don't even need data to know this isn't very plausible. That said, Sweden is getting a bigger gap between the highest earners and the lowest at a fast rate. "the most equal country in the world is becoming less so." -The Economist
http://www.economist.com/node/21564412
You're confusing stocks with flows. Wealth inequality and income inequality are completely different things, and Sweden being more unequal than the UK does not seem at all implausible. Here's one paper from a few years ago showing exactly that result: http://darp.lse.ac.uk/papersdb/Cowell_(Hills_Wealth_UK).pdf
Particularly the "12.5% for the top 1%" is ridiculous and obviously too low for any modern, capital-intensive, non-socialist society. The FT should know this from their Economics 101, but it seems their main objective here was to discredit Piketty...
The point is that the FT switched from one type of data to another, as per usual truth is probably somewhere in the middle, which would probably still back up Mr Picketty's analysis.
As many people have said, is the UK one of the most equal societies in the world? This seems very unlikely
a 44% wealth share for the top 10% (and a 12.5% wealth share for the top 1%, according to the FT) would mean that Britain is currently one the most egalitarian countries in history in terms of wealth distribution; in particular this would mean that Britain is a lot more equal that Sweden, and in fact a lot more equal than what Sweden as ever been (including in the 1980s). This does not look particularly plausible
Shame on the FT.