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“The rich get richer” does not even begin to tell the story today.
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According to the Institute for Policy Studies, the wealth of the top 12 billionaires in the US recently exploded to more than one trillion dollars – yes, 13 figures.
The statistic is obviously an eye-popping figure on his face, made even more so in light of the devastation in the broader economy due to the coronavirus pandemic.
“This is a disturbing milestone in the American history of concentrated wealth and power,” said Chuck Collins, a director of the Washington DC-based progressive think tank. “This is simply too much economic and political power in the hands of twelve people. From the point of view of a democratic self-governing society, this represents an Oligarchic Dozen. ”
Since the pandemic first hit the US in March, the “Oligarchic Dozens” have enjoyed a 40% increase in their combined wealth – as an increase of $ 283 billion.
Tesla’s (TSLA) Elon Musk has been the biggest beneficiary, doubling its wealth, on August 13, to $ 73 billion. That doesn’t even include the fierce rally in Tesla shares on Monday, which pushed Musk into fourth position on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
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“The total wealth of the Oligarchic Dozens is greater than the GDP of Belgium and Austria combined,” said Omar Ocampo, a researcher for IPS’s program on inequality and the general good. “Meanwhile, tens of millions of Americans are unemployed if they live on a wage to pay, and 170,000 people have died from COVID-19 in the United States.”
The Oligarchic Dozens, like everyone else, got off to a rough start this year, with the group’s collective wealth declining by nearly $ 100 billion from January 1 to March 18. It did not take long for their net worth to rebound and their September above 2019 levels, with the exception of Warren Buffett (BRK), who is still a few billion short of his year-ago figure.
And it’s not just Bezos and the clock that have seen fortune smiles lately. CEO compensation, in general, climbed to its highest level in seven years last year, and it is positioned to increase once again in 2020, according to a study by the Economic Policy Institute quoted by the Washington Post. In fact, the pay ratio between executives and workers at America’s 350 largest companies has expanded to 320-to-1, the researchers found.
Meanwhile, many at the “Oligarch” on Tuesday had another good run, with Amazon (AMZN), Alphabet (GOOG), Tesla and Microsoft (MSFT), all in the green. The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) was lagging behind, while the S&P 500 (SPX) and the tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite (COMP) were both driving higher.
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