Billionaires' wealth more than doubles in 10 years: UBS

Big deal!

If anyone invested in the S&P 500 a decade ago, their investment would have tripled in value by today.

—

https://www.cnbc.com/2023/04/21/how-much-youd-have-if-you-invested-in-the-s-and-p-500-a-decade-ago.html

Meanwhile billionaires are relocating more frequently, with 176 having moved country since 2020, with Switzerland, the United Arab Emirates, Singapore and the United States being popular destinations.

In 2024, some 268 people became billionaires for the first time, with 60 percent of them entrepreneurs.

"The year's new billionaires were mainly self-made," said UBS.

The inequality divide is greater now than during the French Revolution and the orthogonality of gains from labor to that of investment wealth is undeniable.

https://www.vox.com/2024/1/22/24043104/billionaire-get-rich-people-parents-generational-wealth-transfer-trust-fund

The ones who call themselves self-made omit the 400 million inheritances or a blood emerald legacy in their background.

Yeah like was said, anyone who just invested in the stock market would have increased their wealth much much more than that with zero effort.

i know a dozen individual stocks that are up more than 124% just this year, not in 10.

Compound interest is your friend as are dividends.

quit whining about rich people and become one. Or willingly chose not to be, if that’s your stance in life.

but the ability is there, not just for “evil” billionaires.

i know a dozen individual stocks that are up more than 124% just this year, not in 10.

wait, i thought things were just awful under the current adminsistration…

Go look around and check exactly when this hyper growth jumped the fastest.

Would it surprise anyone it was 2020?

Global lockdowns, people locked in their homes, etc... caused a steep rise in the income of the businesses of these billionaires.

Tech and "industry" actually translates to, products bought only, delivered or consumed online.

So Amazon, Uber eats, Door dash, online gaming, tech gadgets for homes and to kill the boredom.

In 2020 the amount billionaires made surged by $5 Trillion that is more than the 8 years prior combined.

quit whining about rich people and become one. Or willingly chose not to be, if that’s your stance in life.

Completely clueless billionaire ape speak when this is the reality.

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2018/jul/29/us-economy-workers-paycheck-robert-reich

80 percent of workers living paycheck to paycheck.

Legacy capital is a way out for a few.

Neo liberal policies and conservative politicians have wrecked the middle class by design.

Peter Neil

Today 07:39 am JST

i know a dozen individual stocks that are up more than 124% just this year, not in 10.

> wait, i thought things were just awful under the current adminsistration

Yes because if you got the point of the article, a select few are the ones making all this profit.

The retail industry has taken a massive hit since COVID and hasn't recovered.

Only the retail mega corporations are doing well.

Most people don't own mega corporations or even have the money to invest in the market, which is often setup in a way that shares can only be purchased in blocks of that cost thousands of dollars.

The illusion of wealth increase is done because the government and MSM keep using 2019 as a starting point.

So yes the median household income has increased but the purchasing power has decreased by a larger percentage, meaning they cannot buy as much with the higher income than they could previously with a lower income.

So using the lockdown time as starting point when people were really struggling well of course things look a lot better.

But if you use pre COVID as a comparison, then things don't look so good.

The regular John and Jane before 2019 could buy more with less income.

The wealth gap between the rich and the so-called middle class has increased dramatically while the wealth gap between the so-called middle class and low income has decreased and not because the low income have gone up but because the middle class has gone down.

Billionaires' wealth more than doubles in 10 years: UBS

A bunch of losers aren’t they!

My wealth has multiplied by waaaay more than double over the last decade.

wait, i thought things were just awful under the current adminsistration…

They are.

the success of these few companies has no link to the horrific economic policies of Biden.

they succeeded despite him and his incompetent administration.

Our tendency to genuflect in front of the extremely rich (and the transiently famous) only shows what a shallow species we are.

AntiquesavingToday  08:13 am JST

Peter Neil

Today 07:39 am JST

i know a dozen individual stocks that are up more than 124% just this year, not in 10.

wait, i thought things were just awful under the current adminsistration*

Yes because if you got the point of the article, a select few are the ones making all this profit.

The retail industry has taken a massive hit since COVID and hasn't recovered.

Only the retail mega corporations are doing well.

Most people don't own mega corporations or even have the money to invest in the market, which is often setup in a way that shares can only be purchased in blocks of that cost thousands of dollars.

The illusion of wealth increase is done because the government and MSM keep using 2019 as a starting point.

So yes the median household income has increased but the purchasing power has decreased by a larger percentage, meaning they cannot buy as much with the higher income than they could previously with a lower income.

So using the lockdown time as starting point when people were really struggling well of course things look a lot better.

But if you use pre COVID as a comparison, then things don't look so good.

The regular John and Jane before 2019 could buy more with less income.

The wealth gap between the rich and the so-called middle class has increased dramatically while the wealth gap between the so-called middle class and low income has decreased and not because the low income have gone up but because the middle class has gone down.

yes, i understand this and agree. the middle class is being slaughtered. household debt is at record levels.

meanwhile, 3 people own more wealth than the entire bottom 50% of the the u.s. population.

the wealth gap is higher than in 1929.

there are some company valuations at 300x+ earnings.

wait, i thought things were just awful under the current adminsistration…

If you want a reasonable, neutral take on it (not from our friends here who insist that Biden crashed the US economy into like, last place in the world, man), this is from a non-US newspaper and it lays things out quite fairly.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2024/nov/02/joe-biden-economy-analysis

It doesn’t have to be a US paper to be left biased:

https://www.allsides.com/news-source/guardian

“The Guardian is a news media source with an AllSides Media Bias Rating™ of Left.

What a "Left" Rating Means

Sources with an AllSides Media Bias Rating of Left display media bias in ways that strongly align with liberal, progressive, or left-wing thought and/or policy agendas. This is our most liberal rating on the political spectrum.”

Switzerland's biggest bank, which is among the world's largest wealth managers, said the number of dollar billionaires increased from 1,757 to 2,682 over the past 10 years, peaking in 2021 with 2,686.

Is the number going down lots of expensive divorces? ;) Stocks, real estate, crypto, resources, all seem to be up.

For any Brits out there, a paid-up state pension alone is worth about 280 grand. If a couple both have it, they won't need much of a house to be a millionaire. That term doesn't mean very much any more.

Compound interest is your friend as are dividends.

Real worth inflation is way more than interest on bank saver accounts. Anyone saving for a deposit on real estate will have seen house prices and the required deposits go up much faster than the compound interest on their savings. If your parents won't give or lend you the deposit, the solution in many many cases, your only solution is to speculate in stocks etc. to keep up with real estate price rises. Financial advice from the 1950s and 1960s, "The Richest Man in Babylon" etc., talks about compound interest, but it is not an option for people any more. You have to buy riskier assets to get ahead now.

Peter Neil

Today 10:04 am JST

Your comment/question was:

wait, i thought things were just awful under the current adminsistration…

And I pointed out why people see the present Biden administration as well as Canada, much of the EU and UK administrations as having a poor to really bad record.

Take the following:

Between 2015 and 2024, total billionaire wealth increased by 121 percent from $6.3 trillion to $14.0 trillion

However, North American billionaire wealth has risen 58.5 percent to $6.1 trillion since 2020, "led by industrials and tech billionaires".

Notice how all avoid pointing out nearly 5 Trillion of the above was made in a single year and remain at that level since, and that year was lockdown 2020 that was the year these people and their companies made the mega trillion leaps.

And that was also the year inflation started its rise and buying power started dropping.

Basically the panic handling of the pandemic lead to all this and the only ones to blame were the respective governments in power at the time.

It isn't just the Biden administration, but Trudeau in Canada, Macron in France, etc...and most today are facing the wrath of their populations.

What a "Left" Rating Means

*Sources with an AllSides Media Bias Rating of Left display media bias in ways that strongly align with liberal, progressive, or left-wing thought and/or policy agendas. This is our most liberal rating on the political spectrum.”*

Shows how wrecked your Overton Window and that site is.

As an actual leftist, I will show you some sites that are actually center to moderately far left I use.

https://www.propublica.org/article/donald-trump-agenda-working-class

https://jacobin.com/2020/01/donald-trump-bernie-sanders-2020-presidential-election-republican-democrat

You can post some x/catturd and newsmax posts pumping up the billionaires.

Here is something informative about how central banks monetary easing QE is a basic income for the rich.

https://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-federal-reserve-is-increasing-wealth-inequality

Swiss bank UBS said Thursday, with tech billionaires' coffers filling the fastest.

Billionaire tax havens like UBS want to promote the idea that this wealth accumulation is organic and natural.

Jacobin? Left bias

Propublica? Left center

yet still:

“partners with 47 sources, including reputable left-leaning news organizations such as the New York Times, The New Yorker, Politico, Bloomberg, NPR, PBS, ABC, BBC, Miami Herald, and many others, to produce and publish stories”

I don’t know why the left here obsessively and specifically hates “catturd” so much, but it’s funny.

The point is:

anyone who has made stock market investments in the last 10 years has doubled their money. This isn’t unique to the rich.

so why would we be surprised that billionaires (with paid financial investment advisers) have doubled their money too?

I’m surprised it’s only 2x not 10x like I have.

Your returns from capital tend to snowball once you let it grow, no matter how rich or priviledged you are. I've been investing my savings in moderate amounts monthly, take on moderate risk, and have no debt. Around tax season, I astound myself by how much money is pouring into my accounts.

My Japanese accountant is more astounded -- when he sees my exploding NISA and IDECO balances and dividend income from my regular securities accounts. I assume he is used to Japanese clients, who keep their savings in cash, life insurance, and, LOL, Japanese govt bonds.

My Japanese accountant is more astounded -- when he sees my exploding NISA and IDECO balances and dividend income from my regular securities accounts. I assume he is used to Japanese clients, who keep their savings in cash, life insurance, and, LOL, Japanese govt bonds.

That is the thing about the financial market. You need a threshold of capital to get ahead.

If I had disposable capital to throw around I might invest in US private prison stocks, given the incoming admin mass deportation and incarceration proposals. AI data center infrastructure and climate mitigation solutions given the deregulation promised. These are ideas people looking at a news feed can grasp. The dividing line is capital.

I’m surprised it’s only 2x not 10x like I have.

I have made 40x during Biden and it keeps going up, was a bit flat during Trump though. I might sell before Trump starts and enjoy my Biden millions.

The 90% majority of the working and unemployed are the canaries in the cage of Capitalism. Folks are finally taking notice and the 45 years of economic asphyxiation brought by the neo-liberal billionaire bonanza appears about to culminate in the outrageous plans of Trump's wrecking crew for 2025 and beyond, a greedy step too far, which might provide the tipping point for the dismantling of America's indefensible plutocracy. We have now heard a warning shot from the streets of the Big Apple..

So this is going to start trickling down to the rest of us pretty quickly, right?

the way they promised us it would 45 years ago?

Because if it doesn’t - why, it would almost be like 99% of us have been harvested.

if so, could anyone give me a good justification not to tax the pips out of these robber barons?

Good for them, I wish I were one :)

My Japanese accountant is more astounded -- when he sees my exploding NISA and IDECO balances and dividend income from my regular securities accounts. I assume he is used to Japanese clients, who keep their savings in cash, life insurance, and, LOL, Japanese govt bonds

That's the beauty of capitalism. I sometimes think Japan is more communist than China.

Japan is more communist than China.

No law against returning to anyone's home country

Tax them to death. The golden era of US history is when the top 10% were paying 70%-80% of their income in taxes. Their companies wouldn't be nearly as successful if they weren't taking advantage of America's immense infrastructure. However, they pay nary a dime to help maintain it.

Who cares, it uses them exactly nothing at all and they have the much worse prospects anyway. When we once all die they will lose billions and I lose nothing. lol

The golden era of US history is when the top 10% were paying 70%-80% of their income in taxes.

in the era you refer to they weren’t actually paying those rates of income tax. Would you pay such rates?

fxgaiToday 06:10 am JST

The golden era of US history is when the top 10% were paying 70%-80% of their income in taxes.

in the era you refer to they weren’t actually paying those rates of income tax. Would you pay such rates?

You are under the impression there were more tax giveaways then than now?

A tax giveaway being like Furusato nozei?