Breaking: Rich Get Richer, Poor Get Poorer

[viscousmemories]

The world’s five richest men have more than doubled their fortunes from $405 billion to $869 billion since 2020 —at a rate of $14 million per hour— while nearly five billion people have been made poorer, reveals a new Oxfam report on inequality and global corporate power. If current trends continue, the world will have its first trillionaire within a decade but poverty won’t be eradicated for another 229 years.

Wealth of five richest men doubles since 2020 as five billion people made poorer in "decade of division," says Oxfam | Oxfam International

[Stephen Maturin]

This underscores the need for a massive tax cut, lest those $869-billionaires start feeling disincentivized to work.

[viscousmemories]

Totally unrelated:

The Kansas City Fed, looking back two years later, found that 'markups'--price increases that are above the cost of production--grew in 2021 by 3.4%. Inflation that year was only 5.8%, meaning that more than half of inflation was simply firms raising prices because they thought they could get away with it. — Ryan Grim in “The Squad”

[Ari]

Extreme wealth and service to extreme wealth insulates from consequences.

in 2016, Jeffrey Katzenberg's net worth was $0.9B, Meg Whitman's was $2.1B.
In 2020 Jeffrey Katzenberg and Meg Whitman's poorly conceived company Quibi lost $1.2B.
In 2023 Jeffrey Katzenberg's net worth is $2B, Meg Whitman's net worth is $6B and she's the ambassador to Kenya.

[-FX-]

This isn't something new.

We just know far more about it now. While the "richest people on earth" is a common clickbait story, in reality the ultra rich people don't even appear on it.

Because the Saudi Princes and families don't actually publish what they are worth.

Elon Musk might be the richest man alive, to the media. But the Saudi families share the wealth, meaning one family there might be worth 20 trillion

Of course the woke can't tax them. Except by inflation.