US media: The world's richest 500 people are increasing trillions of dollars a year

CNN reported jan. 4 that the wealth of the world's richest people, who are already incredibly rich, increased by a total of $1 trillion last year, according to the Bloomberg Billionaire Index.

In the past 12 months alone, the wealth of elon Musk, the world's richest man, has increased by nearly $118 billion. Meanwhile, the United Nations estimates that 150 million people will be pushed into poverty in 2021. Other billionaires whose wealth has increased significantly include luxury giant Bernard Arna Arnault (up $62.7 billion) and Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin (up $47 billion and $45 billion, respectively). Mark Zuckerberg's fortune increased by about $25 billion.

2021 is likely to be remembered as a year for workers due to rising wages and renewed unionization efforts driven by labour market tightening. But at the same time, the massive increase in wealth of the world's richest 0.001 percent of the population highlights the huge wealth gap between workers and the executives and shareholders they work for.

The report also said that, like countless consecutive years before it, 2021 is a good year for the rich. Wall Street has repeatedly ignored concerns about inflation, supply chain bottlenecks and new variants of the coronavirus, keeping the stock market booming. In this regard, the wealthy should thank the Fed: The Fed injects tens of billions of dollars into financial markets every month while keeping interest rates close to zero – an ultra-loose monetary policy designed to keep financial markets flowing as the pandemic hits the global economy in 2020. The stimulus effort drove the stock market boom in 2020 and 2021, but the Fed's "easy money train" will drive away in the first half of this year.

The S&P 500 is reportedly up nearly 27 percent last year, the Dow Jones is up about 19 percent, and the Nasdaq is up 21 percent at the end of last year.

Other assets such as cryptocurrencies, commodities and real estate have also appreciated significantly, further increasing the wealth of the super-rich.

According to Bloomberg, the net worth of 500 people in its billionaire index totals more than $8.4 trillion. That's more than the gross domestic product of any country on the planet except the United States and China.

It is not surprising that during the year, the proposal of U.S. lawmakers to impose a so-called billionaire tax was ridiculed by super-billionaires such as Musk. The Tesla CEO has paid little or no income tax in recent years, and his trillion-dollar auto companies were built in part on government aid. Musk, in particular, has been outspoken against proposals to tax the super-rich in favor of a stronger U.S. social security system.

According to a report by Americans supporting the Tax Fair organization and the Inequality Project of the Institute for Policy, the combined wealth of billionaires in the United States has surged by more than 70 percent since the outbreak of the epidemic, and has exceeded $5 trillion.

Democrats believe that the "windfall" that billionaires alone have made over the past two years is enough to pay for President Joe Biden's social infrastructure program. But legislation on a billionaire tax died midway last fall when Senator Joe Manchin expressed concern about punishing "those at the top."

Source: Reference News Network