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American Billionaires Grew Wealth by $340B in 2021; Middle Class Shrunk in Mandate-Crazy Economy

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The richest billionaires in the United States grew their wealth by more than $340 billion over the last year, while the wealth held by the American middle class shrinks.

U.S. billionaires Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Larry Page, Mark Zuckerberg, Sergey Brin, Steve Ballmer, Larry Elison, and Warren Buffett grew their combined wealth to about $341 billion in 2021, according to figures published by CNBC. . .

At the same time, the American middle class has seen a dramatic drop in wealth. The middle class includes 77.5 million U.S. households with an annual income of $27,000 to $141,000.

In October 2021, Breitbart News reported the top one percent of income earners in the U.S. now hold more wealth than the entire American middle class. Specifically, the middle class has seen its share of national wealth plummet to just 26.6 percent while the top one percent’s share of wealth has grown to 27 percent — the first time in U.S. history that the top one percent’s share of wealth has outpaced the middle class’s share of wealth. (Read more from “American Billionaires Grew Wealth by $340b in 2021; Middle Class Shrunk in Mandate-Crazy Economy” HERE)

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Report: America’s Billionaires Added $282 Billion to Their Total Wealth in 23 Days During the Coronavirus Crisis

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The US’ richest people continue to get richer even as the coronavirus pushes millions of American workers into unemployment and a deep recession looms large over the economy, according to a report

In the first three months of 2020, even as panic gripped markets, 34 of the US’ wealthiest 170 billionaires saw their fortunes surge by millions of dollars, according to a Billionaires Bonanza 2020 report published by the Institute for Policy Studies last week. Eight even saw their wealth increase by more than $1 billion, the report said.

Research by Forbes year showed that US billionaires’ wealth declined from $3.1 trillion to $2.9 trillion in 2020 as of March 18, but the new Billionaires Bonanza report which looks at billionaires wealth from the start of January until April 10, shows that billionaires have cashed in so far this year.

In the 23 days between March 18 and April 10, the report states, billionaire wealth in the US increased $282 billion, or 9.5%. Over the same period, 22 million Americans filed for unemployment, it noted.

Billionaires saw their net worths increase in those weeks as stock markets rallied sharply, rewarding those with large stock market investments. (Read more from “Report: America’s Billionaires Added $282 Billion to Their Total Wealth in 23 Days During the Coronavirus Crisis” HERE)

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Just 162 Billionaires Have the Same Wealth as Half of Humanity

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In a stark reminder of gaping global inequality, a report published Sunday reveals that 162 billionaires, including Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, have the same wealth as the poorest half of the world.

There are 2,153 billionaires globally, and, in 2019, they held more wealth combined than 4.6 billion people, according to the report, which uses data from the Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report and Forbes’ billionaire rankings.

The report uses a striking analogy to put these amounts of wealth in context. If everyone sat on their wealth piled up in $100 bills, most people would be sitting on the floor, a middle-class person from a rich country would be the height of a chair, and the world’s two richest men would be sitting in space.

Oxfam’s report is published annually to coincide with the start of the World Economic Forum gathering in Davos, where high-profile policymakers, business leaders and the wealthy take their private jets to a Swiss ski town to discuss how to “improve the state of the world.”

Once someone is very wealthy, the report points out, it’s easy to just watch the money accumulate because the rich can afford the best investment advice. Billionaire wealth has increased by an average of 7.4% a year since 2009, according to the report published by Oxfam, an international development nongovernmental organization. And 2019 was a good year for the ultrarich. Despite their wealth levels dipping at the start of the year, they quickly rebounded, and the world’s 500 richest people managed to add $1.2 trillion to their wealth over the course of the year, according to a Bloomberg analysis. (Read more from “Just 162 Billionaires Have the Same Wealth as Half of Humanity” HERE)

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Saudi Prince Sues Forbes Over His Rank on Billionaires List

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Photo Credit: Forbes

A Saudi Arabian billionaire prince has sued Forbes magazine in London, accusing the publication of underestimating his wealth in its highly scrutinized annual list of the world’s richest people.

Prince Alwaleed bin Talal claims the magazine was “deliberately biased” when ranking him at a lowly 26th place in its 2013 tally of the super wealthy, according to court documents cited by the United Kingdom’s Guardian newspaper.

The magazine pegged his net worth at $20 billion. The prince claims it is closer to $30 billion. The difference? About $9.6 billion, the Guardian reported.

The alleged inaccuracy has the business mogul, who holds a stake in Twitter, reportedly fuming. In addition to the Forbes publisher, Bin Talal also filed suit against its editor and two of its reporters, the Guardian reported.

Forbes may have angered the prince further with an article examining the way he calculates his net worth, deeming it “an alternate reality” driven in part by his need for public validation.

Read more from this story HERE.

Lawsuit Exposes NYC Church's Two Billion Dollar Assets

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Photo Credit: Michael NagleThere has never been any doubt that Trinity Church is wealthy. But the extent of its wealth has long been a mystery; guessed at by many, known by few.

Now, however, after a lawsuit filed by a disenchanted parishioner, the church has offered an estimate of the value of its assets: more than $2 billion.

The Episcopal parish, known as Trinity Wall Street, traces its holdings to a gift of 215 acres of prime Manhattan farmland donated in 1705 by Queen Anne of England. Since then, the church has parlayed that gift into a rich portfolio of office buildings, stock investments and, soon, mixed-use residential development.

The parish’s good fortune has become an issue in the historic congregation, which has been racked by infighting in recent years over whether the church should be spending more money to help the poor and spread the faith, in New York and around the world. Differences over the parish’s mission and direction last year led nearly half the 22-member vestry — an august collection of corporate executives and philanthropists — to resign or be pushed out, after at least seven of them asked, unsuccessfully, that the rector himself step down.

Over the years, the church has sold or given away much of the original 215 acres from Queen Anne, but it has 14 acres, including 5.5 million square feet of commercial real estate.

Read more from this story HERE.

UN calls for international tax on billionaires to transfer wealth to poor

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The United Nations on Thursday called for a tax on billionaires to help raise more than $400 billion a year for poor countries.

An annual lump sum payment by the super-rich is one of a host of measures including a tax on carbon dioxide emissions, currency exchanges or financial transactions proposed in a UN report that accuses wealthy nations of breaking promises to step up aid for the less fortunate.

The annual World Economic and Social Survey says it is critical to find new ways to help the world’s poor as pledged cash fails to flow.

The report estimates that the number of people around the globe worth at least $1 billion rose to 1,226 in 2012.

There are an estimated 425 billionaires in the United States, 315 in the Asia-Pacific region, 310 in Europe, 90 in other North and South American countries and 86 in Africa and the Middle East.

Read more from this story HERE.

Photo credit: Jorbasa