Rupert Neate - World's richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1trillion this year
The world’s 500
richest people have increased their wealth by $1tn (£745bn) so far this year
due to a huge increase in the value of global stock markets, which are likely
to finish 2017 at record highs.
The big increase in
the fortunes of the ultra-wealthy comes as billions of poorer people across the
world have seen their wealth standstill or decline. The gap between the very
rich and everyone else has widened to the biggest it has been in a century and
advisers to the super-rich are warning them of a “strike back” from the
squeezed majority.
The globe’s 500
richest people, as measured by the Bloomberg billionaires index,have
seen the value of the wealth increase by 23% so far this year, taking their
combined fortunes to $5.3tn. The increase is largely the result of booming
stock markets. The MSCI World Index and the US Standard & Poor’s 500 are
both up almost 20% so far this year. The UK’s FTSE 100 is up more than 6% – and
hit a new closing high of 7,620.7 points on Wednesday.
Jeff Bezos, the
founder of Amazon, is the world’s richest man. His fortune has increased by
$34.2bn so far this year to take his “net worth” to $99.6bn. On just one day in
October Bezos’s fortune increased by $10.3bn, when Amazon posted profits much
higher than analysts had expected and the company’s shares spiked. Bezos,53, who
founded Amazon in
his Seattle garage in 1994, owns 16% of the retailer. He also owns all of space
exploration company Blue Origin and the Washington Post newspaper, which he
bought for $250m in 2013… read more:
see also
Anders Åslund - Russia’s Neo-Feudal Capitalism; More posts on Russia
Posts on Greece
