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Friday, December 29th, 2017

World’s richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1 Trillion this year

Author:     Rupert Neate
Source:     The Guardian (U.K.)
Publication Date:     Wed 27 Dec ‘17 10.24 EST
 Link: World’s richest 500 see their wealth increase by $1 Trillion this year
Stephan:   Here is the latest on one of the fastest growing world trends, The Rise of Neo-Feudalism Trend. The World's richest 500 people, as this report lays out, got $1 TRILLION richer this year alone. It's such a large number it is hard to conceptualize it. So try this. This is just shy, are you ready, of the entire Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of Sweden ($551 billion), Norway ($370 billion), and Finland ($273 billion). We now have individuals who have wealth at the nation level, and I don't mean impoverished developing nations, I mean three of the happiest, most successful richest democracies in the world.

Amazon founder Jeff Bezos is the world’s richest person, by $8.3bn.
Credit Paul Morigi

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. […]

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