Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and the rest of the 'Oligarchic Dozen' just attained a 'troubling landmark'
'This is only too much political and economic power in the hands of twelve individuals'
"The rich get richer" does not even begin to tell the story nowadays.
According to the Institute for Policy Studies, the wealth of the top 12 billionaires in the U.S. lately exploded to more than one trillion dollars -- yes, 13 digits.
The statistic, naturally, is an eye-popping figure on its own surface, made more so in light of the devastation at the broader economy on account of this coronavirus pandemic. "That is only too much economic and political power from the hands of twelve people. From the point of view of a democratic self-governing society, this represents an Oligarchic Dozen."
Since the pandemic first blew up in the U.S. back in March, the"Oligarchic Dozen" has enjoyed a 40% surge in its joint wealth -- or a rise of $283 billion.
Tesla's TSLA, 0.88% Elon Musk has become the biggest beneficiary, with his wealth, as of August 13, climbed to $73 billion. That doesn't even include the ferocious rally in Tesla shares on Monday, which pushed Musk to the fourth place on the Bloomberg Billionaires Index.
"The total prosperity of the Oligarchic Dozen is greater than the GDP of Belgium and Austria united," said Omar Ocampo, a researcher for IPS's program on inequality and the common good.
The Oligarchic Dozen, like everybody else, got off to a rough start this year, with the group's collective riches dropping by almost $100 billion in January 1 to March 18. It did not take long for their net worth to rebound and surpass their September 2019 amounts, except for Warren Buffett BRK.A, -0.44 percent, who is still a couple billion short of their year-ago figure.
And it's not only Bezos and the bunch who have observed fortune smile upon them recently. CEO compensation, overall, climbed to its highest level in seven years this past year, and it is set to rise once more in 2020, according to an Economic Policy Institute study cited by the Washington Post. In fact, the pay ratio between chief executives and employees at America's 350 biggest companies has expanded into 320-to-1, the researchers found.
Meanwhile, several on the"Oligarch" list were having another fantastic run on Tuesday, with Amazon AMZN, -0.36 percent, Alphabet GOOG, 0.58 percent, Tesla and Microsoft MSFT, 0.31 percent, all from the green. The Dow Jones Industrial Average DJIA, 0.28% was lagging, although the S&P 500 SPX, 0.24percent and tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite COMP, 0.30percent were equally pushing higher.