The tsunami of billionaires that has washed across the planet over the last decade or so is troubling in the extreme. Now, we have the fattest one setting policy in Washington in the most direct way imaginable. Billionaires already own the US political system, and they are on the very shortest of lists in the new White House come January 20th.
In 2000, Bloomberg’s list of billionaires included 322. By 2024, Bloomberg had stopped keeping a comprehensive list and listed just 500. At number 500 is David Green, who has a mere $6.03 billion. As the chart below shows, the number of billionaires has leveled off at around 2,500. However, the total wealth of the billionaire class has grown from roughly $2,000 billion (OK, $2 trillion) to just over $14 trillion in 2024.
That is a 700% increase in 24 years!
The bottom 50 percent (170 million people) of the US population holds $3.9 trillion of wealth. The top 1 percent (3.4 million people) hold $49.2 trillion. This total is increasing rapidly, especially among the top 0.1 percent (340,000 people), who hold $22.1 trillion, or 45 percent of that $49.2 trillion. So, 340,000 people own nearly six times as much wealth as the entire bottom half of the population, 170,000,000 people!1
Every billionaire is a policy failure.2
Now, before we go further, this growth is not some sort of natural function of competitive capitalism, nor is it the result of the hard work of extremely clever people, though, to be sure, some of those are likely to be among the 2,500 billionaires. No, the billionaires control governments, set the rules they play by, hide their wealth in the global financial system’s many dark, anonymous corners, and employ armies of lawyers, accountants, and financial advisors to appropriate and protect this wealth.
So, we have every right to ask why we allow billionaires to exist at all?
The existence of billionaires is the result of political decisions. We can undo those decisions.
How much money does one really need?
As a thought experiment, imagine that you have $10 million invested in a diversified portfolio of stocks and bonds. With a 4% withdrawal rate, that is $400,000 per year to spend, a 6% annual investment return, and 3% annual inflation adjustments, $10,000,000 would last approximately 43 years. Assume a 2% inflation rate and you get 72 years. $400,000 puts you in the top 3% of families today.
BTW – $10 million is 1% of $1 billion. Kind of hard to keep such large numbers in mind.
This billionaire’s tower in Manhattan is 1,550 ft. tall (472 meters).3 More than 5 American football fields. If you pile up $100 bills you only get 3.47 inches (8.8 cm) up the building to pile up $80,610 which is the median family income in the US (2023). Make the pile 35.8 feet (10.9 m) high, roughly three stories, and you have reached a millionaire’s height. Make a pile 3,583 feet (1,092 m) high and you have $1 billion. That means you need 2 and 1/3 billionaire towers to equal this pile. Keep in mind that we a just talking about one billion dollars. Not a Musk who would need 1,042 towers of $100 bills to equal his $451 billion dollar wealth.
Billionaires and the environment
Billionaires own multiple mansions, cars, private jets, and yachts, really ships in many cases. Estimates of the carbon footprints of billionaires vary, but they definitely emit orders of magnitude more carbon dioxide than your average citizen They are clearly predators on the global warming scene.
