The Guardian reported:
Yet the 2017 billionaires report compiled by the Swiss bank UBS and the consultancy firm PwC finds that the clock would have to be turned back to 1905 – when the Russians were having a trial run for their revolution and Queen Victoria had been dead only four years – to find a time when wealth was so concentrated.The newspaper piece missed the marketing nature of the PwC/UBS billionaire report. First, it calls then "new value creators" vs. "systemic wealth concentrators." Second, the intent is to advise more of the world's wealthy billionaires.
Josef Stadler, the author of the UBS/PwC report, said: “We are now two years into the peak of the second Gilded Age,” and he added that the 1,542 dollar billionaires around the world were concerned about how concentrated wealth has become. But not, it seems, concerned enough to do anything about it. The rich show real tenacity when it comes to holding on to their wealth and the system that generates it.
America's political system under Republicans and Democrats fostered the rich getting richer, as shown by a graph in the billionaire report. I added colored arrows and presidential names to the graph. The growing of billionaires has been a bipartisan effort for decades.
Interesting aside: The report shows U.S. billionaire's preference for holding companies private (63%) vs. public (37%). That fits squarely with the PEU meme.
