World's wealthiest people now richer than before the credit crunch

[Octafish]

Economic news that doesn't seem much mentioned by the press on this side of the pond.

World's wealthiest people now richer than before the credit crunch

World Wealth Report reveals soaring numbers of rich individuals in Asia Pacific region – but slower growth in Britain

Jill Treanor
guardian.co.uk, Wednesday 22 June 2011 15.56 BST

EXCERPT...

The globe's richest have now recouped the losses they suffered after the 2008 banking crisis. They are richer than ever, and there are more of them – nearly 11 million – than before the recession struck.

SNIP...

According to the annual world wealth report by Merrill Lynch and Capgemini, the wealth of HNWIs around the world reached $42.7tn (£26.5tn) in 2010, rising nearly 10% in a year and surpassing the peak of $40.7tn reached in 2007, even as austerity budgets were implemented by many governments in the developed world.

The report also measures a category of "ultra-high net worth individuals" – those with at least $30m rattling around, looking for a home. The number of individuals in this super-rich bracket climbed 10% to a total of 103,000, and the total value of their investments jumped by 11.5% to $15tn, demonstrating that even among the rich, the richest get richer quicker. Altogether they represent less than 1% of the world's HNWIs – but they speak for 36% of HNWI's total wealth.

SNIP...

The performance of investments made by wealthy individuals in shares and commodities, and their willingness to take more risks, helps drive their wealth, which in turn fuels "passion" purchases of multimillionaire must-haves, ranging from Ferraris to diamonds, art and fine wines. Demand for such luxuries is especially high among the growing number of wealthy individuals in the emerging markets.

CONTINUED...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/jun/22/worlds-wealthiest-people-now-richer-than-before-the-credit-crunch

Good thing the Uncle Sam's there to make sure it's a level playing field for us middle class poor types. Otherwise, we wouldn't stand a chance in the class war.

[Name removed]

1. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Donnachaidh]

2. kick and Rec! n/t

[Octafish]

7. World’s Rich Richer Than Ever; Wealth Growth Beats GDP Avgs

This came out yesterday in Forbes:

World’s Rich Richer Than Ever; Wealth Growth Beats GDP Avgs

Kenneth Rapoza
Forbes
Jun. 24 2011 - 12:30 am

The rich get richer. In fact, despite economic crisis, recessions and slowdowns, the incomes of the planet’s high net worth individuals rose more last year in percentage terms than the world’s GDP.

This week, consulting firm Capgemini and private wealth manager Merrill Lynch Wealth Management published their annual review of where the rich are. The 40 page World Wealth Report 2011 shows that the wealth of the world’s millionaires grew 9.7% in 2010, while world gross domestic output rose 5.01%, according to the International Monetary Fund.

The world’s rich have a high net worth of $42.7 trillion, roughly three times the size of the US economy. US gross domestic product in 2010 was $14.6 trillion. GDP is the main indicator of a country’s wealth and standard of living. US GDP is the highest in the world, followed by China at $5.8 trillion.

CONTINUED...

http://blogs.forbes.com/kenrapoza/2011/06/24/worlds-rich-richer-than-ever-wealth-growth-beats-gdp-avgs/

When wealthy, things are always good.

[valerief]

3. Making rich people richer is the most important thing in the world.

Nothing is more important than that. Our world revolves not around the sun but around making rich people richer.

[LongTomH]

4. Yeah, who else is going to buy things like........................

$90 million dollar yachts..........



$8 million dollar homes...........(actually I think this is the low end of the scale for mansions)



$1 million dollar cars like the Maybach Landaulet.........



And other examples of obscene hyperconsumption by the mega-rich!

[Octafish]

11. World’s Rich Richer Than Ever; Wealth Growth Beats GDP Avgs

A sidebar from the OP:

World’s Rich Richer Than Ever; Wealth Growth Beats GDP Avgs

'Investments of passion' are all the rage among the wealthy

Jill Treanor
guardian.co.uk,
Thursday 23 June 2011 07.57 BST

As the world's richest people got even richer, so did their appetite for the playthings needed to satisfy their lifestyles. Growing wealth from the emerging economies, largely in Asia Pacific, helped spur the demand for these so-called "investments of passion".

Sales of luxury cars jumped, with Mercedes-Benz reporting a rise in sales in China and Hong Kong of 112%, outpacing the total rise in its sales of 5%. Ferrari had its best ever year in China.

Chinese buyers are also pushing up the price of art. Last year, Bright Road, by contemporary Chinese artist Liu Ye, sold for three times the estimated price at auction. Chinese collectors are also passionate about European art. Two world records were set last year: $104.3m (£65m) for a Giacometti sculpture was later surpassed by a Picasso painting which fetched $106.5m.

In 2010, Sotheby's set a 40-year record for the amount raised at wine auctions, with sales from its Hong Kong branch rising 268%. And Russian and Middle Eastern buyers are thought to have helped push up the price of diamonds to record levels.

CONTINUED...

http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2011/jun/23/growing-appetite-for-luxuries?intcmp=239

Chairman Mao would roll over in his grave if he had one. His rich descendants are friends of the Bush family.

[Buns_of_Fire]

22. At this point, I'd advise them to invest in some thicker walls and heavier gates.

And maybe some Blackwater-trained guards to accompany them when they dare leave their fortresses. There's a tipping point out there somewhere -- even in the U.S. amongst the American Idol-hypnotized crowd.

There's always a tipping point.

[Octafish]

12. It certainly seems that way, valerief. Remember what Smirko the Warmonkey said...

Money trumps peace." -- George W Bush, Feb. 14, 2007

Remarkable how little press coverage that statement received.

[lonestarnot]

20. !

[Jakes Progress]

5. You ain't seen nothing yet. Just wait until the budget talks are through.

Whatever comes out of it will throw more money at the rich. Count on it.

[Octafish]

13. Seems to be the plan.

Our trouble is that it's not supposed to the Democrat's plan. My party stands for ALL of us, not just the rich.

Gawsh. It's as if the Koch brothers were funding the DLC or something.

[Skidmore]

6. The credit crunch was what made them richer.

That was the method of thievery employed.

[xchrom]

8. +1

[Octafish]

15. Even the molls got in the act.

The Real Housewives of Wall Street: Why is the Federal Reserve forking over $220 million in bailout money to the wives of two Morgan Stanley bigwigs?

EXCERPT...

But if you want to get a true sense of what the "shadow budget" is all about, all you have to do is look closely at the taxpayer money handed over to a single company that goes by a seemingly innocuous name: Waterfall TALF Opportunity. At first glance, Waterfall's haul doesn't seem all that huge — just nine loans totaling some $220 million, made through a Fed bailout program. That doesn't seem like a whole lot, considering that Goldman Sachs alone received roughly $800 billion in loans from the Fed. But upon closer inspection, Waterfall TALF Opportunity boasts a couple of interesting names among its chief investors: Christy Mack and Susan Karches.

Christy is the wife of John Mack, the chairman of Morgan Stanley. Susan is the widow of Peter Karches, a close friend of the Macks who served as president of Morgan Stanley's investment-banking division. Neither woman appears to have any serious history in business, apart from a few philanthropic experiences. Yet the Federal Reserve handed them both low-interest loans of nearly a quarter of a billion dollars through a complicated bailout program that virtually guaranteed them millions in risk-free income.

[Starry Messenger]

9. k&r

[Octafish]

16. Biggest Scam In World History Exposed: Are The Federal Reserve’s Crimes Too Big To Comprehend?

This puts things into perspective.

The Wall Street Pentagon Papers

Biggest Scam In World History Exposed: Are The Federal Reserve’s Crimes Too Big To Comprehend?

By David DeGraw
The Public Record
Dec 10th, 2010

What if the greatest scam ever perpetrated was blatantly exposed, and the US media didn’t cover it? Does that mean the scam could keep going? That’s what we are about to find out.

I understand the importance of the new WikiLeaks documents. However, we must not let them distract us from the new information the Federal Reserve was forced to release. Even if WikiLeaks reveals documents from inside a large American bank, as huge as that could be, it will most likely pale in comparison to what we just found out from the one-time peek we got into the inner-workings of the Federal Reserve. This is the Wall Street equivalent of the Pentagon Papers.

I’ve written many reports detailing the crimes of Wall Street during this crisis. The level of fraud, from top to bottom, has been staggering. The lack of accountability and the complete disregard for the rule of law have made me and many of my colleagues extremely cynical and jaded when it comes to new evidence to pile on top of the mountain that we have already gathered. But we must not let our cynicism cloud our vision on the details within this new information.

Just when I thought the banksters couldn’t possibly shock me anymore… they did.

We were finally granted the honor and privilege of finding out the specifics, a limited one-time Federal Reserve view, of a secret taxpayer funded “backdoor bailout” by a small group of unelected bankers. This data release reveals “emergency lending programs” that doled out $12.3 TRILLION in taxpayer money – $3.3 trillion in liquidity, $9 trillion in “other financial arrangements.”

CONTINUED...

http://pubrecord.org/nation/8622/pentagon-papers-wall-street/

Thanks, Starry Messenger, for getting it. And to think some people actually think this gets covered by Corporate McPravda.

[Name removed]

21. Deleted sub-thread

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[Name removed]

24. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Starry Messenger]

26. Geeze, what did I miss? Deleted subthread, wow.

Thanks for the thread Octafish.

I just got back from a trip and I don't have the focus to google, but I know that periods of financial disaster for us proles usually mean windfall profits for our "betters" throughout the history of capitalism. After all, someone has the money, and it isn't us.

[TBF]

10. This should have a thousand recs - thank you. nt

[Octafish]

23. The triumph of business-class America

From our friends at Salon.com:

The triumph of business-class America

Corporate executives grab an ever bigger piece of the pie, with government help. How long can this go on?

By Andrew Leonard
Monday, Jun 20, 2011 12:16 ET

The fact that income inequality is growing in the United States can hardly be considered breaking news in 2011, but that doesn't mean we shouldn't appreciate every new effort to shine a light on the distressing phenomenon. The best part of the Washington Post's detailed new report on how the rich are getting richer, while the rest of us flounder comes at the end: "This is the first in an occasional series." That's good news: The growing concentration of wealth among the richest Americans is one of the most important stories that reporters attempting to explain where the United States is headed in the 21st century can cover.

The key contribution made by the Post's Peter Whoriskey is to pinpoint exactly who is making all the money.

...(A) mounting body of economic research indicates that the rise in pay for company executives is a critical feature in the widening income gap... The largest single chunk of the highest-income earners, it turns out, are executives and other managers in firms, according to a landmark analysis of tax returns by economists Jon Bakija, Adam Cole and Bradley T. Heim...

Other recent research, moreover, indicates that executive compensation at the nation's largest firms has roughly quadrupled in real terms since the 1970s, even as pay for 90 percent of America has stalled...

CONTINUED...

http://www.salon.com/news/us_economy/?story=/tech/htww/2011/06/20/income_inequality

CEO, as a class, do seem oh so, eh, repuglian these days.

Most importantly: Thank you for the kind words, TBF!

[OnyxCollie]

14. K&R. nt

[Octafish]

25. Thanks, OnyxCollie! Didya see this on authoritarian greedheads?

Why do 'Tea Baggers' and Republicans make such good l'il Nazis?



It's like they're mind-readers.

[SDuderstadt]

27. Prescott Bush was...

not a Nazi, dude.

We've been through this before.

[Octafish]

28. He did big business with them on behalf of his Wall Street chums, sduderstadt.

For those new to the subject:

How Bush's Grandfather Helped Hitler's Rise to Power

So why are you so quick to criticize me? Oh, yeah: Please show me a post where you criticize Prescott or anyone in his family.

[SDuderstadt]

29. I said that W should be...

indicted, prosecuted and convicted, dude.

In the meantime, you are grossly exaggerating Prescott's activities with Fritz Thyssen to make it look like Prescott somehow brought Hitler to power or, worse yet, was a Nazi. If you would stick to actual facts, we wouldn't have these squabbles, dude.

[OnyxCollie]

32. Thanks for the links, Octafish.

I sense significant transformation forthcoming.

Permissions have been given.

The deterrents have been removed.

All the pieces are in place.

Edit to add: Cassandra was cursed.

[amborin]

17. K&R (and great minds think alike:)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=439x1346265

eta: and Cantor's and GOP's continuing efforts to protect the wealthy:

GOP Blew Up Debt Negotiations To Protect Tax Breaks For People Making $500,000 Or More

By Marie Diamond posted from ThinkProgress Economy on Jun 24, 2011 at 5:00 pm

Yesterday House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) and Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ) may well have doomed negotiations
to raise the nation’s debt limit when they walked out over a dispute with Democrats about raising revenues.
Their theatrics bring the country closer to the brink of financial collapse, and observers have described the
move as a “tamper tantrum” and “political grandstanding.” Today, more details emerged about exactly what
Republicans are willing to threaten the global economy over to defend.

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), a member of the bipartisan debt discussion group led by Vice President Joe Biden,
said Republicans chose to “protect taxpayer subsidies for big oil companies, tax breaks for corporate jets,
and tax breaks for millionaires”:

Democrats want to close tax loopholes that benefit oil companies, and eliminate a tax preference that gives
corporate aircraft a friendlier depreciation schedule than commercial aircraft. Additionally, Van Hollen said,
Democrats were proposing to phase out tax deductions and certain credits for people making more than $500,000
a year. These would be paired with a reduction in the tax burden on lower earners, by eliminating existing
limitations on their deductions. <...>
“The message Republicans sent was…unless we accept their lopsided approach…they’re prepared to tank the economy,”
Van Hollen said.
Cantor had been vague about the specifics, saying only that the disagreement had been a “tax issue.” His spokesman,
Brad Dayspring, described the impasse as being over “Democrats’ push to raise taxes” on “individuals, small
businesses, and employers,” which TPM notes is the language Republicans often use to make their position sound
more palatable than “defending tax breaks for millionaires.”

snip


http://thinkprogress.org/

[Octafish]

35. Majority of World Will Face ''Years Of Stagnant Wages''

Lookit what DUer marmar found...

Financial Times: Majority of World Will Face "Years Of Stagnant Wages"

It's an honor to be on the same wavelength as you, amborin. Like we're hooked up through some kind of giant information tubes.

[inna]

18. pure plunder. Megalomaniacal kleptocrats took over and trying to grab all they can,

*while* they can. And it's not just some isolated individuals, it's the whole damn system (most significantly, finance capital).


:nuke:


System failure, time to reboot.

[Octafish]

36. All the corrupted data needs to be isolated, if not deleted or swiped off the hard drive..

If the former chairman of NASDAQ is a crook, who's to say what part of Wall Street isn't crooked?

And if they're the type of people buying politicians, holy cat!, democracy's toast.

[BOG PERSON]

19. what class war?

i don't see class war anywhere. for "war" to take place first there must be a polarization of class forces (b/w bourgeois and proletarians) and there must be some kind of violent confrontation. there is nothing resembling class war in the USA. there isn't even class struggle.

[sabrina 1]

30. Thanks for thread, Octafish. The BiPartisan Senate Commission

that recently handed in its report on the Mortgage Crisis, actually did reveal what Senators from both parties called 'serious corruption and possible criminal activity. They referred their two year findings to the DOJ and were actually getting some coverage on the MSM, but then the OBL story took over the conversation and I have heard nothing more about the status of those findings.

I wonder if it's even possible to stop them anymore. Crimes of such magnitude, yet not even a story in the MSM about them.

[SDuderstadt]

31. "Crimes of such magnitude, yet nary a story in the MSM about it"

You mean like this story?

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/06/24/us-usa-housing-fraud-idUSTRE75N44S20110624

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=439&topic_id=1361733&mesg_id=1361733

[Enthusiast]

33. K&R

This is no coincidence.

[Hotler]

34. k&r eom.