The Rich Get Richer

Here's a bit from a BBC news report:

The UK's super-rich have seen a resurgence in their fortunes, the Sunday Times Rich List suggests.

...

But the collective fortunes of the top 1,000 on the list have risen by 30% in the past year - the biggest jump in the list's 22-year history - to £333.5bn.

Last year the top 1,000 saw their fortunes decrease by about £155bn - to £258bn - and the number of billionaires fell from 75 to 43. This time, it has risen by 10 to 53.

Go read the report if you want the gruesome details of how quickly the rich have rebounded from the 2008/9 bump in the road as they race to heap their billions into bigger and bigger piles.

This report has a few interesting tidbits:

The Queen, who is Britain's 245th richest person, saw her personal fortune rise by £20m to £290m.

And...

But Indian-born Anil Agarwal was the highest climber. He moved 60 places up to 10th position thanks to the rising share prices of mining group Vedanta Resources.

His wealth jumped a staggering 583% from £600m to £4.1bn.

Of course that sextupling of his wealth all came as a well deserved reward for hard and honourable labour and not from some trick to defraud the poor, right? Everybody knows that you can sextuple your wealth by simply putting your shoulder to the grindstone and "working hard". Virtue is rewarded. Fraud is always uncovered and the cruel and criminal will always get their just rewards, right?