The Rich are Getting Richer

Here is a bit from a blog at Forbes magazine:

Unemployment is at 9.2%, the ruins of the U.S. housing market are still smoldering after the 2008 bonfire, and Greece, Italy and Portugal are balancing on the razor’s edge of default. But the planet’s rich are getting richer, especially in the growing BRIC economies.

In fact, there are more rich people on the planet today than before the credit crisis destroyed Lehman Brothers and Bear Stearns and nearly crippled the World’s financial industry.

A study from Capgemini and Bank of America Merrill Lynch showed that the World’s population of High Net Worth Individuals (HNWI) with $1 million or more in investable assets (read, extra cash) jumped 8.3% over the last year to a total of 10.9 million people. That number is up from the 2007 tally of 10.1 million tycoons.

There is much more. Go read the whole post.

The only people "paying the price" of the 2008 financial collapse are the bottom 90% who have paid with loss of jobs, loss of houses, more insecurity, and a bleaker future. The rich have ridden through the storm fairly well. Sure they had a momentary blip where their pile of assets fell by 30% to 50%, but they have now recovered. It is quickly becoming a fading memory. The real victims are the bottom 90% of the population which will take a generation to recover from this disaster.

Sadly, the government doesn't show much awareness of the unfairness of this situation. The bottom 90% didn't cause the collapse. That was the action of a tiny sliver to the ultra-rich. But they have all recovered and are doing better than ever. It is only the innocent victims who are still smarting from the pain and who yet have no clear idea when the "recession" will end. (Officially the recession is over, but if you lost a job or a house, the "recession" is far from over.)