During a year in which so much of the world faced deep poverty, the corrosive effects of austerity, and extreme weather caused by the worsening human-caused climate crisis — from devastating hurricanes to deadly wildfires and floods — one class of individuals raked in more money in 2017 than any other year in recorded history: the world’s billionaires.
According to the Swiss bank UBS’s fifth annual billionaires report published on Friday, billionaires across the globe increased their wealth by $1.4 trillion last year — an astonishing 20 percent — bringing their combined wealth to an astonishing $8.9 trillion.
“The past 30 years have seen far greater wealth creation than the Gilded Age,” the UBS report notes. “That period bred generations of families in the US and Europe who went on to influence business, banking, politics, philanthropy, and the arts for more than 100 years.”
UBS estimates that the world now has a total of 2,158 billionaires, with 179 billionaires created last year. The United States alone is home to 585 billionaires — the most in the world — up from 563 in 2017.
Meanwhile, according to a June report by UN Special Rapporteur on Extreme Poverty and Human Rights Philip Alston, 18.5 million Americans live in extreme poverty and “5.3 million live in Third World conditions of absolute poverty.”
World’s greedy billionaires became 20% richer in 2017 while the rest of the world burned https://t.co/yEW0wHF2bx
— Domenicodimaro97 (@Domenicodmaro97) October 26, 2018
A significant percentage of the “newly created” billionaires are hardly the self-made men — and they are overwhelmingly men — of popular lore. According to UBS, 40 of the 179 new billionaires created last year inherited their wealth — a trend that has driven an explosion of wealth inequality over the past several decades.
According to UBS, this trend will continue to accelerate over the next 20 years, given that there are currently 701 billionaires over the age of 70.
“A major wealth transition has begun. Over the past five years (2012–2017), the sum passed by deceased billionaires to beneficiaries has grown by an average of 17 percent each year,” the UBS report concludes. “Over the next two decades we expect a wealth transition of $3.4 trillion worldwide — almost 40 percent of current total billionaire wealth.”
Help us Prepare for Trump’s Day One
Trump is busy getting ready for Day One of his presidency – but so is Truthout.
Trump has made it no secret that he is planning a demolition-style attack on both specific communities and democracy as a whole, beginning on his first day in office. With over 25 executive orders and directives queued up for January 20, he’s promised to “launch the largest deportation program in American history,” roll back anti-discrimination protections for transgender students, and implement a “drill, drill, drill” approach to ramp up oil and gas extraction.
Organizations like Truthout are also being threatened by legislation like HR 9495, the “nonprofit killer bill” that would allow the Treasury Secretary to declare any nonprofit a “terrorist-supporting organization” and strip its tax-exempt status without due process. Progressive media like Truthout that has courageously focused on reporting on Israel’s genocide in Gaza are in the bill’s crosshairs.
As journalists, we have a responsibility to look at hard realities and communicate them to you. We hope that you, like us, can use this information to prepare for what’s to come.
And if you feel uncertain about what to do in the face of a second Trump administration, we invite you to be an indispensable part of Truthout’s preparations.
In addition to covering the widespread onslaught of draconian policy, we’re shoring up our resources for what might come next for progressive media: bad-faith lawsuits from far-right ghouls, legislation that seeks to strip us of our ability to receive tax-deductible donations, and further throttling of our reach on social media platforms owned by Trump’s sycophants.
We’re preparing right now for Trump’s Day One: building a brave coalition of movement media; reaching out to the activists, academics, and thinkers we trust to shine a light on the inner workings of authoritarianism; and planning to use journalism as a tool to equip movements to protect the people, lands, and principles most vulnerable to Trump’s destruction.
We urgently need your help to prepare. As you know, our December fundraiser is our most important of the year and will determine the scale of work we’ll be able to do in 2025. We’ve set two goals: to raise $150,000 in one-time donations and to add 1,500 new monthly donors by midnight on December 31.
Today, we’re asking all of our readers to start a monthly donation or make a one-time donation – as a commitment to stand with us on day one of Trump’s presidency, and every day after that, as we produce journalism that combats authoritarianism, censorship, injustice, and misinformation. You’re an essential part of our future – please join the movement by making a tax-deductible donation today.
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With gratitude and resolve,
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