The 2019 rich-list popped screaming into the world in february. Looked around for it's platinum spoon. Then sulked off as the vast bulk of the media moved onto the next event.
We are usually informed by presenters, in tones of exasperated wonder, just how much these bestriding titans are worth. Whether they've risen, or how far they've fallen and despite their bad luck which benevolent charity they've donated so much of their wealth to. Nowadays, even that accolade is only confined to those lucky enough to be placed within the highly coveted bracket of minting it, otherwise known as the top five.
As a grouping, the top ten richest people in the world are worth roughly $743.8 billion. Put another way, if you lined up 37,190,000 people (let's say the entire population of afghanistan, or canada) and then proceeded to hand each individual (babies included) $20,000 no strings attached, collectively they would have the same amount as the worthiest ten richest individuals in the world.
If we continue cannon-balling along with this little mind trip, and take the world's 100 richest people (if my slightly watering eyes, and dodgy mathematics are anywhere near correct), they are collectively worth a clip at $3 trillion +/- $32 billion. Put another way, 151,590,000 destitute people could be given $20,000 a year, which they just might find useful. Already the top 26 billionaires own more than 50% of the world's population Of course this doesn't actually do much for a population of roughly 7.7bn and rising, but with exponential advances in technology, rising inequality, and rising hordes of the unemployable (simply down to technology doing so much work faster, better, and cheaper) there should be more talk about the existential and societal crisis which will descend on us. When that unfortunate self-inflected trauma dovetails with the self-inflected upheaval of climate change... well, might just order another bucket of popcorn.
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