Here's a fun exercise: Take a look at the Forbes Rich List for 2020-2021, and find me a billionare who lost wealth.
What we did over those years will be recorded as one of the single biggest wealth transfers in history.
What we did over those years will be recorded as one of the single biggest wealth transfers in history.
Massive amounts of wealth were "lost"
Of course they weren't actually lost, it's just that the fed started increasing interest rates and the stock market tanked.
Did wealth transfer to the poor? No.
So did these people "transfer wealth" from the poor from 2020 to 2022?
> 2,640 billionaires with a total net wealth of $12.2 trillion in 2023
> 2,668 billionaires with a total net wealth of $12.7 trillion in 2022
> 2,755 billionaires with a total net wealth of $13.1 trillion in 2021
That makes it what atleast 115 billionaires who lost wealth from 2021-23. There would be more with newer entrants.
A word about how Forbes calculate billionaires[1]. If a person is a brand and makes $100M or so a year, they are counted as a billionaire too.[2][3](from the same article).
[1] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-11-09/adam-n... [2] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2023-10-30/two-si... [3] https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2022-10-26/musk-w...
If the stock goes up due to low interest rates, how does it makes it a wealth transfer? Snowflake was valued at 100x revenue at one point. Then market corrected and brought it down to say 10x. Whoever was holding it saw their wealth reduced by 10x. Do you think this wealth was transfered to someone else? To who?
paper gains paper losses