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Campaign For America’s Future / Op-Ed
Published: Sunday 13 November 2011
“If America’s ultra [wealthy] averaged returns on those investments not that far above 5 percent over the next ten years, they could pay the wealth tax and still end the decade with higher personal net worths than when the decade began.”
The Global Super-Rich Stash: Now $25 Trillion
Another super-slick global financial analysis firm has just tallied how much net worth is sloshing around in the pockets of the world’s most spectacularly wealthy. So when will the time finally come to stop the counting — and start the taxing?
In today’s astoundingly unequal global economy, banks can go either of two routes — or both — to bag ever bigger returns. They can squeeze the 99 percent with nuisance fees and penalties. Or they can cater to the richest of the rich.
But both routes have bumps. The 99 percent can squeeze back, as they did earlier this month when Americans by the tens of thousands shut down their Bank of America accounts to protest the bank’s $5 debit card greed grab. And the richest of the rich? To cater to these fortunates, you have to first find them.
That can be difficult. Fortunately, financial industry consulting firms have stepped up to help. These firms have started publishing annual global wealth surveys that pinpoint where banks — and luxury retailers and anyone else who wants in on top 1 percent action — can find “high” and “ultra high” net-worth individuals.
Last week, a new global firm — the Singapore-based Wealth-X — entered the global wealth survey fray, joining a crowded field that already includes Capgemini and Merrill Lynch, the Boston Consulting Group, Credit Suisse, and Deloitte LLP.
Each of these firms has tried to carve out a unique market niche. The Wealth-X specialty? The world of the ultra rich, those individuals who can claim at least $30 million in net worth. And the researchers at Wealth-X haven’t just counted these ultras in their first annual global wealth census. They’ve tiered them.
For the entire world — and major nations — Wealth-X teases out subsets of the super rich, from the $30-to-$50 million set to the $1 billion and up. For the first time, thanks to Wealth-X, we can compare the barely ultra with the comfortably ultra and those super ultras who can make the comfortables seem pinched.
“Our report maps exactly where the biggest money is located,” Wealth-X CEO Mykolas Rambus boasted at a Geneva news conference last week, “and just how much there is.”
The Wealth-X research answers “how many” as well. The firm counts 185,795 individuals worldwide with at least $30 million net worth. These ultra high net-worth individuals — UHNWs — hold $25 trillion in combined wealth.
The global economy may be tottering, the new Wealth-X World Ultra Wealth Report 2011 goes on to inform us, but the “lifestyle habits of UHNW individuals have not been severely impacted.“
“Simply put,” the Wealth-X analyst team gushes, “the world’s wealthy elite are in a class of their own.”
In that class, Americans pack a bunch of the rows. Of the near 186,000 global ultra rich, 57,860 — 30 percent — carry U.S. passports. These American ultras hold a combined net worth of $7.6 trillion, an average of $131.4 million each.
That average masks a huge concentration of wealth at America’s summit. The 455 deep-pocketed Americans worth at least $1 billion hold half a trillion more in wealth than the 29,415 Americans in the Wealth-X $30-to-$50 million tier.
These numbers need a bit more context to have any real meaning, and we can take a stab at providing that context by glancing over at the “super committee” deficit-reductions deliberations now underway in Washington, D.C.
The 12 lawmakers on this congressional super committee — six Republicans and six Democrats — are trying to trim $1.2 trillion off federal red ink over the next ten years. On their chopping block: Medicare, Social Security, and assorted other programs essential to the well-being of America’s 99 percent.
The super committee reporting-out deadline comes next week. No one knows how much budget-cutting pain the panel will be recommending. But panel members could actually avoid all that pain — and raise over $1 trillion in new money for investing in America — simply by subjecting all U.S. individual net worth over $30 million to a modest wealth tax.
Our U.S. ultra wealthy, Wealth-X calculates, together hold almost $5.9 trillion over this $30 million threshold. An annual 5 percent wealth tax on this overage would raise over $293 billion a year, or $2.9 trillion over the next decade — more than double the $1.2 trillion the super committee is so desperately looking to find.
The most amazing part of this? America’s ultra rich could easily pay this 5 percent annual wealth tax for the next ten years and remain as rich as ever.
That’s because wealth begets wealth. All those trillions of dollars America’s ultras are currently holding don’t sit under some mattress. The ultra wealthy have those trillions invested in assets that generate short- and long-term returns.
If America’s ultras averaged returns on those investments not that far above 5 percent over the next ten years, they could pay the wealth tax and still end the decade with higher personal net worths than when the decade began.
Back in the 1990s, a public-spirited financial industry superstar — multimillionaire San Francisco money manager Claude Rosenberg — spent a sizeable chunk of his personal fortune campaigning to get a similar message across about the enormous wealth of the wealthy.
Rosenberg’s particular point: America’s fabulously rich could hike their annual contributions to charity by tenfold and still end up with higher personal fortunes. Rosenberg started a research group dedicated to sharing this message and the analysis behind it. He wrote a book and peppered the periodicals that rich people read with op-eds that detailed his group's number crunching.
In the year 2000, Rosenberg’s researchers would document, households with $1 million or more in income could have given $128 billion more to charity than they actually did in fact give, without losing any net worth over the course of the year.
Claude Rosenberg died three years ago at age 80, his message to the super richessentially totally ignored. The vast increase in charitable giving by the rich he had hoped to inspire never materialized.
The message to the rest of us from Rosenberg’s noble effort?
The excess wealth our ultra wealthy hold, if put to the public good, could change the trajectory of America’s future. The ultra wealthy don’t seem to be willing to do that putting on their own.
With a few tweaks of our tax code, we could do that putting for them.
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ABOUT Sam Pizzigati
Labor journalist Sam Pizzigati edits Too Much, an online weekly on excess and inequality, and also serves as the co-editor of Inequality.Org, the Web portal to all things online related to the economic gaps that divide us.
Currently an associate fellow at the Institute for Policy Studies in Washington, D.C., Pizzigati has written widely on economic inequality, with op-eds and articles in the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and a host of other newspapers and periodicals.
Pizzigati played an active role on the team that generated The Nation magazine 2008 special issue on extreme inequality, an effort that won the 2009 Hillman Prize for magazine journalism.
A co-editor of the primary text on trade union journalism, Pizzigati has edited publications for four national unions. He spent 20 years directing the publishing operations of America's largest union, the 3.2 million-member National Education Association.
Pizzigati's latest book, Greed and Good: Understanding and Overcoming the Inequality that Limits Our Lives (Apex Press, 2004), won an "outstanding title" of the year ranking from the American Library Association's Choice book review journal.
Pizzigati lives in Maryland. He has served on the boards of directors of Progressive Maryland, the state's most respected voice for working families, and United for a Fair Economy, the Boston-based national economic justice advocacy group.
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18 comments on "The Global Super-Rich Stash: Now $25 Trillion"
ygchmbhg
November 15, 2011 9:45pm
Please, please begín writing out billions and trillions. $128,000,000,000 or even $128,000 millions has moré justified impact than just $128 billions! And trillions? So it's a bit moré space? $4,900,000,000,000. Or even $4,9 million millions. Or just plain ol' $4.9 trillion? Sadly the latter has no meaning comparedn to the former!
November 15, 2011 11:30am
Re the not very subtle antisemitism above (by GMARKS), the Christian greedy far outnumber the Jewish greedy, by at least 100 to 1, but the Jewish advocates for social justice far outnumber the Christian ones by about the same proportion.
November 14, 2011 11:05am
At the heart of the French Revolution that began the modern era of Western history was a simple problem-- the French nobility refused to pay their share. Louis XVI and his finance ministers did everything they could to beg, cajole and wheedle the aristocracy into helping lift the Frence STATE (not its wealthy citizens, who were a separate matter!) out of its debt.Their inability to bring about this 'simple' change sparked the French Revolution....Allow me to paraphrase Lenin: capitalism in its highest stage (imperialism) creates an untenable contradiction between democratic political institutions and the tyrany of corporate power. This week's issue on our lack of freedom in the workplace is an excellent example of this. But so is what is happening in Washington. We are at a point at which the power of Corporate America has paralysed our democratic institutions. Even in Europe, you have banks dictating policy not just to governments (Greece, Italy, Spain, Ireland) but to the EU itself.The biggest problem we have today in the US-- to my mind-- is the lack of a strongly organized opposition. We need, first and foremost, a well-organized Labor Movement. It is a never-ending source of admiration and pride to me that the 10% of our population that is organized into Unions (with all the faults and divisions the Labor Movement shows) is at the core of the coalition that has held Corporate America at bay since Clinton declared Organized Labor to be superfluous. Our candidates won all over America last week, and clobbered the Right in Ohio.DuBois said it nearly a hundred years ago: the Black-Labor alliance is at the heart of all social and political progress in this country. When that coalition works, as it did with Obama, first in the Primary, then in the general election, we win. Where it does not, we lose.Today we need to win. For ourselves, for our children, for our children's children. And win we can.
November 14, 2011 8:03am
For ten years, in my NY Observer col and elsewhere, I have advocated a 5%-8% wealth tax collectible on a rotating basis by alphabet quintile (year 1: surnames A-F; year 2: G-M etc). This creates a 4-year "earn back" cycle that defeats the argument that taxing the rich inspires entrepreneurial/investor apathy
November 14, 2011 8:02am
For ten years, in my NY Observer col and elsewhere, I have advocated a 5%-8% wealth tax collectible on a rotating basis by alphabet quintile (year 1: surnames A-F; year 2: G-M etc). This creates a 4-year "earn back" cycle that defeats the argument that taxing the rich inspires entrepreneurial/investor apathy
November 14, 2011 7:05am
Many of our American Ultras are trust fund babies - and blissfully ignorant of the workings of their wealth. Not much point in addressing them, as Claude Rosenberg found. It's the class of handlers - professional money managers, lawyers and accountants, who must be persuaded, convinced or coerced into contributing a fair share to the public good. But their salaries depend on what and how they skim.
November 14, 2011 6:40am
Reading these silly responses - I am reminded of quotes from the Terror. Silly Americans like Bionicknight think we can hurt the rich by refusing to work or purchase their wares. Nonsense.
There is and will be a surplus of labor as 3/5ths of the planet become redundant in the next 25 years. [Read Jeremy Rifkin - The End of Work 1996]
Americans aren't yet angry enough -- Bangladesh and Brazil haven't replaced enough of us yet. Tyranny yields NOTHING without a demand. Billionaires must be made to understand that there is no where to hide. They won't be safe here.
Gated communities won't be enough once the Terror begins. The super rich will have to live behind razor wire, moats and electric fences. Their trophy wives and demon spawn will need round the clock security - as Latin style equalization tactics take their toll.
There will be no tears from this Main st merchant. I understand all too well the leap from small business to oligarchy.... and you don't get there without crushing skulls. The super rich are guilty by their fruits alone.
Government picks the winners and losers... subsidizes favorites, destroys competition and bestows non competitive advantage to the few, at the expense of the many.
Actually, I'm surprised there hasn't been more blood. The LA Times story about the Rosen - somebody - it's always a Rosen, or Golden or Silver somebody... who just got gazillions from the O administration for a vaccine we don't need... paid for by the 99%....The game is the same throughout history.
The players are the same throughout history. The difference is how long the hosts put up with the tyranny.
This armchair revolutionary wants to see necklace bombs and fire bombed McMansions. It's the only language they understand. But we're not quite there yet.
TODAY - you cannot park a black Mercedes on the streets of Paris or Berlin. It won't be the same car when you return. This story never makes the US papers or media.... the French... they know how to deal with these ba$tards. Ditto for Germans [ ahem!] and the Italians are about to teach us a few things...
November 14, 2011 2:17pm
The armchair revolutionary still believes that the use of violence is somehow "redemptive" because of the belief that violence is the way of the world, and the use of violence to obtain a redress of grievances is inevitable and desirable.
That's why there are those who spin revolutionary dreams of necklace bombs hung around some of the 1% (particularly those 1%'ers who are in the public eye) in order to bring the truth about grotesque injustice and inequality home in as graphic a manner as possible, while still others secretly yearn to gleefully dance around the remains of looted and fire-bombed McMansions and desecrate the burned bodies of the former occupants.
The problem is that the deep-seated, unconscious belief in both the social efficacy and ultimacy of violence really does nothing to actually solve the problem of the ultra-wealthy's parasitical consumption of the 99%. Truthfully, what good will putting necklace bombs around the necks of the ultra-wealthy's trophy wives and "demon spawn" children do? Violence may appear to be the only language that the ultra-wealthy understand, but violence has a nasty tendancy to escalate and consume more victims. Ultimately, the same violent tactics which were used against the ultra-wealthy will be deployed against those who instigated the violence in the beginning, and "Latin style equalization tactics" become rather unpleasant issues when they're being used against you by someone else who thinks you have more than they do.
Violence is a sharp and dangerous two-edged sword, and although Americans aren't angry with the ultra-wealthy to engage in violence yet, but should Americans decide to engage in a violent revolt against the ultra-wealthy and engage in a American-style Jacobin Terror, it will be swiftly put down with the same type of violence, and it will be inflicted upon Americans by the Federal government in the name of "preserving law and order".
November 14, 2011 1:58am
Yada yada ... but at least folks have started talking about the thems and the usses ... the ones persenters and the ninety niners and hey, all that inequality of the commons distribution. It's taken some time coming ... now there's work to be done. Cleaning house.
November 13, 2011 9:44pm
What will the ultra-wealthy do when the 99% go on a massive, nationwide general strike that lasts much longer than a single day?
How will the ultra-wealthy manage when their favorite restaurants, day spas, hotels and resorts, haute couture boutiques and other high-end retailers are closed because the employees refuse to work for table scraps and crumbs, and demand to be paid a real living wage which will pull them and their families out of impoverishment and (most importantly) keep them out of impoverishment?
And how will those ultra-wealthy entertainers and sports stars feel when the audience turns their backs on them en masse and refuse to set foot in a movie theater, sports arena, concert venue or turn on the TV set because they don't have the disposable income to spend on entertainment any more?
If a nationwide general strike were to occur, the agenda of the ultra-wealthy would come crashing down around them when they discover that the 99% aren't going to play the ancient oligarchical game of "have and have-not" any more, and the 99% are taking back control of their destiny.
November 13, 2011 5:48pm
I was thinking yesterday, what good will the trillions do them in the long run. If they want to live in luxury, who will staff the resorts? Who will wait on them in restaurants? Maybe the key is to have the 99% refuse to work unless it is for MORE than a subsistence wage. Then you could have a cumulative effect. As long as people agree to work for crumbs, most Americans will not have a fair shake and we will continue to be slaves to the rich. It will be the 1850's all over again.
November 13, 2011 3:30pm
A secular modern state is based on SOCIAL CONTRACT, created by all of its inhabitants to serve each and every one of through legislation, adjudication and enforcement. A social contract is the legal instrument whereby the citizens give up their right to violence to the state to exercise justice on their behalf. A state which becomes hijacked "under god" or "under corporate elite" is no longer a civil state nor it is based on social contract nor it serve its inhabitants as promised. It becomes illegitimate. The crisis in the modern world governments is one of legitimacy and all of them ARE hijacked by the elite or "gods", serving them at the expense of the 99%.
November 13, 2011 3:27pm
IN THE YEAR OF 1956 AFTER 10 YEARS IN THE "COMCHIES" HARD LABOR CAMP. WE MADE A REVOLUTION, AGAINST TWO ENEMIES OF THE HUMAN RACE... THE HUNGARIAN COMMUNIST POPPET REGIME AND THE BOLSEVIC SOVIET UNION'S ARMY THE RESULT WAS SLOW BUT BOTH DIED ! KAPUT ! GONE WITH THE STINCKEN WIND! BUT YOU CANT ALL OF " 99 % REALLY UNITE TO FIGHT A " MONEY BAG "!!!!!! JUST WAITING FOR A FEW TO SACRIFICE THEM SELF1 FOR YOU ! CAN YOU SHAME YOURSELF ???
November 13, 2011 2:57pm
HEY 99%! Are you angry? Use it!
We have POWER! “Buying Power.” And, it’s about time we used it. Here’s how.
STOP BUYING THINGS. STOP BUYING…EVERYTHING.
WE CAN INSTANTLY STOP THE FLOW OF BILLIONS OF DOLLARS.
STRANGLE THE COMPANIES THAT ARE KILLING US!
Companies want our money, but they don’t want to help America get back on its feet?
We are being starved, now let’s starve those greedy corporations who took our money.
We want companies to hire us, politicians to vote for us, and this is how to force it.
We have an incredible mobile army of millions and millions and millions of people!
Let’s combine the power that we all have. VOTE, by NOT spending.
Stop buying as much as you can. Stop buying from ALL of the big corporations, retailers and banks; Wal-Mart, Walgreen’s, CVS, Rite Aid, Kroger, Costco, Target, Home Depot, Best Buy, Sears, Lowe’s, Supervalu, Procter & Gamble, Unilever, Georgia Pacific, RJR, Brown & Williamson, Kraft Global, Sara Lee, Tyson, BP, Shell Oil, Exxon Mobile, Hewlett-Packard, AT&T, Sprint, Dell, Microsoft, Dow Chemical, Chevron, Kimberly-Clark, Coca-Cola, Pepsi, J.P. Morgan Chase, Citigroup, Wells Fargo, Bank of America, Capital One, Ford, Chrysler, GM, Disney, Macy’s, Kohl’s, The Gap, Penny’s, Colgate, Nike, Staples, Office Depot, Lilly, Johnson & Johnson, Avon, Starbucks, McDonald’s, Wendy’s, Burger King, Kellogg’s, Dean Foods, General Mills, etc., etc., etc. All of them!
Add your own companies to our list and pass it on.
Don’t use global banks. Move your money from a big bank to a neighborhood bank.
Don’t use your credit cards or ATM’s…at all.
Don’t shop any retail chain stores. Shop local, or mom and pop shops.
Don’t buy gasoline. Walk, take a bus, car pool, or ride a bike.
Don’t buy any extras like music, movies, electronics, or toys…nothing.
BUY AS LITTLE AS POSSIBLE, FOR AS LONG AS POSSIBLE.
STOP SPENDING OUR BILLIONS OF DOLLARS AND WATCH WHAT HAPPENS.
Greedy global companies will be left in shock not knowing what to do.
Wall Street, the oil barons, corporate fat cats, stockholders, executives, marketers, retailers, politicians, and President Obama, will be asking us, the 99%, what we want!
“WE” WILL FORCE WALL STREET AND CORPORATIONS TO HELP AMERICA!
We have already started.
V
November 13, 2011 2:30pm
Of course, the super committee of super idiots and "our" do-nothing president, would not even dream of imposing a paltry 5% tax on those worth over 10 million. Of course not - they are among the rich that pay them to treat the 99%ers like we just don't matter.
We may have elected the liars, but they are bought and paid for by the rich!
November 13, 2011 2:00pm
Thanks for this contribution. May your voice be widely heard.
November 13, 2011 1:17pm
I am so grateful to them. In the last thirty years they have done a wonderful job in China.