The FT reports this morning that:
Britain lagged behind the rest of the world in creating millionaires last year, research has found, as political uncertainty hit the performance of UK equity markets.
Growth in the number of wealthy people in Britain slowed sharply in 2014, rising by 4.2 per cent versus a 13.4 per cent increase in 2013. Those with more than US$1m in investable wealth – not including housing assets or collectable goods – rose by 6.7 per cent globally.
Eric Lascelles, chief economist at RBC Global Asset Management, said the slowing expansion of UK wealth was not down to the economy or the housing market, both of which grew in 2014, but the stock market, which lagged behind counterparts elsewhere.
“Unanswered questions” for investors included the UK election, the prospect of a referendum on EU membership and, for much of the year, the Scottish independence referendum, he said. “Some of those factors constrained the stock market – and equities is the biggest single allocation for high net worth individuals in the UK.”
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What is it people’s obsession with collecting wealth that you don’t really need and at the same time screw over a whole load of other people in the process and then you die!
Human nature and the instinct to feather the nest.
Even the poor of society buy things that they don’t actually need.
A large proportion of these people are sociopaths or psychopaths.
You have to think in a way that is totally alien to most of the population in order to understand them.
You have to regard ordinary working people as a different species say dumb farm animals. If they have any favourites within this herd, individuals that are particularly useful them, then these victims? graduate to the status of household pets, the eventual loss of whom may be very fleetingly mourned.
In short people are commodified and used up.
Modern business language should give you a clue.
For example, in times past employees were described as personnel. Now they are described as “human capital”. This has the connotation of something that can be used up or spent. .
I don’t really need a house with a swimming pool on a Mediterranean island – but it sure is a lot of fun, before you die.
Because it’s fun….?
Unearned wealth is not rising as fast as they would like? Oh dear! Time for a big round of redundancies to appease the shareholders, then! 🙂
Growth in the number of wealthy people slowed…
So the number didn’t decrease: nobody who matters descended into poverty. Not even as far as the indignity of being dependent on a middle-class income.
And why would additional members of the club matter to those who have their wealth already? Would they see it as a benefit, in the zero-sum economy of seeking rents and taking value rather than creating it?