Billionaires Are Partying in Space While Planet Earth Burns
At a time when people around the world are suffering from shortages due to supply chain bottlenecks, megalomanic capitalists are organizing space flights with B-list celebrities — further proof of the urgency of separating the billionaires from their billions.
Amazon CEO Jeff Bezo’s Blue Origin crew in Van Horn, Texas after its successful flight into space. (Joe Raedle / Getty Images)
As a big fan of the original Star Trek, I have to confess that it was kind of neat to see Captain Kirk actually go into space. But there is a real issue here about the silly games of the superrich that is worth some thought.
There have been numerous stories and papers about the huge increase in the wealth of the superrich since the pandemic began. Virtually all of this is due to the run-up in the stock market during this period. Part of that is bounce back, the S&P 500 lost almost a third of its value between its pre-pandemic peak in February of 2020 and its pandemic trough a month later. If we want to tell a really dramatic story we can start at the pandemic trough and take the rise in the stock market from March 20.
But even if we are being serious, there has been an extraordinary run-up in the stock market in the last twenty months. The S&P 500 is more than a third higher than its pre-pandemic peak.
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