by Bruce Tyson

Created on: March 13, 2010

Nowhere are the trends of global finance more visible than in the Forbes list of world billionaires. The recently updated list reflects (1) the shifting of economic focus away from the United States and (2) the continued concentration of the world’s wealth among the few.

Shifting economic influence

Since the United States began its pursuit of mediocrity, jobs and money have been fleeing to other countries. This trend has been in place for years, but now that the world’s richest man is no longer American, we have a new symbol to remind us what has happened. The world’s richest man, Carlos Slim Helu, is from one of the world’s poorest and most corrupt countries: Mexico.

The statistics are deeper than the man at the top. American billionaires share of the list has gone down from 45% last year to 40% this year. Signaling a continued trend, only 16% of the newcomers to the list are American, revealing that new concentrations of wealth are in Asia, the new center of economic and political power. The most non-American billionaires from the list come from China, with 27 new Chinese billionaires created last year. The rich are getting richer too: in one year the average wealth of the billionaires has increase $500 million each.

Shifting concentration of wealth

When you consider that the most grievous economic period of a lifetime has eroded the standard of living of millions (perhaps billions) of workers worldwide, you might be startled to realize that these hard times have resulted in over three hundred new billionaires and innumerable millionaires. This is one telltale sign that economic misery for the masses translates to tremendous gain for the world’s power elite.

Warren Buffet, now the world’s third richest man, referred to the bad state of the American economy as “raining gold.” That’s right. Millions of people out of work; taxes going through the roof; trade being intentionally stifled; and inflation, hunger, and homelessness on the rise; is “gold” to the wealthy.

No wonder our politicians who serve the power elite seem so determined to orchestrate a continued economic meltdown: it’s bad for the masses, but great news for their benefactors. The gap between the rich and the poor is wider than it ever has been before with no sign of closing.

The future

The future is clear. More people will join the ranks of the world’s richest power elite as more people are relegated to poverty.

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