Yes, the rich, as we have been reporting by the numbers, are getting richer.
According to the Federal Reserve, most stock profits go to the wealthiest 10 percent of Americans, who owned 87 percent of the available shares in this year’s first quarter.
The proportion was 82.4 percent in 2009, after the Great Recession’s shakeout. Since then, share prices collectively have soared, delivering a bonanza to fewer and fewer investors.
About 55 percent of Americans owned stock either directly or in a fund or retirement program in April, according to a Gallup Poll survey, compared to 67 percent in 2002.
TREND FORECAST: Even though equities are owned primarily by the rich, when the markets crash, it will be felt on Main Street.
Indeed, not only are the Federal Reserve and Washington’s overt money pumping and tax-break schemes inflating equities to drive up profits, they are also keeping it artificially inflated to maintain the illusion that the fundamentals of the economy are sound.
When Wall Street crashes, the sound-bite headlines of disaster will be a loud message to John and Jane Doe of the true state of the economy. Already wracked in fear, out of work and/or incomes declining, the consumer market, which accounts for some 70 percent of U.S. GDP, will severely dry up.
