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Now The New York Times reports, on 7 October, on the windfall experienced by three individuals associated with Moderna, the Cambridge, Massachusetts firm that markets one and only one product, its COVID-19 vaccine. That windfall has, for the first time, put those individuals’ names on the Forbes Magazine list of the 400 richest persons in the U.S.
The three are Noubar Afeyan, Moderna’s chairman and co-founder, Robert Langer, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology professor and Moderna co-founder, and Timothy Springer, a Harvard Medical School professor and an early investor in Moderna. Each now has a net worth of over $3.5 billion.
When Forbes published, on 5 October, the latest edition of its annual list, it noted that the collected wealth of the 400 richest persons increased by 40 percent over the previous year. The COVID War has certainly done nothing to change the old adage about the rich getting richer; see “$4 TRILLION FOR BILLIONAIRES AS MIDDLE CLASS SHRINKS” (23 Mar 2021).
Their new status shouldn’t surprise the three from Moderna; they were certainly aware, as were their investors, that they were sitting on a potential gold mine, as did Trends Journal, which reported—in “DRUG LORD: COVID IS ‘FOREVER’” (19 Jan 2021)—on Moderna’s CEO, Stephane Bancel, cashing in Moderna stock worth some $40 million.
TREND FORECAST: The COVID War has been a financial windfall for many, and especially for those associated with providing the vaccines that the world sees as the main line of defense against the virus; see, for example:
- “DRUG COMPANIES CASHING IN ON COVID” (11 May 2021)
- “DRUG LORDS’ VAX BOOM BOOMING” (8 Jun 2021)
- “DRUG LORDS VAX MONEY GRAB GETTING BIGGER” (17 Aug 2021)
Nor should any Trends Journal reader be surprised at reading this article and experiencing a sense of déjà vu, having read “VAX MINTS NEW BILLIONAIRES” (25 May 2021).
Moreover, in our economic section of the Trends Journal, weekly we have been reporting on the record breaking merger and acquisition activity and “Bigs Getting Bigger.”
Indeed, supporting our Trend Forecasts of the rich getting richer while We the People working on the Plantation of Slavelandia keep getting poorer, as reported by Zero Hedge last week, “THE US IS OFFICIALLY A BANANA REPUBLIC: THE TOP 1% NOW OWN MORE WEALTH THAN THE ENTIRE MIDDLE CLASS.”