Sunday, June 26, 2016

Brexit and deep pockets

The British voters’ decision to leave the European Union caused ripples across all major global equity markets. Bloomberg Billionaires Index says billionaires lost 3.2 percent of their total net worth, now estimated at $3.9 trillion.

Brexit-caused losses of the world’s 400 richest people amounted to $USD127.4 billion in a single day, Bloomberg estimates. Altogether, Britain’s 15 richest people lost “only” $5.5 billion. British co-founder of stockbroker Hargreaves Lansdown, Peter Hargreaves, lost the most, seeing his fortune shrink by 19 percent to US$2.9 billion. Hargreaves was the largest donor to the Leave campaign, donating £3.2 million, according to the UK's Electoral Commission.

Britain’s wealthiest person Gerald Cavendish Grosvenor dropped more than $1 billion.

Amancio Ortega, Europe’s richest person, hemorrhaged $6 billion. Many other mega rich individuals took a massive hit, including Bill Gates and Amazon magnate Jeff Bezos, who lost over $1 billion each.

The SOYMB blog is shedding no tears for those blood-sucking leeches. 400 people losing $127.4 billion is nothing comparing to 1.274 billion living on $0.40 per day. This is capitalism all over. The super-rich lose a bit of their money and it is news. The rest of us die in wars to make them rich and you hear hardly anything about it. We won't lose any sleep over concern for those poor ultra-wealthy elites who have lost some of the book-value of their ill-gotten gains garnered from the hard work of common workers.


1 comment:

Anonymous said...

When they say 'lost it' what do they mean exactly? Is it transferred to other capitalists? Or is it gone forever and what does that mean? In fact what is 'it'? Notes and coin, assets, capital?