It's not an US specific issue. Central banks all over the world have been pumping money ("printing") into the financial market during the pandemic. This has lead to massive bonuses, large income increases at the top of companies, while buying up their own stock. Some countries (like the US) have also made tax giveaways.

Not that these things don't happen regardless but artificially inflated capital (AKA debt) perpetuates the issue.

Maybe we should realize that increasing debt via banks and financial products is not good in of itself. Especially when we contrast it with investing in technology and workers.

It's no small secret that the world's billionaires saw >50% increase in wealth during the pandemic.

https://www.reuters.com/business/pandemic-boosts-super-rich-...

This is very misleading. They took a massive cut in early 2020, so a lot of that is just recovery.

I don't understand this degree of wealth apologism.

If you had just read the article or looked at the report, you'd see that the time frame involved includes the March 2020 crash, which in fact did not cause a massive cut for billionaires, who maintained 2.0% of the worlds wealth throughout.

I checked total return price of VTI (which basically reflects the performance of the entire US stock market), and it's up 43.5% from the peak of 2020 (some time in February) to the date of the article. The article seems to be measuring household wealth rather than stocks, so it's plausible that the difference in measurement is off, but "> 50%" and 43.5% is close enough that it's not "extremely misleading".

Yep. And in the last week, the rich have lost more money than anybody else.

It’s all a function of two things: 1. what percentage of your wealth is where, (ie home, stock market, checking account) and 2. Even if you and a rich man are both 80% in the stock market, he’ll come out in absolute terms having made more money.

Is that fair? I think so. Both made the same percentage. And if it drops, he’ll lose more absolute money, too.

[Citation needed]

I think the trick is to be the CEO of Amazon when bricks-and-mortar retailers are shuttered by a pandemic. Or to be the CEO of Tesla when their share price rises 500% for some reason.

The words "all" and "doubled" are an exaggeration, though.

unironically; them, us.