Thanks to the Corona crisis, the financial elites of the USA are earning fabulous profits.
By Jens Bernert.
According to a report by the US business magazine Forbes, the assets of the more than 600 billionaires in the United States of America increased by 434 billion dollars – almost 400 billion euros – between 18 March 2020 and 19 May 2020. (1) This corresponds to an asset growth of 15% – and that in just over eight weeks.
This profit orgy did not end on 19 May 2020, of course, but is still continuing. On the other hand, it is mainly employees and small and medium-sized businesses that have to bleed in the corona crisis. In Germany, too, it is mainly shareholders of large corporations who benefit in the form of billions in gifts for their shareholders, even if short-time working is imposed. (2)
The ORF reported in the article “Super-rich in the USA are getting even richer” of 22 May 2020, citing Forbes (1):
(translation)
“For example, the assets of Amazon boss Jeff Bezos increased by more than 30 percent, those of Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg by more than 46 percent. (…) Facebook’s stock market value has risen by 60 percent since the beginning of the restrictions in mid-March, and Amazon’s by 45 percent. Netflix is up 46 percent and Apple is up 31 percent.“
Forbes provides further figures from the study in the article “The Net Worth Of America’s 600-Plus Billionaires Has Increased By More Than $400 Billion During The Pandemic” (3, 4):
“The top five U.S. billionaires (Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Warren Buffett and Larry Ellison) saw their wealth grow by a total of $75.5 billion.Amazon founder and CEO Jeff Bezos has seen his net worth grow 30.6% in the past two months, boosting it to $147.6 billion; the fortunes of Bezos and Zuckerberg combined grew by nearly $60 billion, or 14% of the $434 billion total.“
So Amazon isn’t the only company making fantastic profits since the Corona lockdown (5). Elon Musk grew by 48% or 11.8 billion dollars. News mogul Rupert Murdoch was able to increase his assets by 13.6% or 2 billion dollars, Steve Ballmer – Microsoft – by 24.2% or 12.8 billion dollars.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg was also able to increase his assets considerably during these eight weeks of the corona crisis, which were considered in the study. In the study mentioned above, the increase in assets is said to be 25 billion dollars (4).
Even before the lockdown, the Facebook boss was involved in protecting the “official saga” of the corona virus – although several experts are up in arms against it (6). In the end, it has brought him a warm shower of money and continues to do so. On March 5, 2020, the IT magazine Heise Online reported on the efforts of Zuckerberg and his government colleagues to censor, downgrade, slander, and make non-conforming news disappear:
(translation)
“The EU Commission has met with Facebook & Co. to coordinate steps against the spread of conspiracy theories surrounding the Covid 19 outbreak. (…)
All participants had assured that they wanted to make ‘reliable news sources’ more prominent, ‘remove prohibited or harmful content’ and protect consumers from ‘misleading advertising’ (…)
According to Jourová, the tools developed in the Code of Conduct, such as the rapid shutdown of exposed fake accounts and social bots and the withdrawal of advertising revenue from those who profit from false reports, have helped the signatories to react quickly. The code will be officially evaluated for the first time in spring. Facebook boss Mark Zuckerberg had at the same time publicly assured that he would take decisive action against false information about the corona virus.” (8)
Zuckerberg’s procedure was described by Heise Online the day before – on 4 March – in the article “Facebook wants to delete coronavirus false information” as follows (8):
“Unlike other issues, Facebook wants to take action against the spread of lies and false information about the coronavirus. (…) Meanwhile, the World Health Organization (WHO) is getting as many free ad spaces on Facebook as it needs. And other organizations are also being supported with vouchers for advertising, among other things.“
Some are richly rewarded and the rest suffer (9,6).
Sources:
(1) https://orf.at//stories/3166773/
(2) https://www.nachdenkseiten.de/?p=61272
(3) https://www.forbes.com/sites/tommybeer/2020/05/21/the-net-worth-of-americas-600-plus-billionaires-has-increased-by-more-than-400-billion-during-the-pandemic/
(4) https://americansfortaxfairness.org/wp-content/uploads/2020-5-21-Billionaires-Press-Release-at-Two-month-Covid-Pandemic-FINAL.pdf
(5) https://blog.fdik.org/2020-05/s1590930255.html
(6) https://www.rubikon.news/artikel/weltweiter-widerstand
(7) https://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/Coronavirus-EU-aktiviert-erstmals-Fruehwarnsystem-gegen-Desinformation-4676943.html
(8) https://www.heise.de/meldung/Facebook-will-Coronavirus-Falschinformationen-loeschen-4675675.html
(9) http://blauerbote.com/2020/05/30/coronakrise-pluendernde-milliardaere/
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Thanks to the author for the right to publish.
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Image source: Minerva Studio / shutterstock
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This article was first published by Blauer Bote.
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