Nomi Prins
Review via Jacobin.com
During the pandemic, Prins explains, “too big to fail” became “too big to correct.” As economies ground to a halt around the globe, central banks printed trillions more to keep markets afloat. The result has been perhaps the single greatest transfer of wealth in human history. Between the fourth quarters of 2019 and 2020, she writes, the planet’s more than two thousand billionaires saw their net worth increase by $1.9 trillion — a figure that has only increased in the years since. In December of 2020, when the United States averaged approximately 2,500 COVID deaths per day, the Dow Jones Industrial Average soared to a then record 30,606.48. Meanwhile, poverty rose from 9.3 percent in June of that year to 11.7 percent in November, with eight million more people falling below the poverty line. The latest Congressional Budget Office report indicates that the poorest half of the country now holds just 2 percent of its wealth.
