The Next Gilded Age ... This Generation's Carnegies, Rockefellers and Vanderbilts

The world's super-rich hold the greatest concentration of wealth since the turn of the 20th century. 

According to The Guardian, there are now 1,542 billionaires in the world.  Meanwhile, last year, the collective wealth of billionaires increased almost a fifth – to six trillion dollars.  For context, that's more than almost every country's GDP... except the top 4 (China, United States, India, and Japan). 

The first Gilded Age was established by monopolies in US rail, oil, steel, and banking.

 

 

Income equality was extreme with the Vanderbilts being worth $185 billion due to his railroad empire, Andew Carnegie being worth $309 billion due to his steel empire, and John D. Rockefeller built an Oil empire (it controlled about 90% of the American oil business) that netted him $336 billion. 

It's interesting to look at the transition from the richest in the late 1800's to the richest in 2017 ... the transition from industries like Steel, Oil and Rail, into companies like Amazon, Microsoft and Walmart. 

While there are more "super-rich" today than before, our wealthiest individuals don't compare to before. Jeff Bezos is worth approximately $90 billion, Bill Gates is worth approximately $90 billion, and the Walton family has a combined net worth of about $149 billion. You can check out a full list of the top 10 richest people here.

Let me know when your name makes that list.  I'll do the same.