In our episode 37 of Madness Chronicles, we will see the insanity of getting rich during a pandemic. Remember, insanity is a state of mental illness, gross and extremely foolish behavior, and a frenzied or chaotic form of activity. Let’s take a look at the insanity of pandemic profits.
As you begin this journey, keep in mind that businesses have been closed around the world, restaurants have been closed, and millions of people have been out of work. With draconian locks as the norm, some creative folks make golden lemonade out of sour lemons that the rest of the world enjoys.
Take Elon Musk, for example. A young entrepreneur, billionaire creator of Tesla. You know that fancy battery electric car that costs more than most other vehicles. ZeroHedge reports that in the last year, think pandemics, shutdowns, and masks, Musks’ net worth has quadrupled to more than $ 100 billion. That’s a lot of money, no matter how I say it. Pretty impressive, don’t you think?
Well, like everything in 2020, this seems a bit strange. While Tesla shows that a ‘profitable’ spike under the covers shows a strange 2020 story. From 2010 to 2020, while reporting ‘earnings’, Tesla has racked up a staggering $ 5.6 billion in debt. But wait, there were no gains at Tesla? Of course, but it seems that they come in the form of the sale of ‘regulatory credits’. Which was worth a whopping $ 397 million last year. So your profits come from ‘regulatory credits’ that don’t sell new Tesla’s.
It’s pure speculation on my part, but Musk is using the same accounting firm that Dr. Tony Fauci and the CDC use to calculate deaths from the Wuhan virus. I wonder how you can get into the sale of ‘regulatory credits’. Nonetheless, Elon Musk is now the second richest man in the world after Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.
Speaking of Bezos, Forbes reports that since the pandemic began, Bezos’ fortunes have risen to more than $ 230 billion, more than $ 90 billion in the year of the pandemic. Keep in mind, it’s a billion with a B. Other billionaires weren’t so lucky. Take Microsoft’s co-founder, philanthropist, and self-proclaimed vaccine guru, Bill Gates. His wealth jumped a measly 20%, putting his net worth at $ 118 billion since March. The deer in the headlights Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg did much better than Gates with an 85% profit at $ 101.2 billion.
Overall, the United States is home to 644 billionaires. The market must be as fickle as the virus itself because the wealth of these billionaires increased by nearly $ 1 trillion. That puts these 644 people now with a value of $ 3.88 trillion. That would be with a T. During the pandemic, their fortunes increased by a staggering $ 934 billion. The $ 3.88 trillion wealth of these 644 ordinary people is nearly double the $ 2.1 trillion value of the poorest 50% of our nation’s population, whose net worth was not growing.
Pandemics, it turns out, are fun things. According to the CDC, this would be the third pandemic in my life. I had no idea the first two happened, and here we have this one where you can see it if you go to church, but not if you go to Walmart. The damn thing must impact financial fortune in the same way. The small portion of immeasurable billionaires earn a fortune. At the same time, 50% of the rest are sitting at the traffic light. Strange times has been this 2020.
May we wake up from this madness before it is too late. I wish you good health, and until next time, have fun, enjoy life, and watch out for the madness between us. It’s 2020 and it’s getting out of hand.