Lots of moaning minnies are wailing about the economy and a cost of living crisis. Our expert investigated (spent 10 minutes searching the internet) and came to some surprising conclusions and missed some obvious truths.
Some recognised indicators of how well a country is doing is the number of incredibly wealthy people. The number of billionaires has risen by 6 to a record number of 177. Other good news is that the overall, wealth of the richest 250 people in the UK this year is £710.723bn, compared to £658.089 billion in 2021, an 8% rise on last year. Year on year the number of billionaire has been steadily increasing. Could the news get any better? Rishi Sunak and Akshata Murty made the list for the first time, as their joint £730m fortune put them at number 222. Hooray for them. With a bit more of an effort surely they could get into the top 100 next year.
Of course individual wealth is not the only useful metric. A detailed study by Unison found that “FTSE 350 reveals profit margins for the UK’s biggest listed companies were 73% higher in 2021 than pre-pandemic levels in 2019. Even though sales were down in 2021, profits still rocketed”. Unfortunately Unison were all grumpy about this rather than rejoicing that these UK companies were making so much money for their shareholders and owners. While some of this money might have left the country to overseas owners, this still creates work for UK banking staff and accountants so more good news.
Picture credit – Billionaire by Nick Youngson CC BY-SA 3.0 Pix4free