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Millionaires and billionaires
OpinionComment
Anthony Rowley
Anthony Rowley

Billionaire CEOs, glamour stocks diverting money from essential public projects

  • Leading entrepreneurs and their glamour stock companies attract a cult following that produces fabulous valuations for them and their firms
  • The system in which they flourish is one that arguably does not provide the optimum allocation of capital to socio-economic needs

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The world’s richest men and most highly compensated CEOs include (from top left) Microsoft founder Bill Gates, Zara owner Amancio Ortega, investor Warren Buffett, Mexican tycoon Carlos Slim, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, Oracle’s Larry Ellison and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg. Photo: EPA
Anthony Rowley

To “get rich is glorious”, former Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping is often quoted as saying, although what he actually said was far more nuanced. Certain prominent Chinese entrepreneurs who appear to have taken Deng literally are paying the price for it now.

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There is little chance of US President Joe Biden cracking down on the super wealthy and powerful to the extent that President Xi Jinping is doing, at least beyond taxing the rich to pay for infrastructure and social care. Maybe he should consider doing so to a greater extent than at present.
It is not only wealth per se that matters, although it does reflect growing income and social inequality in the US and elsewhere. It is the apparent impact that the cult of wealth is having on the deployment of capital and investment in market economies.

What Deng actually said to veteran US reporter Mike Wallace in 1986 was, “what we mean by getting rich is different from what you mean. Wealth in a socialist society belongs to the people. To get rich means prosperity for the entire people.”

Those words resonate now at a time when obscenely high “compensation” is paid to high-flying corporate executives of Western companies. Their net worth makes even the legendary King Croesus of Lydia look impoverished by comparison.
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Teenagers walk through downtown in a rural Delta community on April 29 in Leland, Mississippi, a southern US state with pockets of entrenched poverty. US President Joe Biden has proposed to raise taxes on the rich to fund spending and tax credits meant to fight poverty and reduce child care costs for families, among other programmes. Photo: Getty Images / AFP
Teenagers walk through downtown in a rural Delta community on April 29 in Leland, Mississippi, a southern US state with pockets of entrenched poverty. US President Joe Biden has proposed to raise taxes on the rich to fund spending and tax credits meant to fight poverty and reduce child care costs for families, among other programmes. Photo: Getty Images / AFP
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