The number of billionaires in the US has more than doubled in the last decade, from 267 in 2008 to 607 last year, according to investment bank and financial services company UBS.
We are now officially in the longest U.S. economic expansion in history — one perhaps best characterized by the excesses of extreme wealth and an ever-widening chasm between the unfathomably rich and everyone else.
Big-money deals are getting bigger, from corporate mergers and acquisitions, to individuals buying luxury penthouses, sports teams, yachts and all-frills pilgrimages to the ends of the earth. And while these deals grab headlines, there is a deeper trend at work. The number of billionaires in the United States has more than doubled in the last decade, from 267 in 2008 to 607 last year, according to UBS.
But there are also signs of struggle and stagnation at lower-income levels. The wealthiest fifth of Americans hold 88 percent of the country's wealth, a share that has grown since before the crisis, Federal Reserve data through 2016 shows. Meanwhile, the number of people receiving federal food stamps tops 39 million, below the peak in 2013 but still up 40 percent from 2008 even though the country's population has only grown about 8 percent.
Undergraduate tuition at Ivy League mainstay Columbia University is a hair under $60,000 a year, up by half from $39,000 in the 2008 school year.Hedge fund boss Ken Griffin set a record when he bought a $238 million penthouse condominium on"Billionaires' Row" just off New York City's Central Park.
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