Inflation, Interest Rates, the Stock Market & Billionaires

It’s tough to be a billionaire these days.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell gave a speech a week or so ago on interest rates. To battle inflation, Powell said the Fed will keep raising them and will — for the unforeseeable future — keep them up.

A few minutes later the stock market started to drop. The S&P fell 3.4%. Nasdaq — where Microsoft, Amazon, Tesla and Alphabet reside — lost over 4%.

Billionaires by the bunch took hits totaling $78 billion. Here’s a short list of billionaires with recognizable names and what they lost.

• *Amazon’s Jeff Bezos took a $6.8 billion loss
• *Elon Musk lost $5.5 billion
• *Warren Buffett had his portfolio lose $2.7 billion
• *Bill Gates lost $2.7
• *Google cofounder, Sergey Brin saw his fortune fall below $100 billion

This has been a tough year for billionaires and the ultra rich. The 500 richest people on the planet lost $1.4 trillion in the first half of 2022. It’s the biggest fall ever seen for the wealthiest people in the world.