Quick edit: Piketty portfolio
1 min read 24 May 2023, 09:51 PM ISTAccording to a study released by fund manager Janus Henderson, the world’s 1,200 largest publicly listed companies issued total dividends of $327 billion in the first quarter of 2023, up 12% year-on-year and a record figure
PremiumEver since Thomas Piketty flagged worsening inequality as a problem so long as returns on capital exceed the rate of income growth, as the post-industrial trend has been, rough proxies have been drafted for comparison. According to a study released by fund manager Janus Henderson, the world’s 1,200 largest publicly listed companies issued total dividends of $327 billion in the first quarter of 2023, up 12% year-on-year and a record figure. Global growth in output, measured by all incomes added up, would’ve barely been a third of that rate at best, and could slow further as economic impulses weaken. The contrast is far from perfect, but the rate divergence is stark enough to illustrate how much better asset owners have fared as a class than the broad base of earners, which includes salary-earning people. The hypothesis that covid policies, by and large, enriched the rich cannot easily be tested, but we have several signs of it. Reactive responses of statist action could cause economic suffocation, as we have seen in the past, but a search for a way out must not flag. Individually, a rational response would be: If you can’t beat them, join them. Pile into dividend-paying stocks.
