$600 Trillion in Assets—But Only the Rich Are Getting Richer, Here's Why

The world’s wealth just hit an all-time high of $600 trillion. Sounds incredible, right? But here’s what’s actually wild: most of that growth isn’t real money—it’s just numbers on a screen.

McKinsey Global Institute dug into where all this wealth is coming from, and the findings are jarring. Since 2000, more than a third of the $400 trillion increase in global wealth was pure paper gains—asset prices shooting up while the actual economy barely moved. Another 40% was just inflation eating away at real value. That leaves only 30% from genuine investment in productive activities. In other words, every single dollar invested generated two dollars in debt to prop up the system.

The Wealth Game Has Rigged Rules

Here’s the uncomfortable part: this asset inflation machine is designed to make the already-wealthy richer while leaving everyone else behind.

The top 1% now holds 35% of U.S. wealth, averaging $16.5 million per person. In Germany, it’s 28% with $9.1 million per capita. Why does it keep concentrating? Because wealth compounds through asset ownership, not hard work. When you own stocks, real estate, and other appreciating assets, you’re not dependent on your salary anymore—your money makes money. Price increases on these assets mean wealth multiplication for the one percent, regardless of whether the underlying economy is actually growing.

Meanwhile, wage earners without significant asset holdings? They’re running faster and getting nowhere. Your paycheck stays mostly flat while asset prices skyrocket, and you miss out on the gains.

Everything Is Bubbling

This isn’t just stocks anymore. We’re living through what economists call an “everything bubble”—equities, real estate, bonds, commodities, cryptocurrencies, all inflated simultaneously by years of loose monetary policy from the Federal Reserve, ECB, and Bank of Japan.

The COVID era accelerated this dramatically. Central banks flooded markets with liquidity, which fueled both inflation and asset bubbles at the same time. Current valuations are at extreme levels, completely disconnected from earnings growth or productivity improvements. The gap between what assets “cost” and what they “produce” has never been wider.

Three Futures, None of Them Pretty

McKinsey laid out the math on where this goes. The best-case scenario? AI triggers a genuine productivity boom that lets economic growth catch up to asset prices, keeping everything stable without wages and prices spiraling. But economists openly admit this is unlikely.

The more realistic scenarios? Either we get persistent inflation that slowly erodes everyone’s purchasing power, or assets crash hard and wipe out trillions in paper wealth overnight. For the average American saver, the gap between the two most probable outcomes could cost or gain you around $160,000 by 2033.

Why This Breaks the Middle Class

You now have a K-shaped economy. The wealthy, already loaded with assets, see their net worth compound upward through price appreciation. The middle class, relying mainly on wages, falls further behind no matter how hard they work or how smart they save.

This dynamic persists even during “good times”—low unemployment, decent GDP growth. The asset gains just flow to people who already own assets. The system has essentially become a wealth concentration machine for the one percent, while ordinary people are locked out of the biggest wealth-building mechanism available.

The Real Problem

The $600 trillion sitting in global assets increasingly represents phantom wealth—inflated prices rather than real productive capacity. It’s a house of cards built on debt and monetary stimulus, and it’s making the rich insanely richer while the rest of the economy stagnates underneath.

Without a meaningful productivity acceleration (and AI alone probably won’t cut it), we’re either heading toward inflation that silently erodes your purchasing power, or a corrections that destroys trillions in paper wealth in one fell swoop. The one percent can weather either scenario because they own the appreciating assets. Everyone else? That’s the risk you didn’t sign up for but ended up holding anyway.