Some nasty dark clouds are forming on the financial horizon as total world debt is increasing nearly three times as fast as total global wealth. But, that’s okay because no one cares about the debt, only the assets matter nowadays.You see, as long as debts are someone else’s problem, we can add as much debt as we like… or so the market believes.

Now, you don’t have to take my word for it that the market only focuses on the assets, this comes straight from the top echelons of the financial world. According to Credit Suisse Global Wealth Report 2017, total global wealth increased to a new record of $280 trillion in 2017. Here is Credit Suisse’s summary of the Global Wealth 2017: The Year In Review:

There are a few items in the Credit Suisse’s summary above that I would like to discuss. First, how did the world increase its global wealth at a rate of 6.4% in 2017 when world oil demand only increased 1.6%??

As we can see from the IEA – International Energy Agency’s Global Oil Demand table above, total world oil demand only increased 1.6% over last year. Thus, the rate of increase of global wealth of 6.4% in 2017 was four times higher than the 1.6% increase in world oil demand.I would imagine some readers would stand on their soapbox and emphatically claim that energy has nothing to do with wealth creation. Unfortunately, these individuals somehow lost the ability to reason along the way.And we really can’t blame them for making such an absurd remark because they probably believe their food magically appears on the Supermarket shelves.

Second, the financial wizards at Credit Suisse reported that global wealth also outpaced the population growth. What they are suggesting here is that the “Millenials” who (many) are becoming wealthier by sitting in front of a screen and clicking on a mouse than their grandparents (the poor slobs) who were mainly working in the manufacturing industry by producing real things.