Financial, Economic and Social Mood Update (October 1, 2026)
There is much so-called news or information about the worldwide distribution of wealth today so I decided to quantify this by wealth category to give us a much better or clearer picture of where we stand as a global community. This is quantified into categories for global Dollar billionaires, centimillionaires (people and/or families worth at least USD $100 million but less than USD $billion), decamillionaires (those worth from USD $10 to $100 million), millionaires (individuals and/or families worth from USD $1 to $10 million), those worth more than USD $100,000 but less than one million Dollars, those worth more than USD $10,000 but less than USD $100,000 and those with no net worth at all:
AOL Yahoo AI search as of 09/01/2026 Total Dollar amount
Worldwide population top percentage in Billions share of global wealth
1 Billionaires 3,795 0.00005% $3,100,000,000 $11,765 1.37% Billionaires
2 Centimillionaires 29,350 33,145 0.00043% $500,000,000 $14,675 1.71% Centimillionaires
3 Decamillionaires 2,636 35,781 0.00047% $50,000,000 $132 0.02% Decamillionaires
4 Millionaires 80,000,000 80,035,781 1.04186% $2,300,000 $184,000 21.44% Millionaires
5 $100,000 1,100,000,000 1,180,035,781 15.36105% $500,000 $550,000 64.10% $100,000
6 $10,000 1,620,000,000 2,800,035,781 36.44931% $50,000 $81,000 9.44% $10,000
7 below $10,000 3,300,000,000 6,100,035,781 79.40687% $5,000 $16,500 1.92% below $10,000
8 not counted by AI 1,581,964,219 7,682,000,000 100.00000% $0 $0 0.00% not counted by AI
7,682,000,000 $858,071 100.00%
$224,189 20.71% Public & nonprofit owned
$1,082,260
The global human population illustrated here is 7.7 Billion. The total amount of all global wealth represented in US Dollar values equals about USD $858 Trillion – all privately held wealth which equals 79 percent of the wealth on the planet. The remaining 21 percent can be thought of as public and nonprofit wealth, such as national parks and legal charities. The social class with the greatest share of overall wealth is what one would call the middle class in more developed economies with 64 percent of the global wealth. Next comes the class of Dollar millionaires with 21 percent of the global wealth and in third place is what one might name the lower middle class with 9 percent of the global wealth.
The column highlighted in yellow shows the “mean average” net worth in each category. For instance, the “average” Dollar billionaire has a net worth equivalent to USD $3.1 billion, the average centimillionaire USD $500 million, the average decamillionaire USD $50 million, the average millionaire USD $2.3 million and so forth.
Public policy everywhere (regardless of country or political jurisdiction) must determine how to address the problems of debt which lead to deficit spending, public borrowing crowding out the private sector credit market and the decimation of the spending power of paper fiat currencies caused by inflation. In addition to this is the very unequal distribution of wealth, income and overall unequal opportunity for a decent quality of life. There is a global underclass comprising 64 percent of the human race which translates into the potential for political instability, social unrest and inadequate opportunities for social betterment. Beyond this we have all issues related to political, economic and financial corruption (dishonesty) and the destruction of and/or harm to our natural environment – the world in which we all live, breathe, eat and sleep.
After the Great economic and financial Depression of 1929 (nominal monetary values returned to the levels of 1929 only by 1954) public policy in most of the world sought to address the problems of the lack of industrial regulation, the lack of adequate social insurance, and the lack of progressive rates of taxation – much of this has been rolled back over the past 45 years in the name of so-called freedom and free enterprise.
Today we stand at a juncture where much of the global political center-left is calling for asset taxes upon the world’s wealthiest citizens in an effort to address the very serious problems mentioned in the previous paragraphs of this month’s update. The idea is not a bad one and lawmakers from across the moderate and normal political spectrum must work with each other to address these issues and to begin to repair the damage in our common social and economic home.
Update on the Global Auto Industry
The global auto industry continues its relentless movement away from the internal combustion engine, from the use of fossil fuels – especially away from the use of gasoline. As of today there are about 250,000 gasoline stations in the world compared to about 7 million BEV (battery electric vehicle) charging stations. In terms of annual new vehicle unit sales, gasoline powered cars and trucks have finally fallen below half at 42 percent of the current worldwide total. The remainder of new sales are 28 percent plug in electric, 18 percent diesel, 12 percent hybrid and less than one percent hydrogen.
Sam Evins of Australia has a YouTube channel called “The Electric Viking” and here are some recent videos on the changes upon us. This video looks at the demise of the value of internal combustion engine cars: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OmQPocDe4a8.
This recent video looks at the increasing dominance of Chinese automotive manufacturers in Uruguay, which has automotive market free from counterproductive import restrictions and nonsensical tariffs: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lblrZYoyOPU.
