Dickson C. Igwe. Photo: Provided

Together, these three facets of the global economy interface with each other and form the ‘world economic ecosystem.’ In today’s supply-side economic model, Jack the Investor is King!

OK! On top of the globalization model- of a world driven by a digital technology matrix- sits the wealthy investor.

The global investor has spearheaded dismantled borders, driven exponential wealth and social inequality in the USA and Europe, and has championed the rise of a new middle-class in the developing world of over a billion people.

The global investor is the man or woman, usually very wealthy, who practically owns the world’s financial system.  The Investor drives the global economy and has benefitted hugely from globalism: the shrinking of the world through digital technology.

The investor is not a new phenomenon by any means. History is the story of the power of the ‘’have over the have not.’’ From the ancient kings to the modern leaders of ‘democratic states,’ wealth has sat in the hands of the privileged few who have used that wealth to maintain the social hegemony of their progeny.

Under communism, the wealth of the state remained in the hands of the all-powerful party committee members, such as the Politburo in the Soviet Union. Today, ex-Eastern European and Soviet Union Communist Leaders and their henchmen are a new billionaire class known as the Oligarchs.

This late 2018, the wealthiest global investors are North American technology billionaires. However, the super wealthy are a geographically dispersed class: ranging from western European industrialists and financiers to Latin American businessmen. The super wealthy include Arab Oil Sheiks, Russian oligarchs, and Chinese industrial billionaires, African dictators, and Middle Eastern Strongmen.

In the British Virgin Islands, a number of these enormously wealthy characters reside and recline, and manage their international wealth matrices, while swimming, cycling, sailing, paragliding, partying, jet-setting, or simply huddling at a resort’s cocktail bar with their families, friends, managers, lawyers, and financial advisers.

These wealthy individuals also drive charitable endeavours in the territory. Billionaire residents are listened to by government and politician, owing to their local investments, that offer employment and business opportunity to natives, and their international economic clout.    

Now, in 2018, global debt has been placed at an astonishing 247 trillion dollars. And that debt is ubiquitous. The Virgin Islands is a microcosm of the debt profile of the rest of the world. Nearly every middle-class resident – income bracket between 20-100K- holds some type of debt: mortgage, car loan, student loan, credit card debt, and business loan. Most of Virgin Islands private debt is derived from local retail banks.

On the other side of the debt, equation sits this enormously powerful 1% of the world population that owns 150 trillion dollars of wealth: the investor class. This 150 trillion is owned by the wealthy investor and the global super-rich, who own the most valuable global corporations and assets and oversee the global economy. Global debt, including the debts of Virgin Islands natives, is owed to this group of persons, directly and indirectly.

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