aeon-relay // archival data

ascent dossier

← receiver

dossier // the scale of present wealth

Four containers. No names. Public arithmetic only.

fig 01 // top 20 individual fortunesnames redacted
#01$707B#02$258B#03$251B#04$243B#05$238B#06$227B#07$194B#08$163B#09#10#11#12$132B#13$125B#14$120B#15#16#17#18#19#20
top 20 individual fortunes$3,713B combined
Each rectangle is one person; area is net worth. Names redacted to keep the focus on scale.source // Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Jun 9 2026
fig 02 // what one fortune equalsnames redacted
subject 01 net worth$707B
  • median US household incomes9,426,667households · 1 year
  • median US homes purchased outright1,716,019homes
  • public-school teacher salaries10,100,000teachers · 1 year
  • mid-size hospitals constructed1,178facilities
A single peak fortune, translated into ordinary American units.source // US Census 2023; BLS 2023; Redfin Q4 2024
fig 03 // time required to spend itnames redacted
spend rate // $1,000,000 every day
  • median household ($192k)276 min
  • millionaire ($1M)1 days
  • decamillionaire ($10M)10 days
  • centimillionaire ($100M)100 days
  • billionaire ($1B)2.7 yrs
  • subject 10 ($147B)403 yrs
  • subject 01 ($714B)1,956 yrs

At a million dollars a day — every day, without a single skipped one — a single peak fortune outlasts more than a thousand human lifetimes.

At a million dollars per day. Bars are log-scaled because linear cannot hold the gap.source // derived from Bloomberg Billionaires Index, Jun 2026
fig 04 // ten people vs. four billionnames redacted
net wealth held // USD trillions
10 individuals
the top of the wealth list
$2.7T
10 people
bottom 50% of humanity
approximately 4,000,000,000 adults
$1.0T
4B people

Ten people · ≈3× the wealth of four billion. Top 100 ≈ $7.41T. Top 500 ≈ $12.52T.

Combined net wealth of the top ten individuals against the combined net wealth of the poorer half of all adults on earth.source // Oxfam 'Takers Not Makers' 2025; UBS Global Wealth Report 2024