By Pranav Sehgal
Contributing Writer
For the past two years, Americans and University students alike have felt the effects of the recession.
During its peak, the recession affected the world’s richest and elite. According to CBS News, Warren Buffet lost $25 billion, bringing his net worth down to $37 billion, while Bill Gates lost $18 billion bringing his new worth to $40 billion. I’m sure during this time even billionaires had to cut down to some degree. Maybe swap their G6 jet for a more modest G5, maybe sell one of their hundred-plus foot yachts in the Mediterranean, or even possibly sell a couple of their real estate holdings in Dubai or St. Tropez.
Approximately a year after the recession’s peak, many of the world’s elite have rebounded. According to Forbes, Warren Buffet’s net worth has increased to a more comfortable $47 billion while Bill Gates has risen to $53 billion. For those of us who aren’t billionaires, it seems the recession may still not be over. We’re still going to have to save up for our favorite fall clothing line.
If you ask a Wall Street executive and a coal miner in West Virginia whether the recession is over or not, you will probably receive completely different answers.
According to a Bloomberg survey taken in July, only seven out of 10 Americans think we are still in a recession and only one in six Americans think they are financially better off than they were 18 months ago. While the public’s perception of the economy seems rather gloomy and negative, there is evidence to suggest otherwise. First-quarter corporate profits were up more than 33 percent from a year earlier and the S&P 500 stock index has grown more than 36 percent since President Obama has taken office, according to Bloomberg News.
The world’s elite and wealthy may have recovered from the recession: Russia’s Roman Abramovich is a case in point. He has achieved new feats of gaudiness by building the world’s largest and most expensive yacht, costing $1.2 billion and measuring 560 feet. It’s easy to see that “recession” is not in some people’s vocabulary.
While the expectations and profits of Wall Street and corporate America seem to be growing, it seems the remnants of the recession are still widely felt in the majority of Americans’ personal lives.