As Darwinian stalwarts of social capital, the world's cohort of wealthiest individuals has increased substantially in 2014. Defined as persons possessing more than US$30 million in net assets, the world's population of ultra-high net-worth individuals has grown by 7%. These wealth owners control total assets of US$29.725 trillion in 2014. This is nearly twice the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) of the United States, the world’s largest economy.
Earliest interest in the Italian Domitii monopoly of brickyards, who rebuilt Nero's Rome after the Great Fire of A.D. 64, has always focused people's attention on societal wealth and influence through Shakespeare's dramatic frolicking of Elizabethean England with stories of King Lear's daughters and royal succession tribulations.
Today, a growing upward trend in the ultra-high wealth population inspires millions to strive for extraordinary excellence in career and lifestyles. Such virtues have become more culturally mainstream globally nowadays, mainly through business historical stalwarts as Japan's Kikkoman, Europe's Hermes and Rothschilds, and America's Carnegie, Morgan, DuPonts, Rockefellers and Fords, according to William T. O'Hara's Centuries of Success.
Record high numbers of ultra-high net-worth individuals of success has emerged in 2014, a 6% jump from 2013, according to the Wealth-X and UBS World Ultra Wealth Report 2014, released on November 19. The Wealth-X/UBS findings identified 12,040 new ultra-high net-worth (UHNW) wealth owners in 2014 for a historical high of 211,275 such individuals. Forecasts show the global UHNW population will reach 250,000 individuals in the next five years.
