In our 37th episode of Madness Chronicles, we’ll take a look at the madness of getting rich during a pandemic. Remember, insanity is a state of serious mental illness, extremely foolish behavior, and a frantic or chaotic form of activity. Let’s take a look at the pandemic earnings craze.

As you begin this journey, keep in mind that businesses around the world have closed, restaurants have closed, and millions of people have been thrown out of work. With draconian lockdowns the norm, some creative folks make golden lemonade out of the sour lemons enjoyed by the rest of the world.

Take Elon Musk, for example. A young entrepreneur, a billionaire creator of Tesla. You know that fancy electric car with the battery that costs more than most other vehicles. ZeroHedge reports that in the past year — think pandemic, lockdowns, and masks — Musks’ net worth has quadrupled to more than $100 billion. That’s a lot of money, no matter how you say it. Pretty impressive, don’t you think?

Well, like everything in 2020, this seems a bit out of place. As Tesla proves, ‘profitable’ a peak under the covers shows a strange 2020 story. From 2010 to 2020, while reporting ‘profit’, Tesla racked up a staggering $5.6 billion in debt. But wait, was there no profit at Tesla? Of course, but it seems that they come in the form of the sale of ‘regulatory credits’. Which brought them a whopping 397 million dollars last year. So their profits came from ‘regulatory credits’ that didn’t sell new Teslas.

Pure speculation on my part, but Musk is using the same accounting firm that Dr. Tony Fauci and the CDC use to calculate Wuhan virus deaths. I wonder how you get involved in selling ‘regulatory credits’? However, Elon Musk is now the second richest man in the world after Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.

Speaking of Bezos, Forbes reports that since the pandemic began, Bezos’ fortune has risen to more than $230 billion, surpassing $90 billion in the year of the pandemic. Note that it’s a billion with a B. Other billionaires weren’t so lucky. Take Microsoft co-founder, philanthropist, and self-proclaimed vaccine guru, Bill Gates, for example. His wealth increased a measly 20%, putting his net worth at $118 billion since March. Facebook co-founder Mark Zuckerberg fared much better than Gates with a gain of 85% to $101.2 billion.

Overall, the United States is home to 644 billionaires. The market must be as fickle as the virus itself because the wealth of these billionaires increased by almost $1 trillion. That puts these 644 people now worth $3.88 trillion. That would be with a T. During the pandemic, his fortunes increased by a staggering $934 billion. The $3.88 trillion wealth of these 644 ordinary people is nearly double the $2.1 trillion worth of the bottom 50% of our country’s population, whose net worth was not growing.

Turns out pandemics are funny things. According to the CDC, this would be the third pandemic in my lifetime. I had no idea the first two happened, and here we have this one where you can get it if you go to church but not if you go to Walmart. The damn thing must impact financial fortunes in the same way. The small portion of immeasurable billionaires earn a fortune. At the same time, 50% of the rest remain seated at traffic lights. Strange times this 2020 has been.

Let’s wake up from this madness before it’s too late. I wish you all good health and until next time, have fun, enjoy life and beware the craziness among us. It’s 2020 and it’s getting out of hand.