The world's 500 wealthiest people got insanely wealthier in 2017, thanks to the soaring stock market transferring US$1 TRILLION to the very, very top.

Bloomberg financial news reports that is four times as much wealth as the same group gained last year.

Yep

Amazon's Jeff Bezos took the biggest chunk of that total.  He added US$34.2 Billion to his net worth, which now totals $100 Billion.  Facebook's mark Zuckerberg is already the fifth richest person on earth, and he added another $23 Billion to his savings account.  Bernard Arnault of the LVMH (Louis Vutton, Moet, Hennesy) luxury goods company took $24.5 Billion and wound up in sixth place.

The greatest number of newly minted billionaires - 76 - come from China.  Americans were in second place in that race, with 25 joining the fraternity of ten-figure fortunes.

It means that the wealth gap between the ultra rich and everyone else is growing worse.  A report from the Credit Suisse Group earlier in the year found the top one percent of global rich people started the millennium with 45.5 percent of all household wealth, but their share has since increased to a level of 50.1 percent today.  But the poorest half of adults collectively control less than one percent of the world's wealth.