Wealth

Accumulation rate: flow into stock

Each year 19% of output is not consumed but settles: net profit + depreciation feed the balance sheet below. The history of that feeding channel.

Layer 1's annual output does not evaporate. Some is consumed; the rest settles into deeds, factories, infrastructure and portfolios, feeding Layer 2's vast balance sheet. This page measures that feeding channel: how much of each year goes into accumulation, and how that share has changed through history.

This year's feed

Output flows into accumulation by the amount not consumed.

This year's net profit of $22,5T is 3,1% of today's $734T net wealth stock. It looks small; but stacked year on year over generations, this is what builds today's multiple.

The stock multiple and its composition through history

Left: net wealth divided by annual output (β), the accumulated stock relative to the flow. Right: the financial (paper) share of that stock. In the agrarian era β was already high because wealth was land; it fell to 3.5 by 1950 through war destruction and inflation, then climbed back, but this time paper-heavy, not land-heavy.

Where accumulation goes

This year's gross fixed capital formation by asset type. Housing and other buildings together are almost half.

This is the bridge between flow and stock: 19% of output settles each year, and that sediment has been stacking for 12,000 years.