I made my first million the year Greece went under. I was 24 years old at the time.

I’d attended a presentation given by one of Citibank’s senior economists, in which he explained that government debts of the world’s major economies had grown to dangerous levels, and were continuing to grow. He warned that markets could stop lending to some of these governments, forcing a devastating round of austerity on to already battered economies.

These governments were just like the majority of their citizens – reliant on debt to get by. But who were all these debts owed to? I didn’t have to look far to find the answer. On the Citibank floor millionaires to my left and right stared hungrily at the green and red numbers flashing on their six computer screens. They bought stocks and lent money to governments and banks. It was these people, and the people whose money they managed, to whom all of these debts were owed. As governments and workers accumulated debts, these people accumulated property, stocks, bonds and gold. This money would not not cycle back through the system, pushing up wages; instead it pushed up the prices of these assets.

Since governments were doing nothing to stop this cycle of growing inequality, this problem would not end, it would only get worse. So, I placed a bet on the future of the global economy. I bet that over the next three years global central banks would be unable to normalise interest rates from emergency levels because economies permanently weakened by rising inequality would not be able to survive doing so. By the end of that year, 2011, I was Citibank’s most profitable trader globally, and a millionaire. I made that same bet again in 2012. In 2014 I retired.

Each year since 2008, central banks and economists have incorrectly predicted a raise in interest rates. They continually fail to recognise that mounting debt and growing inequality is the new normal from which the economy will not recover. All the signs are that coronavirus will increase inequality even further. The government is accumulating debt to subsidise the wages of the employed and self-employed unable to work because of the lockdown. Businesses are taking out loans to keep afloat. This debt is being used to pay bills and rent to those who own assets.

I cannot tell you whether governments will again resort to austerity to try to pay these debts off, but I can tell you what the rich will do with their new piles of cash. They will buy more stocks, bonds, gold, land and houses. I know this because they did exactly that when they received large amounts of newly printed money after the 2008 and 2011 crises. I know this because I’m doing it myself.

I started buying gold on 18 March this year; its price in US dollars is up 14% since the low of that day in less than two months. In that same time, US stocks are up over 27%. On Wednesday evening, the FTSE 100 was up just under 18% on that March day. We’re also likely to see an increase in house prices. If we repeat 2008, after which London property prices doubled , buying a house with one’s own wages will be a thing of the past.

It is not right that society’s richest people profit from this crisis while millions fall into desperate poverty. I include myself in this. We urgently need to develop a fairer tax system so that we can contribute to solving the crisis, not just profit from it. Excellent work has been done by economists such as Gabriel Zucman and Emmanuel Saez on this problem. Their proposals for wealth taxes could help reduce spiralling inequality in a way that is fair, and specifically targets the richest in our society. At a time of crisis, when the richest will profit while so many struggle, it has never been more obviously needed.

• Gary Stevenson is an economist and former interest rate trader in London and Tokyo