The British charity, Oxfam, revealed in numbers the extent of the disparity in wealth the world is witnessing, with billionaires benefiting from the Covid pandemic crisis and the rise in food and energy prices, while millions of others enter poverty.
The organization predicted, in a report It was issued Monday, in conjunction with the meetings of the Davos Economic Forum, the entry of 263 million people below the line of extreme poverty this year.
The organization revealed that companies in the energy, food and pharmaceutical sectors, where monopolies are particularly prevalent, are recording record profits.
The wealth of billionaires has increased in the first 24 months of the pandemic than it has been in the combined 23 years.
The total wealth of the world’s rich is now equal to 13.9 percent of global GDP, a threefold increase (up from 4.4 percent) in 2000.
The fortunes of food and energy billionaires have risen by $453 billion in the past two years, the equivalent of $1 billion every two days.
There are now 62 new billionaires in the food business.
The Cargill family controls 70 percent of the global agricultural market, and alone now has 12 billionaires, up from eight before the pandemic.
Last year, the company made the biggest profit in its history ($5 billion in net income) and is expected to break record profits once more in 2022.
Five of the largest energy companies together make $2,600 in profits every second.
The epidemic created 40 new billionaires, in the pharmaceutical field.
And companies such as Pfizer and Moderna made a profit of $ 1,000 every second only, from their control of the Covid vaccine.
Today, 2,668 billionaires (573 billion more than in 2020) own $12.7 trillion, an increase of $3.78 trillion.
The 10 richest people in the world own more wealth than 40% of the world’s people (3.1 billion people).
The 20 richest billionaires are worth more than the GDP of sub-Saharan Africa.
“Billionaires are arriving in Davos to celebrate the astonishing increase in their fortunes,” the organization said in its report. “The pandemic and sharp increases in food and energy prices have been a huge mine for them. At the same time, millions of people are facing increases in the cost of just surviving.”
“Billionaires’ fortunes haven’t increased because they are now smarter or they work harder. Workers work harder, for less pay and in worse conditions,” she added.
Millions are forced to “give up meals and stop heating, forgo paying bills and wonder what they can do next to survive”.
From Sri Lanka to Sudan, record-high global food prices have caused social and political unrest. Sixty percent of low-income countries are on the brink of a debt crisis.
Across East Africa, “one person is likely to die every minute of starvation”.
The organization recommended introducing a one-time “solidarity tax” on billionaire profits, to support rising food and energy costs and a just and sustainable recovery from Covid.
It also recommended the introduction of permanent wealth taxes “to rein in massive wealth, monopoly and massive carbon emissions.”
And she believed that imposing a tax on millionaires, starting from 2%, and 5% on billionaires, might bring 2.52 trillion dollars annually, which is enough to lift 2.3 billion people out of poverty, make enough vaccines for the world, and provide comprehensive health care and social protection.
“Billionaires are arriving in Davos to celebrate their unimaginable increase in wealth,” said Gabriella Bucher, an official at the organization, in a statement carried by AFP. Simply the cost of survival.
“I think that during this year’s Davos, in this show of wealth, we will see how unequal our world is,” said Nabil Ahmed, an official at Oxfam.
“It is important that we go to Davos to reconsider power, to shed light on the facts, to speak directly to these governments and these companies, and to convey the voices they are not listening to,” he added.
