January 16, 2023
Baghdad/Obelisk: A new report published by Oxfam revealed that the richest 1 percent of people have captured nearly two-thirds of all the $42 trillion in new wealth collected since 2020, double the money earned by the 7 billion people who make up 99 percent of the world’s wealth. world population. Over the past decade, the richest 1 percent captured about half of all new wealth.
The “Survival of the Richest” report was published on the opening day of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, as the elites of the Swiss ski resort, with growing wealth and extreme poverty, congregate for the first time in 25 years.
According to the report, billionaires have witnessed an extraordinary increase in their wealth:
During the pandemic years and cost-of-living crisis since 2020, the richest 1% of humanity captured $26 trillion (63 percent) of all new wealth, while only $16 trillion (37 percent) went to the rest of the world’s population combined.
Each billionaire earned approximately $1.7 million for every dollar of new global wealth earned by someone from the poorest 90 percent of humanity.
The fortunes of billionaires have increased by $2.7 billion every day. This comes on top of a decade of historic gains – a doubling of the wealth and number of billionaires over the past ten years.
Billionaire wealth soared in 2022 with the rapid rise in food and energy earnings.
The report shows that 95 food and energy companies more than doubled their earnings in 2022 and paid out $257 billion (84 percent) to wealthy shareholders. The Walton family, which owns half of Wal-Mart, received $8.5 billion last year. Indian billionaire Gautam Adani, owner of major energy companies, saw his wealth rise by $42 billion (46 percent) in 2022 alone. Excess corporate profits accounted for at least half of inflation in Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom.
According to the report, at least 1.7 billion male and female workers now live in countries where inflation exceeds wage growth rates.
More than 820 million people – nearly one in ten people on Earth – suffer from hunger. Women and girls are often the last and least eaten, making up nearly 60 percent of the world’s hungry population.
The World Bank says we are probably seeing the largest increase in global inequality and poverty since World War II.
Entire countries are at risk of bankruptcy, with the world’s largest spending four times more on paying off debts to richer creditors than on health care.
Three-quarters of the world’s governments plan to cut public sector spending due to austerity – including healthcare and education – by $7.8 trillion over the next five years.
Impose one-time solidarity taxes on wealth and exceptional taxes on windfall profits to end crisis profiteering.
Permanently increasing taxes on the richest 1 percent of people to at least 60 percent of, for example, their income from labor and capital, with higher rates for millionaires and billionaires. In particular, governments should increase taxes on capital gains, which are subject to lower tax rates than other forms of income.
Tax the wealth of the richest 1 percent of humanity at rates high enough to drastically reduce the numbers and wealth of the richest people, and redistribute those resources. This includes inheritance, property, and land taxes, as well as net wealth taxes.
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