At the start of the World Economic Forum in Davos, an anti-poverty NGO says the wealth of the world’s biggest billionaires has increased 114% since 2020, while the income of the poorest 60% has fallen. The world’s men have more than doubled since 2020, while 5 billion people have become poorer, according to a report by anti-poverty NGO Oxfam.
In the document released this Monday (15/01), on the occasion of the meeting of the world’s economic elites at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, Oxfam International stated that, combined, the fortunes of the five richest people in the world – Elon Musk (Tesla, SpaceX), Bernard Arnault (LVHM), Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Larry Ellison (Oracle) and mega-investor Warren Buffet – increased by 114%, which corresponds to $464 billion (2.26 trillion of R$), reaching 869 billion dollars last year.
The report estimates that in the 12 months ending in June 2023, the world’s 148 largest companies earned combined profits of $1.8 trillion, or a 52% increase over the three-year average, which generated huge returns for shareholders, globally. at the same time that millions of workers are facing rising inflation and declining purchasing power.
“Inequality is no fluke: the billionaire class ensures that big corporations give them more wealth at the expense of everyone else,” said Amitabh Behar, Oxfam’s interim executive director.
Since 2020, the financial power of nearly 4.77 billion people – or 60% of the world’s population – has declined by 0.2% in real terms, according to the entity.
Oxfam has called on governments to reduce the power of big companies by breaking up monopolies to help fight inequality, as well as instituting taxes on profits and wealth and promoting alternatives to shareholder control, such as greater worker participation in business administration.
“The power of large corporations is used to generate inequality by squeezing workers and enriching the richest shareholders, evading taxes and privatizing the state,” the NGO says.
“War on Taxes”
Oxfam analysts also demonstrate how the “war on taxes” waged by big business has managed to reduce taxes by around a third in recent decades.
“Across the world, private sector representatives relentlessly promote lower rates, with more legal loopholes, less transparency and other measures aimed at allowing companies to contribute as little as possible to public coffers,” the NGO warned.
For years, during the World Economic Forum in Davos, Oxfam has been drawing attention to the growing disparity between the super-rich and the majority of the world’s population. The entity says that since the Covid-19 pandemic, the gap between rich and poor has increased.
“Oxfam predicts we will have the first trillionaire within a decade,” Behar said. “At the same time, it would take more than 200 years to defeat poverty.” The first billionaire in history was John D. Rockefeller, of Standart Oil, in 1916.
The NGO believes that holding the G20 summit in Brazil would be an ideal opportunity to raise awareness about inequalities, as President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva has placed poverty issues at the center of the agenda of the meeting of major economies of the world.
rc/as (AFP, AP, Reuters)
Source: Terra
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