The collective fortunes of the super-rich have been increasing by $2.7 billion a day, a new study shows
Over the past two years, the richest 1% have amassed close to two-thirds of all new wealth created in the world, a new report by anti-poverty charity Oxfam revealed on Monday.
According to the report, a total of $42 trillion in new wealth has been created since 2020, with $26 trillion or 63% of that being amassed by the top 1% of the super-rich. The remaining $16 trillion was shared among the rest of the world.
“A billionaire gained roughly $1.7 million for every $1 of new global wealth earned by a person in the bottom 90%,” said the report, which was released on the opening day of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
Billionaires’ fortunes have reportedly increased by $2.7 billion a day over the past two years. This followed a decade of historic gains, with the number and wealth of billionaires having doubled over the past ten years.
Oxfam’s research highlighted that billionaire wealth soared in 2022 with rapidly rising food and energy profits. It said 95 food and energy corporations had more than doubled their profits last year. At the same time, at least 1.7 billion workers now live in countries where inflation is outpacing wages, and more than 820 million people – roughly one in ten people on Earth – are going hungry, Oxfam said.
READ MORE: Millions of Brits face falling living standards – study
“While ordinary people are making daily sacrifices on essentials like food, the super-rich have outdone even their wildest dreams. Just two years in, this decade is shaping up to be the best yet for billionaires – a roaring ’20s boom for the world’s richest,” said Gabriela Bucher, executive director of Oxfam International. She added that “taxing the super-rich and big corporations is the door out of today’s overlapping crises.”
“It’s time we demolish the convenient myth that tax cuts for the richest result in their wealth somehow ‘trickling down’ to everyone else. Forty years of tax cuts for the super-rich have shown that a rising tide doesn’t lift all ships – just the superyachts,” she concluded.
https://www.rt.com/business/569955-richest-grab-world-wealth/
US President Donald Trump confirmed on Wednesday the upcoming start of ground strikes against drug cartel targets in Latin America.
He made the remarks during Christmas greetings to the military.
Trump said the United States was "now going after the land" in its fight against drug cartel targets, noting that drug trafficking by sea was down 96 percent.
The U.S. president also extended special congratulations to the crew of the aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford, currently deployed in the Caribbean.
BEIJING (Sputnik) - China has begun operating the world's first intelligent ultra-large oil tanker powered by methanol, the China Central Television (CCTV) reported on Monday.
The tanker, designed to transport crude oil, was successfully put into operation in the city of Dalian in China's northeastern coastal province of Liaoning, the report said. State-owned company Dalian Shipbuilding Industry Co Ltd independently designed and built the vessel, it added.
The tanker is approximately 333 meters (1,092 feet) long and can carry around 2.1 million barrels of crude oil, the CCTV reported. Designed to produce low emissions and having intelligent control capabilities, the tanker will serve the route to the Middle East, among others, according to the report.
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A car bomb has killed a senior General Staff member, officials have confirmed
Source: The Investigative Committee
A Russian general has been killed in a car bomb blast in Moscow, the Investigative Committee has reported.
Officials identified the victim as Lt. Gen. Fanil Sarvarov, head of operational training at the General Staff. According to the statement, an explosive device had been planted beneath the vehicle he was traveling in, and detonated on Monday morning in the southern part of the Russian capital.
The blast also damaged several other vehicles and seriously injured Sarvarov’s driver, media reports stated.
Russian officials said one line of investigation is an assassination carried out by Ukrainian intelligence services, noting that Kiev has previously used explosive devices in targeted killings of officials and public figures.
Last December, a bomb hidden in an e-scooter killed Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, commander of Russia’s Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Defense ...
