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/
Volker Turk has warned that efforts to advance reparatory justice are facing resistance in “certain quarters,” and urged countries to back Africa’s push.
Reparatory justice for historical crimes, including colonialism, enslavement, and the trade in enslaved Africans, is crucial to dismantling systemic racism, UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Volker Turk has said.
Speaking at the UN Permanent Forum on People of African Descent on Tuesday, Turk linked present-day discrimination against people from the continent to the enduring legacy of colonialism and enslavement.
”Racism and dehumanizing rhetoric continue to permeate public institutions, communities, and online platforms,” he said, according to the UN Press Service. Turk noted that “digital technologies, including AI, are reproducing and amplifying existing biases against people of African descent.”
The remarks come weeks after the UN General Assembly adopted a resolution declaring the transatlantic slave trade “the gravest...
The US VP had to defend President Trump’s Gaza policy at a rally on a Georgia college campus.
US Vice President J.D. Vance was forced to defend Washington’s policy in Gaza after he was booed and heckled at a key MAGA event on Wednesday.
Co-founded by the late Charlie Kirk, Turning Point USA (TPUSA) is a conservative student group that has long been seen as a strong support base of President Donald Trump’s MAGA movement but is now showing apparent cracks.
Less than 15 minutes into a TPUSA event at the University of Georgia on Wednesday, Vance was interrupted by hecklers over US policy in Gaza, with one audience member shouting, “Jesus Christ does not support genocide!” As he attempted to respond, others shouted, “You’re killing children!” and “You’re bombing children!”
Vance replied by referring to Trump’s achievements as president, including securing a fragile ceasefire in Gaza, something he said the previous administration of Joe Biden failed to do.
“I ...
Sergey Shoigu has cautioned Finland and the Baltic states against allowing Kiev to use their airspace for attacks on Russia.
Russia would have the right to retaliate if Finland and the Baltic states are deliberately allowing Ukrainian drones to pass through their airspace, Security Council Secretary Sergey Shoigu said on Thursday.
“Recently, there has been an increase in Ukrainian drone strikes against Russia via Finland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia,” Shoigu told journalists. “As a result, civilians are suffering and significant damage is being caused to civilian infrastructure.”
Either Western air defenses are proving ineffective, or these four countries “deliberately provide their airspace, thereby becoming open accomplices in aggression against Russia,” he added. In the latter case, Moscow has the right to self-defense in response to an “armed attack” under Article 51 of the UN Charter, the security chief stressed.
In recent weeks, Kiev has intensified drone strikes on ...
