London, Jan 15 (EFE).- The wealth of the world’s five richest men has more than doubled since 2020, while almost 5 billion people have lost money, said a report on inequality released by the non-governmental organization Oxfam on Monday.
The CEO of the French luxury group Louis Vuitton Moët Hennessy (LVMH), Bernard Arnault, at a press conference in Paris, France, on Jan. 29, 2019. EFE FILE/Ian Langsdon
Kicking off the start of the World Economic Forum meeting, which brings together global business, political and academic leaders in the Swiss town of Davos, Oxfam estimated in its report “Inequality Inc” that it may take more than two centuries to end poverty while the world may see its first trillionaire if current trends continue.
As of November 2023, the five richest people in the world were Elon Musk (X, SpaceX, Tesla), Bernard Arnault (LVMH), Jeff Bezos (Amazon), Larry Ellison (Oracle) and Warren Buffet (Berkshire Hathaway), Oxfam said.
Specifically, it said that the combined wealth of these five men went from $405 billion to $869 billion since 2020 – an increase of $14 million per hour.
Furthermore, it stated that a billionaire is either the CEO or the main shareholder in seven of the 10 largest companies in the world, and that these corporations are worth $10.2 trillion – equivalent to more than the combined GDPs of all countries in Africa and Latin America.
Faced with these huge inequalities, the NGO reiterates that transformative government action is urgently needed to protect public services such as healthcare and education, rein in corporate power, including ending monopolies and taxing wealth and excess profits, and to democratically reinvent business.
“We’re witnessing the beginnings of a decade of division, with billions of people shouldering the economic shockwaves of pandemic, inflation and war, while billionaires’ fortunes boom,” said Oxfam International interim Executive Director Amitabh Behar.
“This inequality is no accident; the billionaire class is ensuring corporations deliver more wealth to them at the expense of everyone else.”
The disproportionate increase in wealth in the last three years has been consolidated while global poverty continues at levels similar to those before the pandemic, the report said.
Like the fortunes of the super-rich, big companies are set to make record annual profits in 2023, said Oxfam.
The report revealed that for every $100 of profit generated by 96 major companies between July 2022 and June 2023, $82 ended up in the hands of wealthy shareholders.
Behar added that “runaway corporate and monopoly power is an inequality-generating machine: through squeezing workers, dodging tax, privatizing the state, and spurring climate breakdown, corporations are funneling endless wealth to their ultra-rich owners »
«They’re also funneling power, undermining our democracies and our rights. No corporation or individual should have this much power over our economies and our lives – to be clear, nobody should have a billion dollars,» he said. EFE
vg/tw
