Billionaires’ wealth grew three times faster last year than the year before, a top anti-poverty group reported yesterday, as some of the world’s political and financial elite prepared for an annual gathering in Davos, Switzerland.
Oxfam International, in its latest assessment of global inequality timed to the opening of the World Economic Forum meeting, also predicts at least five trillionaires would crop up over the next decade. A year ago, the group forecast that only 1 trillionaire would appear during that time.
Oxfam’s research adds weight to a warning by outgoing US President Joe Biden last week of a “dangerous concentration of power in the hands of very few ultra-wealthy people.”
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The group’s sharp-edged report, titled Takers Not Makers, also says the number of people in poverty has barely budged since 1990.
The World Economic Forum expects to host about 3,000 attendees, including business executives, academics, government officials and civic group leaders at its annual meeting in Davos.
US president-elect Donald Trump, who visited Davos twice during his first term and was set to take the oath of office yesterday, is expected to take part in the forum’s event by video on Thursday. He has long championed wealth accumulation — including his own — and counts multibillionaire Elon Musk as a top adviser.
“What you’re seeing at the moment is a billionaire president taking oaths today, backed by the richest man. So this is pretty much the jewel in the crown of the global oligarchies,” Oxfam International executive director Amitabh Behar said in an interview, referring to Trump and Musk.
“It’s not about one specific individual. It’s the economic system that we have created where the billionaires are now pretty much being able to shape economic policies, social policies, which eventually gives them more and more profit,” he added.
Like Biden’s call for making billionaires “begin to pay their fair share” through the US tax code, Oxfam — a global advocacy group — called on governments to tax the richest to reduce inequality and extreme wealth, and to “dismantle the new aristocracy.”
The group called for steps like the break-up of monopolies, capping CEO pay and regulation of corporations to ensure they pay “living wages” to workers.
Many investors racked up strong gains last year, with strong performances for top tech companies and stock market indices such as the S&P 500, as well as the price of gold and cryptocurrencies like Bitcoin.
Oxfam said billionaire wealth grew by US$2 trillion last year, or about US$5.7 billion a day, three-times faster than in 2023. The number of billionaires rose by 204 to 2,769, and the 10 richest people saw their wealth rise nearly US$100 million a day on average, it said.
Citing World Bank data, the group pointed to lingering poverty, saying the number of people living on less than US$6.85 per day has “barely changed” since 1990. Oxfam used Forbes’ Real-Time Billionaire List” as of the end of November for data on the ultra-rich.
By contrast, at least four new billionaires were “minted” every week last year and three-fifths of billionaire wealth came from inheritance, monopoly power or “crony connections,” it said.
On average, low and middle-income countries are spending nearly half their national budgets on debt repayments, it said. Life expectancy in Africa is just under 64 years of age, compared with over 79 years in Europe, it said.
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