As the rich and powerful personalities from across the globe gathered for the ongoing World Economic Forum Annual Meeting 2022 in Davos, international charity institution Oxfam has said that the COVID-19 pandemic has seen one new billionaire emerging every 30 hours, while nearly 1 million people could be pushed into extreme poverty every 33 hours this year.
As per a PTI report, Oxfam International released a report titled 'Profiting from Pain', which stated that as the cost of essential goods rises faster than it has in decades, billionaires in the food and energy sectors are increasing their fortunes by $1 billion every two days!
The WEF, which describes itself as an international organisation for public-private partnership, is currently hosting its annual meeting in Davos after a gap of more than two years.
The report showed that 573 people became new billionaires during the pandemic, at the rate of one every 30 hours.
"We expect this year that 263 million more people will crash into extreme poverty, at a rate of a million people every 33 hours," Oxfam International said.
Billionaires' wealth has risen more in the first 24 months of COVID-19 than in 23 years combined. The total wealth of the world's billionaires is now equivalent to 13.9% of global GDP, marking a three-fold increase from 4.4% in 2000, it added.
Oxfam said its calculations are based on the most up-to-date and comprehensive data sources available. Figures on the very richest in society come from the Forbes billionaire list.
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The report said the richest 20 billionaires are worth more than the entire GDP of Sub-Saharan Africa.
Gabriela Bucher, Executive Director of Oxfam International said "Billionaires?are arriving in Davos to celebrate an incredible surge in their fortunes. The pandemic and now the steep increases in food and energy prices have, simply put, been a bonanza for them. Meanwhile, decades of progress on extreme poverty are now in reverse and millions of people are facing impossible rises in the cost of simply staying alive."
"Workers are working harder, for less pay and in worse conditions. The super-rich have rigged the system with impunity for decades and they are now reaping the benefits. They have seized a shocking amount of the world's wealth as a result of privatization and monopolies, gutting regulation and workers' rights while stashing their cash in tax havens -- all with the complicity of governments," Bucher added.
She also said, "Meanwhile, millions of others are skipping meals, turning off the heating, falling behind on bills and wondering what they can possibly do next to survive. Across East Africa, one person is likely dying every minute from hunger. This grotesque inequality is breaking the bonds that hold us together as humanity. It is divisive, corrosive and dangerous. This is inequality that literally kills."
As per PTI, Oxfam also said ''While inflation is rising everywhere, price hikes are particularly devastating for low-wage workers whose health and livelihoods were already most vulnerable to COVID-19, particularly women, racialized and marginalized people. People in poorer countries spend more than twice as much of their income on food than those in rich countries.''?
Oxfam further said the pandemic has created 40 new pharma billionaires and alleged that pharmaceutical corporations like Moderna and Pfizer are making $1,000 profit every second just from their monopoly control of the COVID-19 vaccine, despite its development having been supported by billions of dollars in public investments.
It added that 2,668 billionaires, i.e. 573 more than in 2020, own USD 12.7 trillion, an increase of USD 3.78 trillion, while the world's ten richest men own more wealth than the bottom 40% of humanity or 3.1 billion people.
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