Mon Jan 09 2023 - According to an Oxfam report published in 2022, as the incomes of 99 percent of the world population declined, the ten wealthiest men trebled their fortunes.

 published in 2022, as the incomes of 99 percent of the world population declined, the ten wealthiest men trebled their fortunes during the COVID epidemic.

According to the report's calculations, 252 males are wealthier than the total wealth of one billion women and girls in Africa, Latin America, and the Caribbean. And ten of the richest persons in the world own more than 3.1 billion of the least wealthy individuals.

Let's look at a few American billionaires. Midway through March 2020, Elon Musk was valued at $24.6 billion. He is now valued at $234 billion, an increase of 851% or about $209.4 billion. Larry Page and Sergey Brin, who co-founded Google, saw a nearly $114 billion and $109 billion increase in fortune within the same time period. Jeff Bezos, the CEO of Amazon, saw a more moderate rise in his wealth during this time, rising by just $52.1 billion. 

The globe has been moving toward extreme inequality for decades, despite efforts by the United Nations and other countries over the past several decades to combat poverty and more equitably share in technology and access to education.

The Oxfam report stated that "these historical legacies of racism, such as slavery and colonialism, are clearly related to present-day differences."

According to the research, the wealthiest one percent of the global population has amassed approximately 20 times more wealth than the poorest 50 percent since 1995. The pandemic has only escalated the situation.

. Although trillions of dollars were pushed into financial markets by central banks to preserve the economy, a large portion of that money ended up stuffing the wallets of billionaires. 

Low interest rates and government stimulus programs intended to aid economies in recovering from the COVID-19 blow in 2020 have also fueled stock and other asset prices, increasing the wealth of the wealthy. 

The pandemic was supposed to be ended with vaccines. Still, wealthy governments permitted pharmaceutical monopolies and billionaires to cut off the supply to billions of people. As a result, every type of inequality imaginable increased.

Extreme inequality is a type of economic violence in which the majority of regular people on the planet and the planet itself suffer direct harm as a result of laws and political actions that uphold the wealth and power of a privileged few.

In its Global Risks Report 2022 (PDF), released last week by the WEF, the organization expressed concern that the uneven economic recovery from the coronavirus, which heavily relied on the introduction of vaccinations, had widened gaps both within and between countries.

It also emphasized how increasing inequality, made worse by the epidemic, will inevitably lead to new conflicts and resentments as well as make it harder for countries to respond to issues like climate change, economic disparity, and social unrest.

Inequality of wealth hurts more than just individuals. It also harms the environment. According to the same report, twenty of the richest billionaires are thought to emit up to 8,000 times more carbon than the world's poorest billion.

Vaccine Equity and Taxing the Really Wealthy

According to the studies residents of low- and middle-income countries have a roughly two-fold more significant risk of dying from COVID-19 infection than residents of wealthy nations. The poorest citizens of some nations have a nearly four-fold increased risk of dying from COVID-19.

Millions of people have died, and many have lost their jobs. The severely affected groups are women, racialized groups, and people from the Global South. Analysts point out that governments have the potential to drastically alter the direction and stop "economic violence" in its tracks by building the groundwork for a more equal society.

A decent place to start, can be to apply a one-time windfall tax on the COVID-19 gains of the richest men, which would bring in approximate $812 billion. It is logical to tax the super-wealthy and use the proceeds to pay for nurses, hospitals, and vaccines. 

With additional wealth and capital taxes, we need to claw back this extraordinary billionaire bonanza. 

How COVID Made The Rich RICHER?

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