🗞 2043 billionaires - 3.7 billion people in poverty

The rich are getting richer - and the split of society is getting bigger, says the aid organization Oxfam before the meeting of the world economy in Davos. The economic forum wants to find answers.

The assets generated worldwide in 2017, according to a study, have almost entirely benefited the rich. The wealthiest percent of the world's population has secured 82 percent of the newly created wealth, according to a report by the development agency Oxfam. The 3.7 billion people who made up the poorer half of the world's population, on the other hand, would not have benefited from asset growth at all, criticizes the paper that the organization published before the World Economic Forum in Davos. Between 2016 and 2017, the number of billionaires has meanwhile risen like never before - a new billionaire has been added every two days. With 2,043 billionaires, the total number in 2017 was therefore at a record high.

"The billionaire boom is not a sign of a flourishing economy, but a symbol of the failure of the economic order," criticized Oxfam director Winnie Byanyima. Oxfam called for stopping corporate and super-rich tax avoidance, enforcing fair incomes for women and men, and investing in education and health for all. The World Economic Forum (WEF) wants to offer itself as an engine for cooperation at its beginning in Davos on Tuesday. "Currently there is a lack of cooperation and understanding," said WEF President Borge Brende in the face of crises in the economy, politics and society. The meeting brings together various stakeholders - "and we provide the platform to foster collaboration".

Oxfam called on attendees to tackle corporate and individual tax avoidance, enforce fair incomes for men and women, and invest in education and health for all. Oxfam Germany's campaign leader, Jög Kalinski, criticized: "A rich minority has a massive impact on policy decisions and irresponsibly reduces corporate costs - especially wages and taxes - to increase shareholder profits." According to Kalinski, the price of profits is being paid by billions of people "who have to work at wages that are not enough to live on and are not given access to the public education and health system".

In Germany too, inequality prevails despite the good economic situation. In this country, the richest 40 people had the same fortune as the poorer half of the population, said Oxfam expert Ellen Ehmke. A normal employee would have to work 157 years to earn the average annual income of a Dax board chairman. Ehmke warned that a consequence of this development could be deeper rifts in society and an undermining of democracy.

"We face some global challenges," said WEF President Brende. Among other things, the Forum is committed to strengthening women's rights and equal rights. "We will not achieve anything worldwide if half of the world's population does not have the same opportunities," Brende said. The conference also sends out the message that "women's rights are at the center of a future-oriented policy for the world".

More than 3,000 participants are expected to attend the WEF Annual Meeting in the Swiss Alps from 23 to 26 January, including some 70 heads of state and government, including US President Donald Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel. Hundreds of CEOs of global corporations also want to come. Brende also referred to key issues of globalization and climate change before the meeting, as well as geopolitical issues such as the Korean Peninsula, the Horn of Africa and Syria. "All these challenges and systemic issues have in common that they require more global collaboration."

Source: dpa, AFP

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