As the world was buffeted by a coronavirus tsunami leaving forced lockdowns, supply-chain problems, economic upheaval, and poverty in its wake, globalist financial elites “have had a terrific pandemic” according to a report released Monday.
The world’s 10 richest men have more than doubled their fortunes to $1.9 trillion, at a rate of $1.6 billion a day, over the past 12 months, proving elites have largely been spared the misery and financial ruin inflicted on so many by endless enforced lockdowns.
A confederation of charities that focus on alleviating global poverty, Oxfam said members of the globalist financial elites saw their wealth rose more during the pandemic more than it did the previous 14 years, when the world economy was suffering the worst recession since the Wall Street Crash of 1929.
These are some of the main points from Oxfam’s latest report, Inequality Kills, which has been released as global business leaders meet virtually this week for the World Economic Forum (WEF) in Davos, Switzerland.
“We have a situation where 10 men hold more wealth than that of two-thirds of humanity,” Lyn Morgain, chief executive of Oxfam Australia, told Australia’s ABC news outlet.
“Not only that, but that bottom 40 percent are hanging on by a thread.”
The report highlights what the charity says are “unprecedented” levels of global inequality as coronavirus sharpens the divide between “us and them,” the “haves and have nots.”
Jeff Bezos speaks about his flight on Blue Origin’s New Shepard into space during a press conference on July 20, 2021 in Van Horn, Texas. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)
Meanwhile the likes of Tesla co-founder Elon Musk, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, and Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, enjoyed the greatest year-on-year growth since records began, the report outlined.
At a time when a group of these men were using their riches to rocket into outer space, the charity said, the World Bank had projected that more than 160 million people had been pushed into poverty.
In all, 20 new “pandemic billionaires” have also been created in Asia thanks to the international response to coronavirus, according to the charity.
Forbes listed the world’s 10 richest men as: Tesla and SpaceX chief Elon Musk, Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, Google founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg, former Microsoft CEOs Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer, former Oracle CEO Larry Ellison, U.S. investor Warren Buffet and the head of the French luxury group LVMH, Bernard Arnault.
The Oxfam report follows a December 2021 study by the group which found that the share of global wealth of the world’s richest people soared at a record pace during the pandemic.
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