- The 10 richest men have more than doubled their
wealth in theCOVID-19 pandemic , Oxfam calculated. - Oxfam issued a new report on
inequality in which it advocated more taxation for the rich.
The wealth of the 10 richest men in the world has grown so much during the coronavirus pandemic that even a one-time 99%
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Highlighting the vast wealth disparity that emerged during the COVID-19 pandemic, Oxfam noted that the wealth of the world's 10 richest men more than doubled to $1.5 trillion from $700 billion from March 2020 to November 2021. That's a rate of $15,000 a second or $1.3 billion a day, the charity said.
Oxfam used the Forbes Billionaires List, topped by Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Amazon's Jeff Bezos, and LVMH CEO Bernard Arnault, to calculate the figures.
"Vaccines were meant to end this pandemic, yet rich governments allowed pharma billionaires and monopolies to cut off the supply to billions of people. The result is that every kind of inequality imaginable risks rising," Bucher said.
According to Oxfam's calculations, a one-time 99% windfall tax on the gains in fortunes of the 10 richest men would able be to pay for the manufacture of the world's COVID-19 vaccines. There'd also be enough to fund other public-works projects, including universal healthcare and social protection.
"All this, while still leaving these men $8 billion better off than they were before the pandemic," Oxfam noted in its report.
The charity urges governments to "claw back" gains made by billionaires.
"It has never been so important to start righting the violent wrongs of this obscene inequality by clawing back elites' power and extreme wealth including through taxation — getting that money back into the real economy and to save lives," Bucher said.