(Finance) – As consumer prices for food and energy goods soar and the spiral of extreme poverty risks engulfing 1 million people every day and a half in 2022, those who control large companies in the food and energy continue to grow its fortunes, which have increased by $ 453 billion since the start of the pandemic, at a rate of $ 1 billion every two days. This the painting presented by Oxfaman organization engaged in the fight against inequalities, at the opening of the annual meeting of World Economic Forum in attendance in Davos.
“Billionaires in Davos will be able to toast to the incredible boost their fortunes have received thanks to the pandemic and rising food and energy prices,” he said. Gabriela Bucher, executive director of Oxfam International – but at the same time decades of progress in the fight against extreme poverty risk being wasted with millions of people left without the means to simply survive “.
IN 2022 ONE MILLION PEOPLE EVERY 33 HOURS AT RISK OF EXTREME POVERTY – The pandemic has produced 573 new billionaires, one every 30 hours, while, this year, one million people every 33 hours could end up in extreme poverty, or 263 million. The wealth of billionaires has increased, in real terms, more in the 24 months of Covid-19 than in the first 23 years of the Forbes survey and is now equivalent to 13.9% of world GDP, a share more than tripled from 4.4. % of 2000. “The marked concentration of wealth and economic power in the hands of a few is the result of long-term policies, decades of liberalization and deregulation of finance and the labor market, years in which the rules of games have been strongly conditioned by particular interests to the detriment of the majority of citizens – added Bucher -. Privatization, emergence of new monopolies, recourse to tax havens and unbridled enrichment for the few; insecurity, exploitation, lack of rights and poorly recognized and rewarded efforts. for too many others. The pandemic has exacerbated inequality and reduced many people to the streets. Millions today do not have enough food or money to keep warm. In Africa or returns, a person risks dying of hunger every minute. We are facing a paradoxical, toxic inequality that risks breaking the bonds that hold our society together “.
FOR THE 5 BIG OF ENERGY OVER 2,600 DOLLARS IN PROFITS PER SECOND – Companies in the energy, food and pharmaceutical sectors, characterized by strong monopoly situations, are recording record profits, while wages remain stagnant and workers are exposed to an exorbitant increase, compared to the last decades, in the cost of living. Five of the largest energy multinationals (BP, Shell, Total Energies, Exxon and Chevron) make $ 2,600 in profit per second.
RECORD PROFITS FOR FOOD MONOPOLISTS – The pandemic has produced 62 new billionaires in the food sector.
Together with three other companies, the Cargill family controls 70% of the global agricultural market, and made the largest profit in its history last year ($ 5 billion in net profit), a record that could be broken in 2022. The Cargill family alone now numbers 12 billionaires, up from 8 before the pandemic. From Sri Lanka to Sudan, skyrocketing food prices trigger social and political turmoil: 60% of low-income countries are on the brink of debt crisis; inflation is on the rise everywhere with dire consequences for low-wage workers. Compared to richer countries, more than twice as much income is spent on food in developing countries.
INCREASINGLY CONCENTRATED WEALTH AND INCOME – Today, 2,668 billionaires, 573 more than in 2020, have net wealth of $ 12.7 trillion, with a pandemic increase, in real terms, of $ 3.78 trillion. The 20 richest billionaires in the world have assets worth more than the entire GDP of sub-Saharan Africa. Globally, a worker in the lowest-paid 50% would have to work 112 years to earn what a worker in the top 1% earns on average in a single year. The high informality of the economy and the overload of care work have kept 4 million women out of the workforce in Latin America and the Caribbean.
VACCINES AT 24 TIMES THE COST OF PRODUCTION BUT 87% OF THE POOR WORLD IS NOT VACCINATED – The pandemic has also produced 40 new billionaires in the pharmaceutical sector which has made staggering profits in the last two years. Companies such as Moderna and Pfizer have made $ 1,000 in profit per second from the COVID-19 vaccine alone and, despite having used massive public resources for its development, they charge governments for doses up to 24 times more than the cost of estimated production, putting profits before protecting global health in a world where 87% of citizens in low-income countries have not yet completed the vaccination cycle. “It is scandalous that some have accumulated wealth, denying billions of people access to vaccines or taking advantage of rising food and energy prices – concludes Bucher -. Two years after the start of the pandemic, with more than 20 million deaths estimated due to COVID-19 and a dramatic economic crisis, government leaders have a moral duty to promote measures in the interest of the majority, especially the most vulnerable, and not the few !.
OXFAM REQUESTS – Oxfam recommends governments to: end vaccine apartheid by suspending patents, promoting the sharing of know-how and technology on COVID-19 vaccines, investing in vaccine manufacturing centers in the global South, redistributing existing doses immediately and equally and keeping the donation promises made, according to an agreed schedule that allows the implementation of an effective vaccination campaign in low-income countries; reallocate, in favor of vulnerable countries, a generous share of the special drawing rights (SDRs), ensuring the non-conditional usability of these resources by the beneficiary countries, recognizing their concessionary nature and additional character with respect to other financial commitments; introducing extraordinary taxes on pandemic extra-profits (and the extra-profits of energy companies) to finance public transfers to families in difficulty; alongside similar solidarity interventions, a serious rebalancing of tax burdens must also be ensured with a marked shift of the tax burden from labor income to capital income, the redistributive function of tax systems strengthened and compliance with the principle of horizontal equity pursued.