Gigantic increase in wealth of the super-rich since the pandemic: Will there soon be the first trillionaire?

• Five richest men doubled their wealth between 2020 and 2023
• The first dollar trillionaire as early as 2030?
• Bernie Sanders: Global social inequality “unprecedented”

Oxfam is an international association of various aid and development organizations that reports annually on the state of global wealth distribution. This year she came to a particularly clear conclusion: there could soon be the first trillionaire in world history.

Enormous increase in wealth of the super-rich – despite the pandemic

Oxfam released its report on January 14, exactly a day before the global economic elite gathered at the annual World Economic Forum in the Swiss resort of Davos. The charity, whose headquarters are in The Hague, Netherlands, analyzed Forbes’ real-time billionaires list at the end of November and compared it with the list from March 2020. Oxfam’s research found that the five richest people in the world – without exception men – recorded an increase in wealth of 114 percent between March 2020 and November 2023: During this period, their wealth grew from $405 billion to $869 billion – that corresponds to an astronomical increase rate of $14 million per hour. A similar development was observed in Germany: the total assets of the five richest citizens, adjusted for inflation, have grown from around 89 to around 155 billion US dollars since 2020, or by almost three quarters (73.85 percent).

If this increase continues in the coming years, according to Oxfam calculations, there will be the first dollar trillionaire as early as 2030. According to the Forbes list, Tesla is currently the CEO Elon Musk (1st place, assets: 204.4 billion dollars), the French LVMH boss and majority shareholder Bernard Arnault (2nd place, assets: 185.4 billion dollars) and Amazon founder Jeff Bezos (3rd place, assets: 179.5 billion dollars). billion dollars (as of January 17, 2024) are the most promising candidates for the certainly not uncontroversial title of “First Dollar Billionaire in World History”.

To get a clear overall picture, Oxfam compared this data with other sources, including estimates from the World Bank and the Swiss bank Credit Suisse, which is now part of UBS. The conclusion implied by the “Forbes” development was unanimously confirmed by the other sources consulted by Oxfam: the numerous upheavals in the global economy caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Ukraine could not affect the vast majority of multi-billionaires. On the contrary, their assets grew despite the weakening global economy and high interest rates. The wealth increase of the richest of the rich would easily have exceeded the double-digit inflation rates.

The top one percent of the rich now own 43 percent of the world’s assets, according to the study. Many Oxfam leaders express their horror at these figures: “No company or individual should have this much power over our economy and our lives. To be clear, no one should have a billion dollars,” emphasized Amitabh Behar, the interim executive director, among others from Oxfam International.

Global poverty not yet completely overcome even in 2254?

What is particularly worrying about the results is that the poorest 60 percent of the world’s population – 4.77 billion people, almost all of whom live in the Global South – fared completely differently. Their purchasing power suffered enormously from the economic turbulence caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. Oxfam estimates that they suffered a combined loss of $20 billion in assets. The globally rising cost of living played a major role: 791 million workers would have lost an average of almost a month’s wages in two years because of price controls. The non-governmental organization then makes the worrying forecast that if current developments continue, global poverty will not be completely overcome in 230 years.

Bernie Sanders horrified

The Oxfam study did not miss its goal and attracted a lot of attention in political and business circles. None other than Bernie Sanders, an influential US politician in the Democratic Party, wrote the foreword to the study. In it, Sanders spoke of an “unfortunate state of the global economy”: “Billionaires are getting richer, the working class is struggling and the poor are living in despair.” Never before in human history has there been such a level of inequality in income and wealth. The prevailing greed, arrogance and irresponsibility are also unprecedented. “In the United States, three people own more wealth than the bottom half of society. Society, while over 60 percent of workers live hand to mouth,” writes the 82-year-old. “Despite massive increases in labor productivity and an explosion in technology, real weekly wages for the average American worker are lower today than they were 50 years ago.”

Higher taxes demanded

In order to distribute wealth more fairly – both within a country and between countries – Sanders has long called for higher global taxes on the ultra-rich. Many politicians and organizations join these calls for a uniform global tax. However, higher tax rates for the super-rich worldwide are difficult to implement given the existence of numerous tax havens and effective tax avoidance strategies. Many initiatives in this direction, often referred to under the umbrella term “Tax The Rich”, have so far had little success. Some billionaires like Musk also publicly criticize the US Democrats’ plans to raise higher taxes. Overall, it can therefore be seen as rather questionable, at least at the moment, as to whether higher taxes in the coming years will limit the further growth in wealth of the super-rich in favor of poorer people.

Editorial team finanzen.net

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