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Category: Money and Monetary Policy / Business, Economics and Finance / Poverty / Community and Society

Eight men own same wealth as poorest half of world's population: Oxfam

Monday, 16 Jan 2017 11:39:31 | Penny Timms

Microsoft chairman Bill Gates is the richest person in the world. (Rick Wilking: Reuters)

Just eight men, including Microsoft chairman Bill Gates and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, own the same amount of wealth as the poorest half of the world's population, a new report from Oxfam has revealed.

Who are the richest eight?

  1. Bill Gates - $US75 billion
  2. Amancio Ortega - $US67 billion
  3. Warren Buffett - $US60.8 billion
  4. Carlos Slim Helu - $US50 billion
  5. Jeff Bezos - $US45.2 billion
  6. Mark Zuckerberg - $US44.6 billion
  7. Larry Ellison - $US43.6 billion
  8. Michael Bloomberg - $US40 billion

The report titled An Economy for the 99 Per Cent found the incomes of the poorest 10 per cent of people increased by less than $3 a year between 1988 and 2011, while the incomes of the richest 1 per cent increased 182 times as much.

And since 2015, the richest 1 per cent has owned more wealth than the rest of the planet.

Oxfam is calling for leaders attending this week's World Economic Forum (WEF) to do more to end the disparity.

The annual forum is where the world's business elite and political leaders come together to try and find ways to bring about global and economic stability.

Oxfam Australia chief executive Dr Helen Szoke said global wealth inequality was worse than previously feared, and it was time for big business to do more.

"This concentration of wealth is actually indicating there's something wrong with the global system and as global leaders meet at the World Economic Forum and business leaders meet we're really saying that this system that is broken needs to be fixed," she said.

"If we don't move more to an inclusive economy where we're actually looking at the benefits being spread more equitably, then that's going to lead to the kind of instability that future generations are going to have to deal with; we don't want to leave that as a legacy."

Dr Szoke believes change can be driven by those attending this week's summit in Davos.

"There can be a unified view coming out of the World Economic Forum, and the simple ask from Oxfam is for there to be much greater transparency around the payment of taxation.

"And this is an action that can be taken by national governments, it's an action that's not being consistently applied across the globe and from Australia's perspective, it's actually one of the ways of actually dealing with about $6 billion in annual revenue that's taken out of the system that could be brought back into it."

'It's not enough to listen, you also have to act'

The World Economic Forum is expected to be dominated by the pushback to economic globalisation, and is set to the theme of Responsible and Responsive Leadership.

Four major topics will be covered — strengthening economic growth, making market-based systems more inclusive, mastering the Fourth Industrial Revolution, and to re-imagine international cooperation.

Audio: Wealth disparity worsening, Oxfam study finds (The World Today)

Klaus Schwab, the executive chairman of the World Economic Forum, said it is a similar theme to what was discussed at the forum 20 years ago.

"As a leader, you have to be responsive," he said.

"You have to listen. You have to act with those people who have entrusted you with leadership.

"But it's not enough to listen, you also have to act, you have to be responsible, you have to be courageous enough to take the decisions to what we call improving the state of the world, and it needs sometimes very courageous decisions."

He said it was also important the world leaders understood the importance of fair global markets.

"They also have to remain open, because we are a global community, interconnected, interdependent, and if you do not address our common issues as a global community, we all will fail."

The World Economic Forum begins tomorrow, and runs through to the end of the week.

AustraliaPlus


 

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