There Are Twice as Many Billionaires Now Than Before the Financial Crisis
UNICEF reports that child poverty has increased in over 20 countries since the global recession, while a new Oxfam study shows that billionaires have increased their combined wealth by over 120 percent. How can we continue to ignore this appalling inequality?
Some parts of Brazil, such as Morro do Papagaio (above) at Belo Horizonte in the state of Minas Gerais, highlight the juxtaposition of extreme wealth and poverty that is increasingly common all over the world. Photo by Shutterstock
Just a few days ago, UNICEF reported that child poverty has increased in over 20 developed countries since the global recession. Now, a new Oxfam report on inequality reveals that not only has the number of billionaires in the world doubled since 2009, but their combined wealth has grown by over 120 percent. Meanwhile, as RT News highlights in its post on the subject, “one million women have died in childbirth due to lack of basic health care, and 57 million children do not receive any form of education.”
What these reports make painfully obvious is that inequality has reached appalling levels. So what can we do? Well, according to Oxfam, a wealth tax could be a good start.
RT News:
Oxfam estimates that 16 billionaires live in Sub-Saharan Africa alongside 358 million people living in extreme poverty, while inequality in South Africa is higher than it was at the end of apartheid.
“In a world where hundreds of millions of people are living without access to clean drinking water and without enough food to feed their families, a small elite have more money than they could spend in several lifetimes”, Oxfam’s chief executive Mark Goldring said.
“The consequences of extreme inequality are harmful to everyone – it robs millions of people of better life chances and fuels crime, corruption and even violent conflict. Put simply, it is holding back efforts to end poverty.”
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—Posted by Natasha Hakimi Zapata
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