in Spite of the Coronavirus-induced global economic crisis, the richest people in the world were able to increase their assets significantly. The criticism of the development organisation Oxfam, in an evaluation, which will be released this Monday. The assets of in December 2020, the ten richest men in the world had increased since February 2019 “to almost half a trillion dollars to 1.12 trillion dollars,” writes the organization, and refers to the most recent data from the “Forbes”billionaire list. In the period that starts about a year before the outbreak of the pandemic, have Tesla boss Elon Musk increases his account balance to 131 billion dollars, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos have won 60 billion dollars.
John Pennekamp
editor responsible for economic reporting, responsible for “The Lounge”.
F. A. Z.
In Germany, the ten richest persons have increased in the nearly two years until the end of 2020 their assets to Oxfam by more than a third – to approximately 242 billion dollars. The highest absolute gains in Dieter Schwarz, the owner of the Schwarz group, to belong to the Lidl and Kaufland recorded in this country thus. His fortune has risen, according to “Forbes”, from 22.6% to 36.8 billion dollars. The Aldi heirs Beate Heister and Karl Albrecht jr. gained in the same period, thus 6.4 billion dollars.
Oxfam calculates what it would mean for the newly added assets of the super-rich on other people to distribute, and also want to know that the money would be enough to vaccinate the entire world population against Corona. On the shortage of the vaccine that is not relieve with money alone in the short term, and the fact that Amazon, Aldi and co. have ensured in the crisis, the supply of the population, not the organization.
a call for stricter antitrust law
At the other end of the wealth scale, the poverty grows due to the Coronavirus, however, strong. Oxfam cited Figures from the world Bank, according to which even before the crisis, almost half of humanity has less than a 5.50 Dollar a day had, which corresponds to the expanded poverty definition by the world Bank. The number of these people could be increased Oxfam “alone in the year 2020 to 200 to 500 million”. Oxfam estimates that by the end of 2020, every day at least 6,000 people in Asia and Africa have died of Hunger, caused by the consequences of the crisis.
After many years, in which prosperity around the globe has increased, and even the Poorest were able to benefit, now threatens a return to worse times. Experts fear that the progress of about a decade, could be ruined. In order to reduce the growing poverty, and the wealth of the entrepreneurs, calls on Oxfam, among other things, a stricter antitrust law. This should ensure that distribute along the supply chain resulting profits, “righteous” to.
