Wealth of 85 tycoons equals poorest half: Oxfam

NEW DELHI: The richest 85 people on the planet owned as much wealth as the poorest half of humanity, a new hard-hitting report released by Oxfam calculates on the basis of a Forbes list for 2013. But, there is more: these super billionaires continued to earn $668 million (about Rs.4000 crore) per day between then and March 2014.

The report, bristling with such knockout-caliber data, argues that inequality is growing across the world, threatening to push more people into poverty, heighten gender inequalities and cause increasing social strife. Absurd levels of wealth exist alongside desperate poverty around the world, the report, called 'Even It Up", says and calls it "one of the biggest economic, social and political challenges of our time".
It quotes no less a person than Warren Buffet, the world's fourth wealthiest man, to state the case: "There's been class warfare going on for the last 20 years and my class has won" said Buffet in a TV interview in 2011, according to the report.

The report points out that inequality is growing in India too. While the richest 10% get about 30% of income in India, the poorest 40% get just about 20% of income. "If India stops inequality from rising, it could end extreme poverty for 90 million people by 2019. If it goes further and reduces inequality by 36%, it could virtually eliminate extreme poverty," the report says.

Oxfam has calculated that a tax of just 1.5% on the wealth of the world's billionaires, if implemented directly after the recent financial crisis, could have saved 23 million lives in the poorest 49 countries by providing them with money to invest in healthcare.

The number of billionaires and their combined wealth has increased so rapidly that in 2014 a tax of 1.5% could fill the annual gaps in funding needed to get every child into school and deliver health services in those poorest countries. Disputing the popular perceptions that "inequality is somehow inevitable, or is a necessary consequence of globalization and technological progress" the report asserts that two powerful economic and political drivers are the cause of present inequality - market fundamentalism and the capture of power by economic elites.

Oxfam recommends a slew of measures that governments need to take up to fight back this tide of inequality. These include increasing wages and reducing highest-to-median wage ratio to 20:1; shift the tax burden away from labour and consumption towards wealth, capital and assets; close international tax loopholes and crackdown on tax havens; provide universal health and education as a free public service. The report provides numerous examples from across the world where inequality-reducing measures like these have worked.