Eight men have half the world’s wealth

Oxfam warns of public fury against ‘obscene’ inequality

DAVOS // Eight men, six of who are American, own as much wealth as the poorest half of the world’s population, which is made up of 3.6 billion people, Oxfam said in a report released yesterday.

Presenting its findings before an annual gathering of global political and business elites in the Swiss ski resort of Davos, the anti-poverty organisation said the gap between the world’s super-rich and poor was far greater than just a year ago.

It urged leaders to do more than pay lip-service to the problem.

If not, it warned, public anger against this kind of inequality would continue to grow and lead to more seismic political changes akin to last year’s election of Donald Trump as United States president and Britain’s vote to leave the European Union.

“It is obscene for so much wealth to be held in the hands of so few when 1 in 10 people survive on less than US$2 ( Dh7.34) a day,” said Winnie Byanyima, executive director of Oxfam International.

“Inequality is trapping hundreds of millions of people in poverty. It is fracturing our societies and undermining democracy.”

Last year’s report from Oxfam showed the richest 62 people on the planet owned as much wealth as the bottom half of the population.

This year’s calculations were based on data from Swiss bank Credit Suisse and Forbes.

The eight people listed in the report are Microsoft founder Bill Gates, veteran investor Warren Buffett, Amazon boss Jeff Bezos, Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg, Oracle’s Larry Ellison and former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg – all Americans – along with Amancio Ortega, the Spanish founder of fashion house Inditex and Mexican business magnate Carlos Slim.

According to Forbes’s 2016 billionaires list, Mr Gates is the wealthiest of the eight with a net worth of $75 billion.