World wealth increasingly cornered

The richest one percent of people on Earth have captured nearly twice as much new wealth as the rest of the world since 2020 when the Covid pandemic broke out, according to a report by Oxfam.

Billionaire fortunes are increasing by US$2.7 billion (HK$21 billion) a day even as at least 1.7 billion workers now live in countries where inflation is outpacing wages, the report says.

Food and energy companies more than doubled profits in 2022, paying out US$257 billion to wealthy shareholders while over 820 million people -- roughly one in 10 people -- are going hungry. Publishing its annual inequality report on the opening day of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, there is a proposal for an increase in tax on billionaires' income.

But according the Bloomberg Billionaire Index the wealthiest people "suffered" last year, with more than US$1.4 trillion wiped off fortunes of the richest 500 billionaires.

But plenty of pain was self-inflicted, especially with the alleged fraud by one-time crypto wunderkind Sam Bankman-Fried.