cover image: PROFITING FROM PAIN - The urgency of taxing the rich amid a surge in billionaire wealth and a global cost-of-living crisis

20.500.12592/fnz72z

PROFITING FROM PAIN - The urgency of taxing the rich amid a surge in billionaire wealth and a global cost-of-living crisis

18 May 2022

Meanwhile millions of people around the world are facing a cost-of-living crisis due to the continuing effects of the pandemic and the rapidly rising costs of essentials, including food and energy. [...] 2 1 THE STATE OF INEQUALITY Billionaire wealth and corporate profits have soared to record levels during the COVID-19 pandemic, while over a quarter of a billion more people could crash to extreme levels of poverty in 2022 because of coronavirus, rising global inequality, and the shock of food price rises supercharged by 8 the war in Ukraine. [...] • The incomes of the richest have already recovered rapidly from the hit they took at the beginning of the pandemic while the incomes of the poorest have yet to recover, which is 31 driving up income inequality. [...] 73 In 2021, the company had net income of $5bn and made the biggest profit in its history; the year 74 before it paid out dividends of $1.13bn, most of which went to members of the family. [...] Amazon and Google, for example, spent $7.5m lobbying US politicians in the first three months of 2021.127 3 THE WAY FORWARD Governments have significant scope to act and to rein in the extreme growth in billionaire wealth and corporate profits, and in turn ward off the unprecedented cost-of-living crisis that people are facing today.

Authors

Microsoft Office User

Pages
19
Published in
Canada