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Call for new taxes on super-rich after 1% pocket two-thirds of all new wealth | Inequality
Oxfam has called for immediate action to tackle a post-Covid widening in global inequality after revealing that almost two-thirds of the new wealth amassed since the start of the pandemic has gone to the richest 1%.
In report to coincide with the annual gathering of the global elite at the World Economic Forum in Davos, the charity said the best-off had pocketed $26tn (£21tn) in new wealth up to the end of 2021. That represented 63% of the total new wealth, with the rest going to the remaining 99% of people.
Oxfam said for the first time in a quarter of a century the rise in extreme wealth was being accompanied by an increase in extreme poverty, and called for new taxes to be levied on the super-rich.
Policies introduced to combat the economic impact of Covid 19 – such as cuts in interest rates and the money creation process known as quantitative easing – boosted the value of property and shares, which tend to be owned by richer people.
The report said that for every $1 of new global wealth earned by a person in the bottom 90%in the past two years, each billionaire gained roughly $1.7m. Despite small falls in 2022, the combined fortune of billionaires had increased by $2.7bn a day. Pandemic gains came after a decade when both the number and wealth of billionaires had doubled.
Danny Sriskandarajah, the chief executive of Oxfam GB: “The current economic reality is an affront to basic human values. Extreme poverty is increasing for the first time in 25 years and close to a billion people are going hungry but for billionaires, every day is a bonanza.
“Multiple crises have pushed millions to the brink while our leaders fail to grasp the nettle – governments must stop acting for the vested interests of the few.
“How can we accept a system where the poorest people in many countries pay much higher tax rates than the super-rich? Governments must introduce higher taxes on the super-rich now.”
Oxfam said extreme concentrations of wealth led to weaker growth, corrupted politics and the media, corroded democracy and led to political polarisation. The super-rich were key contributors to the climate crisis, the charity added, with a billionaire emitting a million times more carbon than the average person. They were also twice as likely to invest in polluting industries, compared with the average investor.
The report called on governments to introduce immediate one-off wealth levies on the richest 1%, together with windfall taxes to clamp down on profiteering during the global cost of living crisis. Subsequently, there should be a permanent increase in taxes on rich, with higher rates for multimillionaires and billionaires.
In support of its call for redistribution of wealth, Oxfam said:
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Food and energy companies had more than doubled their profits in 2022, paying out $257bn to wealthy shareholders at a time when more than 800 million people were going hungry.
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Only 4 cents in every dollar of tax revenue came from wealth taxes, and half the world’s billionaires lived in countries with no inheritance tax on money they give to their children.
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A tax of up to 5% on the world’s multimillionaires and billionaires could raise $1.7tn a year, enough to lift 2 billion people out of poverty, and fund a global plan to end hunger.
In a foreword to the report, Colombia’s finance minister, José Antonio Ocampo, said: “Taxing the wealthiest is no longer an option – it’s a must. Global inequality has exploded, and there is no better way to tackle inequality than by redistributing wealth.”
He added: “Fairness is at the heart of Colombia’s tax reforms. Concretely, this means a new wealth tax, higher taxes for high-income earners and large corporations reaping extraordinary profits in international markets, and ending tax incentives that exist without clear social or environmental justification.
“We are also implementing digital services taxes and adopting a corporate minimum tax rate, building on the international tax deal,.”
Experts insist Covid infected people without symptoms were TWO-THIRDS less likely to pass virus on
Fears about silent spreaders of Covid — who suffer no symptoms but can pass the virus to others — may have been overblown.
A study of nearly 30,000 people has found asymptomatic carriers are about 68 per cent less likely to pass the virus on than those who get sick.
No10 used concerns about asymptomatic spread to justify forcing Britons to obey lockdowns and wear masks.
They were thought to account for up to a third of all infections and many scientists claimed asymptomatic patients were just as infectious as the sick.
But a new global study spanning 42 countries, including the UK and US, found they were only responsible for as little as 14 per cent of cases.
They also estimate that their overall risk of passing the virus to someone else ‘about two-thirds lower’.
Scientists claimed Covid’s ability to spread asymptomatically was one of the reasons for harsh social curbs.
During one of the national lockdowns in January 2021, the Government said about a third of people with Covid had no symptoms and urged people to ‘act like you’ve got it’.
Researchers have found people with asymptomatic infections are two thirds less likely to pass the virus on to others compares to those with symptoms. The idea that someone could carry the virus without knowing it was part of the reason Britons were asked to wear masks at various stages of the pandemic
The risk of asymptomatic people spreading Covid was part of Government messaging urging people to obey a lockdown in January 2021
Experts analysed data from 130 studies from 42 countries.
They involved 28,426 people who caught Covid between April 2020 and July 2021.
Of these patients, nearly 12,000 had an asymptomatic infection, having tested positive on a PCR but having suffered no symptoms.
All of the studies included the results of community screening programmes, contact tracing, and investigations into specific outbreaks like on cruise ships.
They found the ‘secondary attack rate’, how likely people infected with Covid are to pass the virus to others, was 68 per cent lower for asymptomatic cases, compared to those with symptoms.
Scientists also estimated between 14-to-50 per cent of the Covid infections were asymptomatic.
They said the range was so high due to the differences in the methodologies of the studies they drew the data from.
But lead author, Diana Buitrago-Garcia, from the University of Bern in Switzerland, suggested their role in overall Covid transmission was minor.
‘If both the proportion and transmissibility of asymptomatic infection are relatively low, people with asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 infection should account for a smaller proportion of overall transmission than presymptomatic individuals,’ she said.
Co-author, Professor Nicola Low, an expert in social and preventative medicine at Bern, said while it was clear asymptomatic cases were less infectious, the true scale of these cases in the pandemic was difficult to calculate.
‘The true proportion of SARS-CoV-2 infection is still not known, and it would be misleading to rely on a single number because the 130 studies that we reviewed were so different,’ she said.
‘People with truly asymptomatic infection are, however, less infectious than those with symptomatic infection.’
At the start of the pandemic, the NHS has only listed three Covid symptoms: a high temperature, a cough and a loss or change to taste or smell. But it quietly expanded its list of all the tell-tale signs of the virus to also include a loss of appetite, feeling or being sick, a headache, shortness of breath, feeling tired, an aching body, a sore throat, a blocked or runny nose and diarrhoea were added to the list in April
Another limitation of the study, which is ongoing as more data becomes available, is that it only includes studies up to July 2021.
This, as the authors highlight, means it will not include any data on more recent Covid variants like Omicron, which only emerged in November last year and is milder than earlier versions of the virus.
It also means the sample size includes data from both before and when vaccines were starting to be rolled out in various countries, which could influence the results.
Most of the studies included in the research, which has been published in the journal PLOS Medicine, were from Europe and the Americas, with 45 from each.
The authors also highlighted reduced routine testing as countries, like the UK, wind down their routine pandemic testing will also impact future research into asymptomatic cases.
Fears about asymptomatic Covid cases unwittingly spreading the virus were part of a Government rationale for urging people at the start of 2021 to take a test twice a week.
At the time then-Health Secretary Matt Hancock said regular testing was one the best ways to catch asymptomatic cases and keep people safe.
‘Around 1 in 3 people have coronavirus without any symptoms, so getting tested regularly is one of the simplest and easiest ways we can keep ourselves and our loved ones safe,’ he said.
‘I’d encourage everyone to take up the offer and test twice a week.’
Covid symptoms themselves have undergone several changes over the course of the pandemic.
In the beginning UK health officials only accepted three symptoms: a high temperature, a cough and a loss or change to taste or smell as signs someone had the virus, despite other countries including up to 14.
But in April this year the NHS quietly expanded the list to 12, including a loss of appetite, feeling or being sick and a headache, shortness of breath, feeling tired, an aching body, a sore throat, a blocked or runny nose and diarrhoea.
Louisiana Ida aftermath: Fuel access remains one of state’s biggest needs, with two-thirds of New Orleans’ gas stations out
Access to gas continues to be one of Louisiana’s biggest needs following Hurricane Ida, Gov. John Bel Edwards said. Gas station outages are mounting in Louisiana’s two biggest cities, with a staggering 68.5% of the gas stations in Baton Rouge and 64.7% in New Orleans out of gas, according to outage reports compiled by GasBuddy.
Analysts said these gas station outages are being driven by a combination of spiking demand as people drive out of the region and complications supplying the fuel caused by power outages. Tanker truck drivers, for example, often can’t fill up if there is no power at terminal racks that dispense fuel at refineries.
The storm made landfall Sunday as a Category 4 hurricane, leading to the deaths of at least 13 people in Louisiana and Mississippi and devastating infrastructure. As of Friday morning, there were still more than 824,200 customers without power in Louisiana, according to PowerOutage.US.
Without power, many Louisiana residents are relying on gas-powered generators for electricity — and to stay cool: Heat advisories are in effect for southeast Louisiana, including Baton Rouge and New Orleans, where the heat index will top 105 degrees.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency has sent more than 1,100 employees to support the response to the storm in the region. The agency has also awarded nearly $93 million in individual assistance, officials said.
For St. Tammany Parish, State Rep. Mark Wright said efforts to restore power were exceeding expectations.
“I know initially we thought we were talking three to four weeks, you know, we’ll see where it goes from here, but things are moving along,” Wright said.
But much of the work relies on gas, and many families need to stock up to supply their generators. Some residents braved the dark and the heat to find fuel.
As the gas crisis worsens, the Biden administration is releasing 1.5 million barrels of crude oil from America’s emergency stockpile of oil.
This will “alleviate any logistical issues of moving crude oil within areas affected by Hurricane Ida to ensure the region has access to fuel as quickly as possible,” the Energy Department said in a statement.
Catastrophic damage in Lafourche
Lafourche Parish, southwest of New Orleans along the Gulf Coast, “took the brunt of this storm,” enduring sustained winds of 130+ mph for 12 hours, Parish President Archie Chaisson said Thursday.
He estimated around 25% of homes had been catastrophically damaged, while another 30% to 40% have severe damage. Crews remain on the ground clearing roads, Chaisson said, and debris pickup should begin Friday.
The two shelters within the parish have been closed “due to limited power supply” and those residents have been relocated to Ascension Parish until further notice, Chaisson said.
“We are working with FEMA to try to figure out how do we shelter these people,” he said noting that “hotel rooms are scarce because a lot of the hotel rooms took damage as well.”
Death of 4 nursing home residents
Among those confirmed dead in Louisiana and Mississippi are at least 5 who have apparently died in connection to carbon monoxide poisoning, leading officials to sound the alarm on the improper use of generators.
“Many people who haven’t used generators in the past are going and buying them from local warehouses and either keeping them too close to their home or inside of their home or inside of their garage,” Dr. Emily Nichols, director of the New Orleans EMS told CNN Friday. “And all of those things are dangerous and potentially fatal, and we’re seeing that as we respond to our calls.”
Separately, four nursing home residents who had been evacuated to a facility in Tangipahoa Parish ahead of the hurricane have died, the Louisiana Department of Health (LDH) reported on Thursday.
Three of the deaths have been classified as storm-related, according to LDH.
The Department of Health said it heard reports about “deteriorating conditions” at the facility after Hurricane Ida made landfall and inspectors were sent to visit the site on Tuesday, but were expelled from the property and kept from doing a full assessment, according to LDH.
After that, health department officials began moving people out of the warehouse, starting with the most vulnerable. “In a little over 24 hours, all 843 residents were removed from the facility,” Edwards said.
Authorities will investigate if the facilities failed to keep residents safe, if officials were kept from checking in on them and what the conditions of the facility were, Edwards said.
Power returns to hospitals
The region’s major regional electric utility, Entergy, said they have restored power to approximately 225,000 customers in Louisiana, according to a company news release.
Already, Entergy restored power to at least 10 hospitals, including Tulane Medical Center, Tulane Medical School, VA Hospital, UMC, Ochsner Main Campus, East Jefferson, Lady of the Sea, Ochsner O’Neal Lane, Woman’s Hospital, and Baton Rouge General Mid City, according to a statement from the company.
Entergy Louisiana released an updated timetable Friday for restoring power to parts of the state after an assessment found “more than 14,000 damaged or destroyed poles, 2,223 damaged or destroyed transformers, and 155 destroyed transmission structures.”
According to the company’s statement, power is expected to be restored to East Baton Rouge Parish on September 6 and to Orleans Parish on September 8.
Entergy did not provide a timeline for much of the southernmost region, where parishes like Terrebonne, Lafourche, Jefferson and Plaquemines are still dealing with high water levels and impassable roads.
But, the statement said, “Specific restoration times down to the local area, including the coast and areas in the immediate path of the storm, are continuing to be developed and will be released in the coming days.”
CNN’s Dakin Andone, Rebekah Riess, Matt Egan, Geneva Sands, Gregory Lemos, Keith Allen and Amanda Watts contributed to this report.