Oxfam, Covid enriches the scroungers, there are 573 more

The rich are getting richer, and more numerous, largely

A wealth that has increased in the last two years more than it has done in 23 years, and which leads

profits made on the shoulders of families who instead have staked incomes and increasingly higher expenses for the inflation and the expensive-bills.

In a report published at the opening of Davos, Oxfam points out how Covid has made the

, a share more than tripled from 4.4% in 2000. Not only that: it has also increased the number of billionaires.

They count

, one every 30 hours.

While this year, every 33 hours, one million people risk extreme poverty, or 263 million.

Oxfam points out that, as consumer prices for food and energy goods soar, and the spiral of extreme poverty threatens to engulf 1 million people every day and a half in 2022, the super rich who control big businesses in the food sectors and energy continue to grow their fortunes, which have increased by

since the start of the pandemic , at a rate of $ 1 billion every two days.

Today, 2,668 billionaires - 573 more than in 2020 - have a

, with a pandemic increase, in real terms, of 3.780 billion dollars.

Companies in sectors with a strong monopoly, such as energy, food and pharmaceuticals, recorded record profits.

To put it in order of magnitude, five of the largest energy multinationals (BP, Shell, Total Energies, Exxon and Chevron) make

.

In the food sector, the pandemic has produced 62 new billionaires

.

Together with three other companies, the

, and made the largest profit in its history last year ($ 5 billion in net profit), a record that could be beaten in 2022. The same family now has 12 billionaires, up from 8 before the pandemic.

Even in the pharmaceutical sector, whose profits have been skyrocketed by the pandemic, there are as many as 40 more crooks.

Companies such as Moderna and Pfizer have made $ 1,000 in profit per second thanks to the COVID-19 vaccine alone and Oxfam recalls that, despite having used huge public resources for its development, they charge governments up to 24 times more than the doses. at the estimated cost of production.

And as wealth rises, wages remain stagnant and workers are exposed to an exorbitant rise in the cost of living compared to the past few decades, Oxfam said.

An example above all: a worker who is in the 50% of the employed with the lowest wages, would have to work 112 years to earn what a worker in the top 1% earns on average in a single year.