The Global Wealth Transfer Scheme > The Billionaire Surge - A problem for the WEF, or a symptom of it?

 

Billionaire wealth surged in 2024, says Oxfam as world leaders meet for Davos

By Darryl Coote

Elon Musk, the world's richest man, speaks at a rally for Donald Trump at Madison Square Garden in New York City on Oct. 27, 2024. On Monday, Oxfam International Executive Director Amitabh Behar said the "crown jewel" of a growing billionaire oligarchy is President Donald Trump, who was "backed and bought" by Musk. Photo by John Angelillo/UPI | License Photo

Jan. 20 (UPI) -- Billionaire wealth surged last year, with the world's richest individuals adding $2 trillion to their pockets in 2024, according to a new report released Monday to coincide with world leaders converging on Switzerland for the annual World Economic Forum.

The World Economic Forum, also known as the Davos Forum for the city where it is held, kicked off Monday under the theme "Collaboration for the Intelligent Age," where political, business, academic and civil society leaders will gather to discuss global issues, such as inequality.

As it does ahead of each Davos Forum, the Britain-based non-governmental organization Oxfam International released its annual report on the worsening state of global inequality.

Titled Takers Not Makers, Oxfam's report, states that billionaire wealth grew by a combined $5.7 billion per day last year, while poverty has barely changed since the 1990s.

Last year also saw the number of billionaires rise from 2,565 in 2023 to 2,769, with their combined wealth surging from $13 trillion to $15 trillion in the 12-month period. According to the report, this represents the second-largest annual increase in billionaire wealth since records began.

200 new billionaires in a year. I wonder how many made their money from child pornography, and how many got rich selling weapons to Ukraine and unneeded weapons to Europe?

The surge has prompted Oxfam, which last year predicted the world's first trillionaire would emerge within a decade, to now state it expects to see at least five trillionaires in the same time frame.

"The capture of our global economy by a privileged few has reached heights once considered unimaginable," Oxfam International Executive Director Amitabh Behar said in a statement.

"The failure to stop billionaires is now spawning soon-to-be-trillionaires."

The report was published not only at the start of Davos but also ahead of Donald Trump's inauguration as president of the United States on Monday. In his farewell address, outgoing President Joe Biden warned of the growing threat posed by the unchecked power of the extremely wealthy.

Funny, he never complained about the extraordinary interference by George Soros in American politics for the past 4 years.

In doing so, Biden alluded to Trump and those in his inner circle, in particular the world's richest man, Elon Musk. Biden warned that there was "an oligarchy" of extreme wealth, power and influence taking shape in the United States.

As opposed to extreme wealth, extreme power and influence by Deep State, Big Pharma, the food industry, the War Industry, Big Oil, etc. for several years now.

Mirroring that sentiment, the report from Oxfam references Trump and his November election win as having given "a huge further boost to billionaire fortunes, while his policies are set to fan the flames of inequality further."

It continues by stating there is "a new aristocratic oligarchy" wielding immense power in politics and the economy.

As opposed to the old aristocratic oligarchy.

The report states that 60% of billionaire wealth comes from either inheritance, cronyism, corruption or monopoly power. If left unchecked, the world will see the "biggest transfer of the largest generational wealth in human history."

I am quite sure that we have already seen that in the past several years. But what per cent of billionaire wealth comes from the war industry? An industry that adds nothing of any value but only death and destruction. It's astonishing that civilization has not evolved beyond this.

"The crown jewel of this oligarchy is a billionaire president, backed and bought by the world's richest man, Elon Musk, running the world's largest economy," Behar said.

"Bought by", billionaires can't be bought. That's why Deep State hates Trump so much, they can't buy him, and now, if they could, they can't afford him.

"We present this report as a stark wake-up call that ordinary people the world over are being crushed by the wealth of a tiny few."

To right the situation, Oxfam is calling for governments to ensure that the incomes of the top 10% of their citizenry are no higher than the bottom 40%. 

Yeah, right!

Additionally, it urges the world's richest and their companies pay to their fair share in taxes.

Oxfam is also calling for the abolishment of tax havens and for governments to end the exodus of wealth from the southern half of the world to the north by breaking up monopolies, democratizing patent rules and regulating corporations.

Former colonial powers, it said, must also offer formal apologies and provide reparations to those they have harmed.

The migration from South Asia, Africa, Central and South America to the old colonial powers that robbed them of their resources and left them with little or nothing is well deserved. I have been writing for many years that the old colonial powers owe their former colonies a fortune in investments, and that that is the only way they are going to slow down the mass migration from south to north. 

Of course, there is also a matter of the migration of Islam to Christian countries as a matter of policy by Islam and by people like George Soros. He seems determined to destroy Christianity and is not the least bothered by the idea of replacing it with the Dark Ages ideology of Islam.

 

Military Madness > Ukraine can use most UK-donated weapons invading Russia

 

Britain: Ukraine permitted to use U.K.-donated weapons

in Russia ground offensive

By Paul Godfrey

Russian servicemen fire a Giatsint-S self-propelled gun toward Ukrainian positions on Wednesday as fighting entered an eighth day in a counter-offensive in which Ukraine claims it has penetrated more than 20 miles into Russian territory. Britain has clarified that Ukraine can use weapons it has supplied to it on Russian soil. Photo courtesy Russian Defense Ministry/EPA-EFE

Aug. 15 (UPI) -- Ukrainian forces are authorized to use British-supplied weapons in their ground offensive on western Russia, London indicated on Thursday.

The Ministry of Defense said its policy was that Ukraine had the right to use the weapons to defend itself, including on Russian territory, provided it does not breach international law.

The waiver did not, however, apply to Anglo-French-made Storm Shadow cruise missiles -- a caveat the new Labor government reiterated within days of taking office July 5.

"There has been no change in U.K. Government policy, under Article 51 of the U.N. Charter Ukraine has a clear right of self-defense against Russia's illegal attacks, that does not preclude operations inside Russia," an MoD spokesman said.

So, Russia illegally attacked Ukraine inside Russia? Does that make any sense at all?

"We make clear during the gifting process that equipment is to be used in line with international law," he added.

Battles between Russian forces and invading Ukrainian mechanized units pushing into Russia's Kursk region after crossing the border on Aug. 6 could now be fought with anti-tank missiles, artillery, armored vehicles and other weapons gifted by Britain.

Britain's war industry just popped another case of champaigne.

The BBC reported that some of the 13 surviving Challenger-2 main battle tanks donated to Kyiv by Britain have already seen action in Ukraine's ground incursion which Commander-in-Chief Oleksandr Syrsky said had penetrated 22 miles into Russian territory and controlled 82 settlements over a 444-square-mile area.

Syrsky said "a military commandant's office" led by a senior military leader had been established to fill a power vacuum in the areas of Russia now occupied by Ukraine.

"To maintain law and order and meet the immediate needs of the population, a military commandant's office has been created on the territories controlled. Maj. Gen. [Eduard] Moskalyov has been appointed to lead it," Syrskyi said in a video update to a military staff meeting posted on President Volodymyr Zelensky's X account.

"The situation is under control in general," he told the president.

Moscow claimed the opposite, saying its forces had inflicted signifcant losses on Ukrainian forces and were gaining the upper hand.

The state-run news agency TASS reported that the Russian Armed Forces' North battlegroup had pushed back an assault near Kremyanoye on Wednesday, retaken the village of Krupets and rained heavy fire on Ukrainian units deployed to the west of Russkaya.

The report also claimed the Russian army blocked efforts by AFU mobile units to break through deeper into Russian territory in six other areas including Varvarovka and Alekseevsky in neighboring Belgorod province where the governor declared a state of emergency Wednesday.

It also struck Ukrainian forces in Olgovka, Snagosti, Pogrebki, Mirny, Zaoleshenka, Uspenovka and Yuzhny and used a short-range, tactical ballistic missile to take out a military convoy and 15 fuel tankers in a cross-border attack near Lubny in Sumy province.

"Kyiv lost up to 340 servicemen and 19 armored vehicles, including five Bradley infantry fighting vehicles and 14 armored combat vehicles, as well as eight vehicles, five field artillery guns, a multiple rocket launcher and two electronic warfare stations," according to the report.

Britain is the third largest military backer of Ukraine after the United States and Germany, contributing $9.76 billion of hardware, equipment and munitions in the two-and-half-years to June 30.

But that $10 bn dollars in hardware, etc., was paid for by the British government directly to British arms merchants either to purchase the goods or to replace the goods taken from military stockpiles. $10 bn! That is about $270 per taxpayer, or $540 for a home with two taxpayers. For a city with 100,000 taxpayers, it's a loss of $27 mn.

Britain could have done something useful with that money. British taxpayers could have benefitted greatly from having that money in their pockets instead of in the pockets of war industry oligarchs. This is all part of the global wealth transfer conspiracy to impoverish the middle class and increase the wealth and power of the oligarchs.

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How "The Great Reset" is Working in America

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Welcome to the Great Reset? Corporate landlords poised to

snatch Americans’ property after eviction moratorium expires

1 Aug, 2021 00:33

A ‘for rent’ sign is displayed in front of an apartment building in Arlington, Virginia, June 20, 2021

© Reuters / Will Dunham

By Graham Dockery, RT

Millions face imminent homelessness, after the Democrats left Washington for the recess without extending an eviction moratorium set to expire on Saturday. America’s largest corporate landlords are about to make a killing.

An 11-month eviction moratorium that prevented tens of millions of Americans from losing their homes during the coronavirus-induced economic shutdown expires on July 31, after Congress left Washington for recess without passing a bill to extend it.

The moratorium was put in place by the Trump administration last year and extended by the Biden administration in June, but a Supreme Court ruling that same month stated that a further extension would require “clear and specific congressional authorization.”

Why didn't Biden approach Congress immediately after the Supreme Court decision? Why did he wait until the last minute?

President Biden this week asked his allies in Congress to pass a bill extending the eviction ban, and House Democrats had enough votes to do so, but nevertheless did not. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi put the failure down to not having “enough time to socialize it within our caucus as well as to build the consensus, especially in a time of Covid.”

Pelosi’s typically Washingtonian answer will do little to assuage the millions of Americans who are behind on their rent. A precise figure is hard to nail down, but Moody’s estimates that six million tenants are in arrears, while more than 3.5 million people told the US Census Bureau earlier in July that they face eviction within the next two months. As of Saturday, they are no longer protected from being turfed out onto the streets.

The moratorium also applied to homeowners behind on their mortgages and facing foreclosure – two million of them, to be precise, according to figures from Harvard University.

Eight million homes may soon be vacant, and some of America’s largest corporate landlords are likely waiting to snap them up. Staggeringly wealthy pension funds such as BlackRock and Blackstone have spent the pandemic buying up homes, often at well over the market value, with a view to renting them out to the same Americans now priced out of the market. The eviction moratorium was a double-edged sword in some cases, with small-time ‘mom and pop’ landlords unable to collect rent from their tenants facing no choice but to sell to BlackRock and its ilk.

This process has been underway since the 2008 economic downturn, and beyond the borders of the US. In 2019, the UN accused Blackstone of “wreaking havoc with tenants’ right to security, and contributing to the global housing crisis.” 

This time, they’re eyeing the market atop even bigger war chests. BlackRock, for instance, was hired by the Federal Reserve last year to buy up mortgages on its behalf, ostensibly to shore up the US economy from the virus-induced downturn. The Fed turned to BlackRock in 2008 as well, and the partnership proved lucrative. BlackRock now manages more than $7 trillion in assets –up from $1.3 trillion at the time of the last economic crisis.

The American middle class still holds more than double the wealth of the top 1% of the country, and homeownership is universally recognized as the first step toward acquiring membership of this sector. The US government has long acknowledged this, with the Department of Housing and Urban Development stating back in 2004 that buying a house can be the “most important source of wealth accumulation and ultimate financial security” for lower-middle-income families.

Put simply, a nation of renters is not a financially secure nation, and when corporate landlords buy up houses to rent indefinitely and, in doing, so price independent buyers out of the market, they’re redistributing wealth from the middle class to the fraction of a percent at the top.

Opposition to the eviction moratorium has been loud, and has come from the left and the right alike. Progressives such as Missouri Rep. Cori Bush (D) and Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar (D) staged a sleep-out on the steps of the Capitol on Friday night to protest their fellow Democrats’ apparent indifference to passing a moratorium extension. These progressives have repeatedly called for mass rent relief and government-subsidized housing, claiming “housing is a human right.”

The populist right, as distinct from the more traditional pro-business Republicans in Congress, have focused their anger on BlackRock and Blackstone for their role in denying ordinary Americans a share in the country’s wealth.

Curiously, no political will seemingly exists to fight the corporate-backed dehousing of America. Republicans who profess to defend the freedom of America’s middle class have remained largely silent, which is all the stranger given the fact a nation of renters falls right in line with the World Economic Forum’s ‘Great Reset’ initiative – an ambitious plan to reshape the world’s post-pandemic economy into one in which the average citizen “owns nothing.” Incidentally, BlackRock CEO Larry Fink is a trustee of that forum.

Democrats aren’t putting up any opposition either. Explaining the lack of a vote on Friday, Speaker Pelosi said “we only learnt of this yesterday” – a bizarre statement, given that the end of the moratorium had been expected for a month. And though Biden appealed to Congress to pass the bill, it is difficult to take his appeal seriously in light of the staffing pipeline between BlackRock and the Biden administration.

Brian Deese served as the Global Head of Sustainable Investing at BlackRock, and now directs the National Economic Council. Wally Adeyemo is a former senior adviser at BlackRock, and now serves as deputy secretary of the Treasury Department. Mike Pyle used to be an investment strategist at BlackRock and is now Vice President Kamala Harris’ chief economic adviser.

Although, on Friday, Biden called on states to use federal funding from the American Rescue Plan to bail out renters, these efforts have been piecemeal thus far. For now, many Americans falling behind on their rent are on their own.

Super Rich Hide $21 Trillion Offshore, Study Says

Frederick E. Allen, Leadership Editor of Forbes.

Grand Cayman (left)
It's isn't beaches like this that draw the extremely wealthy to the Cayman Islands. (Photo credit: toddwickersty)

A new report finds that around the world the extremely wealthy have accumulated at least $21 trillion in secretive offshore accounts. That’s a sum equal to the gross domestic products of the United States and Japan added together. 

The number may sound unbelievable, but the study was conducted by James Henry, former chief economist at the consultancy McKinsey, an expert on tax havens and offshoring. It was commissioned by Tax Justice Network, a British activist group.

According to an early report on the study in The Guardian, Henry’s research shows that at least £13tn [$21 trillion] – perhaps up to £20tn [$31 trillion] – has leaked out of scores of countries into secretive jurisdictions such as Switzerland and the Cayman Islands with the help of private banks, which vie to attract the assets of so-called high net-worth individuals. Their wealth is, as Henry puts it, “protected by a highly paid, industrious bevy of professional enablers in the private banking, legal, accounting and investment industries taking advantage of the increasingly borderless, frictionless global economy“. According to Henry’s research, the top 10 private banks, which include UBS and Credit Suisse in Switzerland, as well as the US investment bank Goldman Sachs, managed more than £4tn [$6.2 trillion] in 2010, a sharp rise from £1.5tn five years earlier.

The report’s analysis, based on data from many sources including the Bank of International Settlements and the International Monetary Fund, indicates that enough money has left some developing countries since the 1970s to pay off all their debts to the rest of the world. “The problem here is that the assets of these countries are held by a small number of wealthy individuals while the debts are shouldered by the ordinary people of these countries through their governments,” the report says. Money has especially flowed out of oil producing states. Some $700 billion has left Russia since the 1990s: $305 billion has flowed out of Saudi Arabia since the 1970s, and about the same amount from Nigeria.

Henry calculates that some 92,000 people, a thousandth of a percent of the world’s population, control $9.8 trillion, and that if all the $21 trillion that has been off-shored earned 3% a year and were taxed at 30%, it would raise $188 billion in revenues, more than rich countries spend on aid to the developing world every year.

The rich in the USA pay on average about 15% taxes, much less than middle-class workers. That 15%, however, is based on reported income which does not include money filtered to off-shore tax havens. Consequently, many of the rich are actually paying less than a 15% tax rate, and perhaps much less.

These are the same people who wine and cry at the thought of paying their fair share of taxes - which can never happen as long as they are hiding money off-shore. But they don't even want to pay their share of taxes on income that they actually report. All the while they begrudge the poor a few crumbs from the table, calling them all sorts of names. 

Maybe Berni Madoff was right - he's just an ordinary businessman.