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THE GULF BETWEEN the world’s wealthiest people and and those living in poverty grew significantly in 2024, according to a report published by Oxfam today.
The report also highlights the prevailing disparities in wealth between rich countries in the Global North and poorer countries in the Global South.
The headline finding from the report is that the world’s billionaires got wealthier by €1.9 trillion globally in 2024.
In Ireland, billionaires grew their wealth by €13 billion last year, which equated to gains of €35.6 million per day. There were 204 new billionaires in the world last year, two of whom were Irish, bringing the total number of billionaires to 2,692 worldwide.
Ireland’s two new billionaires are brothers Firoz and Zahan Mistry, whose late father was Pallonji Shapoorji Mistry, an Indian-born Irish businessman who was chairman of the Shapoorji Pallonji Group and a major shareholder in India’s largest private conglomerate, the Tata Group.
Oxfam said it takes just 5 days for someone in the top 1% to make what the average person in the bottom 50% makes all year in Ireland.
The report, entitled ‘Takers Not Makers’, has been released today to coincide with the beginning of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where the world’s wealthiest and most powerful people convene for talks on the state of the world economy.
It also comes on the day of Donald Trump’s inauguration as President of the United States.
“We are witnessing the rise of a modern oligarchy, where wealth is used to build and consolidate political power and vice versa,” said Oxfam Ireland’s CEO Jim Clarken.
At a global level, Oxfam noted that, “As billionaire wealth balloons, the number of people living in poverty has barely changed since 1990”.
Oxfam has predicted that the first trillionaires will soon emerge and that there will be “at least” five trillionaires a decade from now.
“The capture of our global economy by a privileged few has reached heights once considered unimaginable,” said Clarken.
“The failure to stop billionaires is now spawning soon-to-be trillionaires. Not only has the rate of billionaire wealth accumulation accelerated – by three times – but so too has their power,” Clarken said.
Clarken also took aim at the incoming US president and his supporters.
“President Trump will be a president of and for billionaires, using his power over the world’s largest economy to slash taxes for the ultra-rich and mega-corporations, at the expense of everyone else.”
He said Trump’s administration will be “the richest ever to run the US government,” with a combined net worth of more than $450 billion, which he described as “unimaginable”.
“There are at least 13 billionaires appointed to jobs in his administration”, said Clarken. “And even if you exclude Elon Musk, Trump’s cabinet would be the richest in history.”
“Billionaires increasingly control not just economies but narratives and that is why in this report we challenge the popular perception that their vast wealth is deserved or based on merit,” he said.
Oxfam has calculated that 36% of billionaire wealth is now inherited.
“This report shows how extreme wealth is not simply a function of talent or ingenuity alone but built on the back of the work of countless others and taxpayer investment.”
One statistic in particular highlighted the state of inequality on a global scale, as well as the legacy of colonialism: the richest 1% in the Global North extracted €29m an hour from the Global South through the financial system in 2023, Oxfam said.
Almost sixty years after the end of the historical colonial period, “our global economy is still structured in ways that lead to wealth flowing from the Global South to the Global North, and more specifically from ordinary people in the Global South to the richest people in the Global North”, the report said.
Global North countries control 69% of global wealth, 77% of billionaire wealth and are home to 68% of billionaires, despite making up just 21% of the global population, according to the report.
Clarken said that Ireland, “as one of the riches countries per capita in the world situated firmly in the power structures of the Global North,” needs to understand “our own role in this modern-day colonialism”.
“For us to truly honour our past and live up to our promise Ireland must act in solidarity and stand with the countries of the Global South as they seek redress, reparations and their rightful place in international economic and political power structures.
“Our history gives us an appreciation for the position of the dispossessed, of the excluded and disempowered.
“Acknowledging how we currently benefit from global inequality should lead us to take an even stronger stance on behalf of those labouring under economic and political disparity and climate breakdown.
“We owe it to the Global South to stand squarely with them.”
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“Poverty exists not because we cannot feed the poor, but because we cannot satisfy the rich.”
@Jack Burton: true. How much money does one person need? The inequality is only going to grow over the next coming years when Trump crashes the economy
@Jack Burton: It’s addiction, same as sugar, heroin, etc. There will never be enough.
@Dermot Blaine: Defeatist
@Thesaltyurchin: indeed, the hoarding flaws of humanity
@Thesaltyurchin: Spot on.
Meanwhile we’ve mothers and their children living in hotel rooms, great little country
@qffaffaf affrafrfraf: I’m not in anyway anti-capitalism but you are completely spot on and this is disguising… as a Society, we continue to brush it under the carpet. Much like the Mother and Baby homes. Makes me sick.
@qffaffaf affrafrfraf: I agree but that’s also their choice. Also I have lots of children when you can’t afford them. I don’t have any children for that reason. I can’t afford them and I have nowhere for them to stay so it comes down to education also at the end of the day , and somebody trying to make better of themselves yes I don’t agree with people being super rich but at least they get up and try to better themselves instead of putting her hands out, but yes I do agree with your comment its disgraceful but brought on by themselves also
@Bren: Agree with you 100%. Why reward people for poor planning and decision making. Providing handouts for those who expect others to support their poor planning and decision-making. Sacrifice is required by all… Even the self-made wealthy sacrificed.
@Seriously Really: there you go absolute brilliant comment that’s exactly it. We have to make sacrifices in life. Can’t have everything we want relying on handouts from everybody else , including the taxpayer paying for everything for poor planning and poor choices.
@Bren: Did you read the article? Most is inherited wealth, so they did nothing to earn it and don’t
understand basic needs. and girls don’t get themselves pregnant by themselves. You don’t know their stories, but we do know inherited wealth is not good for society.
And globalists are destroying the planet while we all judge those that have no power, like it’s their fault they are homeless.
@Colette Byrne: I agree with your comment and yet, in good old Ireland, the left wing parties are against inheritance taxes. Realistically all our political parties are just opportunists and have no policy they wouldn’t change for a bit of power.
@Bren: war refugees brought it on themselves?
If only they were all like JP McManus.At least he spreads it around a little bit.
@Willie Marty: pity he won’t pay his taxes here, that’s what funds hospitals etc.
@Willie Marty: he does in his hole. He has a pr department that leaks good news stories but he loves money like em all.
@Dermot Blaine: well unless youre one of the aforementioned billionaires above he pays more tax in this country than you and I and a lot more combined.
@Pork Hunt: incorrect and hurried conclusion.He dosent get the credit nor does he seek it.BTW thank you JP for the horse riding school you set up for handicapped children just one of the many contributions you have made to charity in this country.
@Willie Marty: that’s hardly the point, he chooses to live in a low tax country.
@Willie Marty: Arizona Tea model. So rare.
@Dermot Blaine: taxes in Ireland are ridiculously high, that’s why he doesn’t pay in Ireland. Nobody should pay over half their money to the government, no matter how much they make.
@Joe Willis: Nobody should be a billionaire. It’s an obscene amount of wealth for one person.
To be a billionaire is antisocial.
@Willie Marty: No, he doesn’t pay his taxes. That’s what people who want a good society do, pay taxes.
@Colette Byrne: have to agree with Willie Marty .The man has done more for people on disability and the underprivileged than any government since the foundation of the state.
Nobody needs over a thousand million euro/pound/dollars. Obscene isn’t even strong enough. A cap should be put at a very high number, like say 100 million and anything above that taxed extremely high like 90%. Noone can legitimately argue a person needs more than 100 million and that it would discourage work
@FoxyBoiiYT: While I agree with the sentiment, I very much doubt the ‘leftovers’ will be spread under the rest of us, nor do I think should be.
@FoxyBoiiYT: How do you tax it?
Most billionaires have low paper income. Their worth is predominantly based on stock in their own companies. The voting right they need to run their businesses cannot be taxed away.
@FoxyBoiiYT: You’re away with the fairies as usual. Why would someone have their residence in Ireland if they are going to pay 90% tax. How are you going to stop them putting it in somewhere like the Cayman Islands, you can’t. These Irish billionaires don’t have 100 million in cash sitting in their bank accounts either. Are you going to tax unrealised gains? You’re clueless.
@Athena: When one crackhead drops a rock, another one finds it.
Irish billionaires, wealth inequality, legacy of colonialism, gap widening… and a picture of Trump on top of the article… there were 82 billionaires supporting harris vs. 52 Trump. Why did you not post her picture???
@michal heba: Source for that 82/52 statistic???
@michal heba: because Trump is president and has appointed a cabinet made up largely of the billionaires who funded him. The super rich always support both sides they don’t always get seats at cabinet.
@Me Me: forbes, Google this
And yet, the two irish billionaires are from the global south.
‘Two new Irish billionaires’ eh its two Indian lads milking daddies money in tax haven ireland.
@Tom L: I’m sure they are neither worried or concerned.
Depressing really.
Just have a look at this incoming government.How many millionaires are sitting at the trough and only concerned about their portfolios and bank balance’s. They could absolutely have no understanding of how people are struggling out there.
And yet theres people who think allowing these kind of people into the running of governments is some how gonna make things better. Some people still think millionaires/billionaires all got their wealth by hard work and fairness. Have a look at the US over the next few months with Musk in charge of things and see how his interests and profits go up even more, while the thing he was brought in to help with turns into a mess.
While I agree it’s not right, their billions are usually invested somewhere, multiplying. It’s the 1st rule of capitalism which will never change.
@smatrix mantra: capitalism has failed. Investing ? For their own gain.dont pay taxes, so what are billionaires good for exactly.?
@Colette Byrne:
Capitalism is the only show in town until something better comes along.
@H Woo: free market capitalism is destroying our biodiversity, but we are too asleep at the wheel to notice
@H Woo: Beloved theory of old Churchill cultists. It’s the only show in town for the brainwashed and lazy minded. Kept in place by corruption. Churchill was imperialist and a drunk.
@Mike B:
Look at the mess China, USSR and Cubia have made of their landscape and Air.
Lads it’s not easy being a billionaire ye can’t just pop down t Mr price for yer gold bog roll any more
@Liam Meade: You can own it tho. Keep the Chinese factories burning.
Annual interest on €1m (depending on the type of saving account at standard bank) is €40k.
Didn’t Plato observe that democracy leads to oligarchy?
@michael powell: So does Communism, human nature to ‘survive’ better than everyone else.
@michael powell: democracy is for the wealthy. The American forefathers spoke of saving democracy.
They were speaking of keeping the wealth in the hands of the few, cause the paupers couldn’t be trusted. We need to start using terms like society, citizens, homeless, and common good.
Not democracy, free markets, rough sleepers, people, we need to speak about wealth taxes, inheritance taxes. Unless the super rich start paying for the money they didn’t work for, nothing will change.
@Colette Byrne:
Will certain “Hard Left” boys and girls in our parliament who come from privileged backgrounds be refusing their share of Mummy and Daddy’s wishes in their wills.
@H Woo: that’s why we have inheritance tax but I’m not sure if it’s means tested ?
Millionaire, billionaire, trilliionaire …. you may bathe in champagne , you may dance on the plane , but you’ll never explain , why you need to sustain , a lifestyle that can still only deliver you one meal at a time . Imagine all the good you could do , with all that money , if you just gave it away … imagine …. you too Bono
Time for a revolution lads
@Brian Dennehy:
Have one every four years. Working class in Ireland have continue to reject socialists/commies fools
A big globalist circle jerk.
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