The Writer: James Burton
Date first published: 21 January 2019
Just 26 billionaires now own as much wealth as the poorest 3.8billion people – half the world’s population – combined, according to Oxfam.
A new report by the charity says the 26 richest men and women in the world control a combined £1.1trillion – equal to everything owned by the bottom 50 per cent of all people.
But Oxfam was criticised for alleged flaws in its report and for pushing a hard-Left agenda that goes beyond its remit as a fundraising body.
The charity counts anyone whose debt is greater than their assets as poorer than someone who is debt-free. For example, a Harvard law graduate with £100,000 of student debt who has just landed a job with a massive salary would be judged poorer than an Ethiopian farmer who is debt free.
Matthew Lesh, of the free market Adam Smith Institute, described the report as ‘complete hogwash’.
But an Oxfam spokesman said: ‘The way our economies are organised, wealth is increasingly and unfairly concentrated among a privileged few while millions of people are barely subsisting.’
Source: mailonline.com