Over 200 millionaires are urging the elite echelons in attendance at this week’s World Economic Forum in Davos to “tackle extreme wealth” and “tax the ultra-rich” to assist relieve the cost-of-living pressure off bizarre households.
The Patriotic Millionaires — self-described as “a group of high-net worth Americans who share a profound concern about the destabilizing level of inequality in America” — known as for related measures of their marketing campaign final yr.
“Tax the ultra rich and do it now,” the group asks in a new “Cost of Extreme Wealth” open letter on Wednesday, additionally endorsed by PMUK, Tax Me Now and Millionaires for Humanity. “It’s simple, common-sense economics. It is an investment in our common good and a better future that we all deserve, and as millionaires we want to make that investment,” it stated.
The message warns of an “age of extremes” marked by rising poverty, wealth inequality, anti-democratic nationalism, depressed ecological situations and dwindling alternatives for common employees to make a residing wage.
The letter questions the mission of the World Economic Forum in absence of concrete measures:
“The current lack of action is gravely concerning. A meeting of the ‘global elite’ in Davos to discuss ‘Cooperation in a Fragmented World’ is pointless if you aren’t challenging the root cause of division. Defending democracy and building cooperation requires action to build fairer economies right now – it is not a problem that can be left for our children to fix.”
The marketing campaign numbers 206 signatories from 12 nations, together with Abigail Disney, an heiress to the multimedia leisure empire, and actor Mark Ruffalo.
“Extreme wealth is eating our world alive. It is undermining our democracies, destabilizing our economies, and destroying our climate,” Disney stated. “But for all their talk about solving the world’s problems, the attendees of Davos refuse to discuss the only thing that can make a real impact — taxing the rich.”
She criticized, “I’ve been to Davos. I’ve sat in the same room with some of the richest and most powerful people in the world as they talk about how they can make a difference, so I can say this with firsthand experience – Davos is a farce. Until Davos attendees start talking about taxing the rich, the entire gathering will remain a very public example of how out of touch they really are.”
CNBC has reached out to the Davos World Economic Forum for remark.
A examine produced by the Patriotic Millionaires finds {that a} progressive annual wealth tax — modeled at 2% on people value $5 million, 3% on these with a web $50 million, and 5% on the ultra-rich with greater than $1 billion — might have raised in extra of $1.7 trillion in 2022.
The world’s richest 1% have accrued practically two-thirds of all new international wealth during the last two years, amassing $26 trillion out of $42 trillion created in that interval, Oxfam present in a latest report.
Households world wide have been struggling to maintain tempo with surging prices in wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, tightening financial insurance policies and gasoline worth hikes stoked by sanctions in opposition to Russian power provides. Just one chief of the Group of Seven international financial — German Chancellor Olaf Scholz — was set to attend the Davos proceedings this week, as a number of of his counterparts battle the cost-of-living disaster.