Covid and billionaires

It was the World Economic Forum itself that warned: every 26 hours the world gains a new billionaire and every four seconds a person dies because of inequality. Shocking, but not surprising. Capitalism has shown all its claws since the beginning of the pandemic. The statistics are terrible and revealing. More than 17 million people have died, and that's a conservative estimate, while the world's 2755 billionaires have seen their fortunes grow during the pandemic more than in the last 14 years. 

This gives us an idea of ​​how much the continuation of the pandemic benefits certain more savage groups. Being against masks and vaccines makes sense in light of these numbers. According to a survey by the newspaper O Globo, the NGO Oxfam calculated that the fortune of the 10 richest people in the world doubled from 700 billion dollars to 1,5 trillion, 99% of the population suffered income loss, 160 million people were pushed into poverty, and Brazil gained 10 billionaires while hunger increased to levels seen 17 years ago. It was during this period that the Bolsa Família program, now defunct, began to be combated, and the Lula government managed to remove the country from the hunger map.

Luxury goods have once again become the target of intense competition among the wealthy, while the poor are left with nothing but bones. We live in a situation where misery no longer affects those who take advantage of this shameful inequality to become even richer. There is only one solution to this discrepancy, and even international organizations like Oxfam suggest taxing large fortunes, now even more so with the pandemic. The same research says that if the ten richest men in the world lost 99,99% of their wealth, they would still be richer than 99% of the population. It's impossible to even calculate these numbers in light of humanism, but it's true.

In addition to being a political option, taxing large fortunes, and the establishment of basic income by former Senator Eduardo Suplicy, are becoming crucial for changing this situation, and a shift in policy direction, starting here in Brazil, is also becoming essential. 

It's a long task, but if we continue going backward as we have been, it will become more difficult every day. Ending the pandemic or transforming it into an endemic disease is the initial task, but it must be accompanied by a political and economic transformation. More pandemics will come, and it is essential that we are prepared, at least with less inequality, to face this unnatural selection of life again. The elections are there to make this change a reality.