First Trillionaire Just 10 Years Away as Richest Men Double Their Wealth. "This inequality is no accident; the billionaire class is ensuring corporations deliver more wealth to them at the expense of everyone else," said Oxfam's interim executive director JAKE JOHNSon Jan 15, 2024 Since 2020, a year marked by the spread of a pathogen that killed millions of people, the world's five richest men have seen their collective wealth more than double as five billion people across the globe have lost ground and hunger has surged, underscoring the deep inequality that is fueling mass discontent and eroding democracies. The finding by Oxfam International was published Monday as elites gathered in Davos, Switzerland for the annual World Economic Forum, a summit that—while ostensiblyaimed at confronting the planet's most pressing crises—has long been seen as a symbol of global capital's stranglehold on key institutions. Oxfam calculated that the combined wealth of the five richest billionaires on the planet grew from $405 billion in 2020 to roughly $869 billion today—a rate of $14 million an hour. During that same period, 60% of the global population got poorer, with the real wages of around 800 million workers across 52 countries falling in the face of high inflation. Under the status quo, global poverty won't be eradicated for nearly two and a half centuries—but the world will have its first trillionaire within the next 10 years, Oxfam found. "We're witnessing the beginnings of a decade of division, with billions of people shouldering the economic shockwaves of pandemic, inflation, and war, while billionaires' fortunes boom," Amitabh Behar, Oxfam's interim executive director, said in a statement. "This inequality is no accident; the billionaire class is ensuring corporations deliver more wealth to them at the expense of everyone else." Overall, the world's billionaires have gotten $3.3 trillion richer since the start of the decade, Oxfam said, noting that their wealth grew three times faster than inflation. Large corporations, too, have seen their fortunes surge since 2020, with around 150 of the world's biggest companies bringing in a combined $1.8 trillion in profits—a massive boon for wealthy shareholders that came as workers suffered from the economic turmoil induced by the coronavirus pandemic, Russia's invasion of Ukraine, worsening climate impacts, and other global shocks. Seventy percent of the largest companies have a billionaire as their chief executive or top shareholder. Oxfam's report spotlights the "sustained and highly effective war on taxation" that powerful corporations have been waging over the past several decades—a war that has yielded a significantly lower corporate income tax rate that has allowed companies to amass vast riches and entrench their political influence.  To rein in excessive corporate power and accelerating inequality, Oxfam recommended several broad policy solutions, including the break-up of monopolistic companies such as Amazon and a global wealth tax on the world's millionaires and billionaires, which the group estimated could generate $1.8 trillion a year in revenue that could be invested in education, healthcare, environmental protection, and other critical priorities.      https://www.commondreams.org/news/oxfam-worlds-richest?utm_source=Common+Dreams&utm_campaign=ccc5792498-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2024_01_12_no_tracking_COPY_02&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-77b634d84f-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D                                                                   

 Business of War Is Booming as Orders Surge at Top Global Arms Firms. "The order books of the world's biggest defense companies are near record highs," a new Financial Times analysis reveals.  Orders at many of the world's biggest arms companies are "near record highs" due to rising geopolitical tensions in recent years, an analysis published Wednesday by Financial Times revealed.  The London-based newspaper analyzed the order books of the world's 15 top arms makers and found their combined backlogs were $777.6 billion at the end of 2022—a 10% increase from 2020.  According to  FT:  The trend's momentum continued into 2023. In the first six months of this year—the latest comprehensive quarterly data available—combined backlogs at these companies stood at $764 billion, swelling their future pipeline of work as governments kept placing orders.  The sustained spending has spurred investors' interest in the sector. [Member of Chartered Institute for Securities & Investment's] global benchmark for the industry's stocks is up 25% over the past 12 months. Europe's Stoxx aerospace and defense stocks index has risen by more than 50% over the same period.  Private equity firms including BlackRock, Vanguard, Capital Group, and State Street are dominant or major shareholders in most of the weapons companies analyzed by  FT. These Wall Street speculators are "the ones driving the perpetual wars to maintain their bankrupt financial system,"  according to the International Schiller Institute, a Washington, D.C.-based think tank. "In the U.S., the defense budget was $858 billion in 2023, and it is rapidly heading towards $1 trillion per year," the institute said last week. "Meanwhile our highways and railroads, our bridges and tunnels, our hospitals and schools are crumbling. And the rest of the world also desperately needs American technology and capital goods to help their development, working with China and Russia, rather than driving the planet towards World War III against them." The West's scramble to arm Ukraine's homeland defense against ongoing Russian invasion and occupation played a significant role in surging arms orders.        https://www.commondreams.org/news/arms-trade-2666819054?utm_source=Common+Dreams&utm_campaign=5888424eb4-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2023_12_15_08_47_COPY_01&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_-68f4d62cd9-%5BLIST_EMAIL_ID%5D

Yes, the climate crisis is raising your grocery bills. Droughts, fires, floods, heatwaves – they’re all contributing to our supply-chain problems and brutal inflation.  Suzi Kerr Families around the world are struggling with higher grocery costs and electricity and heating bills. What they may not realize is that rising inflation is increasingly driven by another global crisis: climate change. Last year, the United States incurred over $2bn in costs due to 20 climate-related extreme weather events, from Hurricane Ian to heatwaves and drought. Lumber, cotton, tomatoes, wheat and energy – and the products they generate, from denim jeans to your Italian takeout dinner – were all affected by these events and are now more expensive than this time last year. Climate-driven extreme weather and disasters are now more frequently responsible for production shortages, supply chain disruptions, and labor issues that lead to higher costs of living. The cost of food is particularly susceptible to climate-related shocks like droughts, floods or wildfires. For example, the cost of eggs in the US rose by 60% in 2022. In addition to increased demand and a spike in avian flu, climate-fueled droughts and heatwaves made growing chicken feed 30% more expensive. Climate change has also harmed the growth of cotton in Texas, oranges in Florida and tomatoes in California. Around the world, this affects lower-income people the most; they tend to spend a greater share of their income on food. In developing countries, communities will feel the effects of climate change on their wallets and livelihoods even more severely: the price of food has soared over 24% in Nigeria and 62.7% in Egypt in the last year. Egypt is experiencing the inflationary consequences of war and climate change. As the Russian invasion of Ukraine limits wheat production from Europe’s breadbasket and drives up wheat prices, Egyptian farmers are battling extreme heat, unexpected freezes and persistent pests – hindering their fruit and vegetable harvests and further increasing food prices in Egypt. Aside from challenges to food production, climate change is disrupting labor and transportation in the global supply chain. Heatwaves, wildfires, power and internet outages have already affected workers in warehouses, on the road and in home offices. While worker health and safety should always be top priority, the climate crisis is creating labor disruptions and shortages that can drive up prices. According to one report by the International Labor Organization,heatwaves are projected to reduce working hours worldwide by over 2% by 2030 – equivalent to losing 80m full-time jobs and $2,400bn globally. The good news is that we are not powerless against economic chaos driven by climate change.               https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/apr/27/climate-crisis-grocery-bills-food-environment

CORPORATE Since the mid-1980s, the 25 largest oil and gas companies around the world have fought climate policies tooth and nail, making US$30 trillion in the process, according to a study published Thursday. The analysis from German-headquartered Climate Analytics also calculated the climate-related damages from the emissions of the oil and gas companies and found those 25 fossil fuel companies were responsible for approximately US$20 trillion worth of destruction. In other words, the “carbon majors” responsible for the crisis at hand knowingly spent decades that could have been used to avoid disastrous global warming to make so much money they could have paid their “fair share” of climate-related damages and still pocketed US$10 trillion, according to the report. Among the 25 companies raking in trillions of dollars over the years while torching the planet are firms with significant Canadian footprints. ExxonMobil, including its Canadian subsidiary Imperial Oil, was ranked as the fourth-largest contributor to the climate crisis, having caused US$1.2 trillion in damage while making an equivalent amount in profit. Shell, which controls a 40 per cent stake in LNG Canada — the country’s largest-ever investment in fossil fuels — was found to be the sixth-largest contributor to climate change. Responsible for US$1.1 trillion in damage over the years, it made US$900 billion in profit. Other companies with Canadian, or planned Canadian operations, include ConocoPhillips (with business in the oilsands and the Montney gas field), Petronas (invested in LNG Canada), and BP, Chevron and Equinor that all are planning new projects in Newfoundland and Labrador’s offshore oil industry. “These oil and gas majors have known about climate change for decades, yet they have doubled down on their business model,” said lead author Carl-Friedrich Schleussner in a statement. “They have reaped massive financial gains, while climate change has intensified and left vulnerable peoples, and particularly developing countries, footing the bill.” Additionally, 1,023 companies are planning to build new liquified natural gas (LNG) terminals, pipelines or gas-fired power plants, all of which lock in fossil fuel use and undermine the Paris Agreement’s target of 1.5 C above pre-industrial levels.  In 2022, Canadian-headquartered oil and gas companies like Suncor and Canadian Natural Resources, as well as the Canadian arms of international energy majors like Shell and ExxonMobil, posted profits approaching $40 billion. For the five Canadian firms that make up the Pathways Alliance (Suncor, Cenovus, MEG, Imperial and Canadian Natural Resources), the companies returned $29 billion to shareholders in the form of increased dividend payments and share buybacks. Using this flood of cash, oil and gas companies in Canada are plotting a dramatic expansion to their business that will mean even more greenhouse gases released into the atmosphere, where they will accumulate and push the planet’s temperature to more dangerous levels. A study from Oil Change International published in September found Canada is on track to be the second-largest fossil fuel expander, behind the United States, by 2050.    https://www.nationalobserver.com/2023/11/16/news/30-trillion-reasons-make-big-oil-pay