iStock/Thinkstock(DAVOS, Switzerland) — You may have already known that the world’s richest people were very, very rich. But did you know just how rich?
A new report from Oxfam released Monday at an annual gathering of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland shows that the eight richest men own as much wealth as 3.6 billion people — or half the population of the entire world.
“Inequality is definitely getting worse in a lot of countries and you’re seeing the super rich, in particular, move away from the rest of society,” says Oxfam’s Max Lawson.
Among the list of the richest men are Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos, former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and the world’s richest man, Bill Gates.
“One thing Oxfam is calling on is for the world’s billionaires to do the right thing and not the wrong thing,” Lawson says. “And what they could do, is what Bill Gates has called on them to do, which is to pay their taxes. Many, many billionaires pay hardly any tax, using tax havens to hide their money away.”
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