Unusual practices and rhetoric seem to be developing a group of millionaires participating in protests against the World Economic Forum of the business and political elite in Davos, Switzerland.
This group, which identifies itself as Patriotic Millionaires, demands that governments "tax them now" to address the ever-widening gap between rich and poor.
The Patriotic Millionaires number more than 100 members of the global wealth, and among them are loud names, such as that of Disney heiress Abigail Disney, who has positioned herself by saying that the current tax system is rigged in their favor and needs to be rewritten to make taxes fairer for hard workers and restore trust in politics.
Millionaires called on world leaders attending Sunday's annual conference to immediately impose new taxes on the rich in order to address the "cost of living scandal taking place in many nations around the world."
According to the charity Oxfam, ever-increasing inequality could push up to 263 million more people into extreme poverty in 2022, reversing decades of progress.
Tax delegates attending Davos 2022
Phil White, a former business consultant and member of Patriotic Millionaires UK, told the Guardian, "While the rest of the world collapses under the weight of an economic crisis, billionaires and world leaders are meeting in this private compound to discuss turning points in history."
"It is outrageous that our political leaders are listening to those who have the most, know the least about the economic impact of this crisis, and many of whom are paying ingloriously little in taxes. The only credible outcome from this conference is to tax the richest and tax us now. Tax the delegates attending Davos 2022." he said afterwards.
This protest comes in response to the revelation of a new record 177 billionaires in the UK, with a combined wealth of £653 billion.
At the same time, more than 250,000 households in the UK are predicted to fall into poverty next year due to soaring food and energy bills. This would bring the total number in extreme poverty to around 1.2 million unless the government acts to help the poorest families affected by the huge rise in energy prices, according to the National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR).
Tax me, tax the rich
Marlene Engelhorn, another "patriotic millionaire" at the rally, said the only solution to "gross inequality" was to demand that governments "tax me, tax the rich".
Engelhorn, heiress to the founders of the chemical company BASF and a co-founder of the #taxmenow initiative, said: "As someone who has enjoyed the benefits of wealth all my life, I know how skewed our economy is and I can't continue to sit back and wait for someone, somewhere, to do something. I feel there is no choice for us but to take action."
"Our governments continue to do nothing to address gross inequality and instead meet behind closed doors in this extravaganza of private wealth. We have reached the end of the line when another quarter of a billion people will be driven into extreme poverty this year. It is time to bring balance back to the world. It's time to tax the rich."
The theme of this year's meeting of the World Economic Forum in Davos - the first meeting in more than two years because of the pandemic - is "cooperation, restoring trust."
Jafar Salhi, a Danish multimillionaire engineer and property developer, said: "You don't gain people's trust by organising events like Davos, where the rich and powerful of the world meet behind layers of security. The most important thing that Davos participants could do to really gain people's trust is to recognise that the wealth and privilege they represent and protect is incompatible with a world where everyone can live full and prosperous lives."
Source: news247.gr
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