While the whole world was experiencing a cost of living crisis, the world’s largest 722 companies made excessive profits of over $1 trillion for the second year in a row, driven by rising prices and interest rates.
According to analysis by international charity Oxfam and ActionAid, based on Forbes’ “Global 2000” list, the incidental profits of 722 companies stood at 1.09 trillion in 2021, compared to $1.1 trillion last year.
Thanks to these increases, the total profits of the companies increased by 89 percent compared to the average of the 2017-2020 period.
In this period when millions of people all over the world are struggling with the cost of living crisis, international companies have increased their profits dramatically with rising costs and interest rates.
1 billion workers in 50 countries faced pay cuts totaling $746 billion in 2022, as companies’ profits rose.
“Extreme wealth” and “extreme poverty” on the rise simultaneously
45 international energy companies made an excess of $237 billion in annual profits during this period, accounting for approximately 22 percent of the total figure. Thanks to increased profits, the number of “energy billionaires” in the world has increased to 96 and their total assets to 432 billion dollars.
In this period when “extreme wealth” and “extreme poverty” increased simultaneously for the first time in the last 25 years, 18 food and beverage companies made an average of 14 billion dollars in incidental profits annually. That’s more than double the $6.4 billion funding gap needed to provide life-saving food aid in East Africa.
Oxfam estimates that in 2022, when global food prices increased by an average of 14 percent, one person would probably starve to death every 28 seconds in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and South Sudan.
28 international pharmaceutical companies generated incidental profits of $47 billion per year, while the unexpected profits of 42 large retail and supermarkets averaged $28 billion per year.
Nine aerospace and defense companies made a total of $8 billion in annual excess earnings.
A call for taxation on corporate profits.
According to Oxfam and ActionAid, which have called for taxation on companies’ “excessive” profits, taxing between 50 and 90 percent of those 722 companies could generate $523 billion and $941 billion in revenue in 2021 and 2022, respectively.400 billion dollars of this amount can be transferred to the loss and damage fund, which is planned to be created for countries that are vulnerable to the climate crisis.
In addition, the financial gap of 440 billion dollars required to provide social protection and health support to 3.5 billion people with lower and lower-middle income levels in the world, and the financing of 148 billion dollars required to fill the gap in access to pre-school, primary and secondary education in these countries is covered by these taxes. can be provided.
“Companies loot people under the guise of multiple crises”
Commenting on the analysis, Amitabh Behar, interim Executive Director of Oxfam International, said: “People are fed up with corporate greed. It’s shockingly shameful that companies are making billions of dollars in profits while people around the world struggle to meet basic living needs such as adequate food, medicine and heating.”
Stating that big companies increase prices to make huge profits and “loot people under the guise of multiple crises,” Behar said:
“A few increasingly dominant companies are monopolizing markets and keeping prices too high to fill the pockets of their wealthy shareholders. Big pharmaceutical companies, energy giants and major supermarket chains have shamelessly inflated their profit margins during both the pandemic and the cost-of-living crisis. Most worryingly, the rising In the absence of any regulation, including proportional taxation, governments have been invited to do so.
Arthur Larok, General Secretary of ActionAid, said that “enough” should be said for the excessive profits of the companies and called on the governments to tax the excessive profits of the companies.