Billionaire Wealth Up 16% in 2025, What About Their Power?

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Oxfam just dropped its explosive new report, Resisting the Rule of the Rich: Protecting Freedom from Billionaire Power( please see link) , right as the World Economic Forum kicks off in Davos (January 19, 2026).

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The numbers are staggering:

• Billionaire wealth jumped over 16% in 2025—three times faster than the five-year average—reaching a historic $18.3 trillion.
• Since 2020, it’s grown by 81%.
• The 2025 increase alone: $2.5 trillion—roughly equal to the total wealth of the bottom half of humanity (4.1 billion people).
• Billionaires now exceed 3,000 for the first time; Elon Musk became the first person ever to surpass half a trillion dollars.
• That $2.5 trillion surge could eradicate extreme poverty 26 times over.

But it’s not just about money. The report exposes how the ultra-rich convert wealth into political dominance:

• Billionaires are 4,000 times more likely to hold political office than ordinary citizens.
• In a World Values Survey across 66 countries, nearly half of people believe the rich “buy elections.”
• In highly unequal countries, the risk of democratic backsliding (eroding rule of law, manipulating elections) is 7 times higher.
• The super-rich control over half the world’s major media companies and all the big social platforms (Musk owns X, Bezos owns The Washington Post, Bolloré turned CNews into France’s Fox News equivalent, and more).

Meanwhile, the rest of the world suffers:

• 1 in 4 people regularly go hungry.
• Global poverty reduction has stalled—levels are back to 2019, with extreme poverty rising again in Africa.
• Over 142 major anti-government protests erupted in 68 countries in 2025, often met with violence.
• Civil liberties and political rights have declined for the 19th straight year.

Oxfam links much of this surge directly to the second Trump administration’s pro-billionaire policies: tax cuts for the ultra-rich, weakened monopoly regulations, sabotage of global corporate tax deals, and the AI stock boom that enriched investors worldwide.

As Oxfam International Executive Director Amitabh Behar put it: “The widening gap between the rich and the rest is creating a political deficit that is highly dangerous and unsustainable. Being economically poor creates hunger. Being politically poor creates anger.”

Oxfam calls on governments to act:

• Launch realistic national plans to reduce inequality with clear benchmarks.
• Impose effective taxes on extreme wealth and high incomes.
• Build strong firewalls between money and politics (tougher lobbying rules, campaign finance limits, media independence, bans on hate speech).
• Protect freedoms of association, assembly, expression, and civil society.

This isn’t just another inequality report—it’s a stark warning: extreme wealth concentration leads to extreme power concentration, undermining democracy everywhere—not just in the US, but globally.

Bulgaria is no exception; in fact, inequality here is among the worst in the EU. Our Gini coefficient in 2024 was 38.4 (on a 0–100 scale)—the highest in the bloc (EU average: 29.4). Compare: Lithuania (35.3), Latvia (34.2), Slovakia (21.7, the lowest).

So, what do you think? Is it time for real action against this emerging oligarchy, or will the system keep reinforcing itself?

If you believe change is needed, check out this innovative idea that originated in Bulgaria: www.eurochicago.com/2025/12/novaidea/

Finally, watch Oxfam’s short video on the report and read the text below too.

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Here’s a screenshot from that very YouTube video on Oxfam’s official channel: uploaded 3 days ago (as of January 19, 2026), it has only 19 views, 0 likes, 0 comments, despite Oxfam having ~13.7K subscribers and covering a hot global topic.

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I asked Grok (xAI) why such low visibility, and here’s what it concluded (quoted directly):

“This is a classic case of echo chamber + algorithmic filtering: the topic directly threatens the interests of the platforms and their owners → suppressed reach. The report is ‘dangerous’ to the status quo (criticizing Musk/X, Bezos/WaPo, etc.), so it’s no surprise it doesn’t go viral on its own. Irony: the report talks exactly about the super-rich controlling media and platforms—and here it is happening in real time.

Share this if you think the truth deserves to be heard.

What do you say—will you help spread it, or let the powerful set the agenda?

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