25年后，全球将诞生首位万亿富翁

比尔·盖茨证明了，如果你已经很富有了，那么变得更富有也不是什么难事。

OxFam International的一份最新报告显示，如果身家十亿的富豪们保持现在的收益率，未来25年内就将诞生首位万亿富翁。这家慈善机构强调了这种可能性，针对全球日益不平等的现象发出了警告，并表示其部分原因在于超级富豪。

这份报告发布于上周一，恰好在政治领导人和首席执行官每年聚首于瑞士达沃斯举行世界经济论坛之前。它凸显了全球财富的集中程度。在过去25年里，全球最富有的1%的人积聚的财富，比富有程度排在后50%的人群总和还要更多。实际上，全球最富有的八个人（以拥有750亿美元的微软创始人比尔·盖茨为首），如今拥有的总财富与全球最穷的半数人口加起来的财富一样多。

现有富豪的财富的快速积累，是全球财富分配巨大不均的原因之一。一旦积聚了足够的财富，它们自身就会开始增长——自从2009年起，增速达到每年11%——这个速度远远超过了勤俭节约的普通人的储蓄速度。报告指出，如果他们的财富维持这样的增长速度，在未来25年内，世界上就会诞生第一位万亿富翁。

例如，自从盖茨于2006年离开微软起，他的财富已经增长了50%，即250亿美元。尽管他试图通过自己的慈善基金会慷慨解囊。

然而，据OxFam表示，这些超级富豪可没有安心当着财富积累的“受益人”。其中的一些人还在“积极延续这种身份”。他们的手段包括偷税漏税、插手政治，或者是成为“影响公司行为的股东崇拜”的获利者。

OxFam认为，这种不公平的加剧，将威胁到社会稳定，让全球部分地区已经爆发的民粹主义愈演愈烈。为了避免这种情况，这家慈善机构呼吁“为99%的人口设计”“人性化”经济体系，让富人缴纳更高的、更公平的税费份额，放弃他们不公平的特权。（财富中文网）

作者：Claire Zillman

译者：严匡正

Bill Gates shows that if you're already rich, it's hard to not get even richer.

If billionaires continue their current rate of returns, the world could see its first trillionaire sometime in the next 25 years , according to a new report from OxFam International. The charity highlighted this possibility as it issued a warning against widening inequality worldwide, which it blamed in part on the super-rich.

The report was published last Monday ahead of the World Economic Forum, an annual gathering of political leaders and CEOs in Davos, Switzerland. It highlights just how concentrated the world's wealth has become. Over the last 25 years, the top 1% have gained more income than the bottom 50% put together. In fact, the eight richest individuals in the world—led by Microsoft founder Bill Gates' $75 billion fortune—now own the same wealth as the poorest half of humanity.

The surging sums of the already-rich is one factor in the world's vast wealth disparity. Once such fortunes are accumulated, they develop a momentum of their own with growth—11% per year since 2009—that far outpaces ordinary savers. If that rate of growth continues, it will produce the first trillionaire in the next quarter century, the report says.

Gates' wealth, for instance, has increased by 50% or $25 billion since he left Microsoft in 2006, even though he's tried to give much of it away through his philanthropic foundation.

But the super-rich are not simply "benign recipients" of the increasing concentration of wealth, OxFam says. Rather, some members of this group are "actively perpetuating it" by dodging taxes, buying political influence, and being beneficiaries of the "shareholder worship that is warping the behavior of corporations."

OxFam presented growing inequality as a threat to social stability and fuel for the populism that’s now blazing across parts of the globe. To combat it, the charity is calling for a "human" economy that's "designed for the 99%," which would require the wealthy to pay a higher, fairer share of taxes and abandon their unfair privileges.