Far from quelling¹ the ranks of the super-rich the 2008 markets crash has in fact swelled² the ranks of billionaires to 1,645 people, Oxfam said as it launched its "Even It Up" campaign aimed at redressing³ growing imbalances in the world, such as the fact that seven out of 10 people live in countries where the gap between rich and poor is greater than it was 30 years ago.

 

The report said that in countries in all four corners of the globe, a wealthy minority are taking an ever-increasing share of their nation's income.

 

"Well particularly actually over the last thirty years the gap between rich and poor has really exploded but what's interesting is that Credit Suisse put out some data showing what's happened since the financial crisis in terms of the gap between the wealthiest and the poorest and they showed that the inequality so that gap was kind of starting to narrow a little bit before the financial crisis and since then, since 2009 its started to open up again. So it's showing that the richest have made a recovery, they're doing well again. The number of billionaires has actually doubled, more than doubled since the financial crisis and you've still got one billion living in extreme poverty and that's the kind of situation that we think is unacceptable," said one of the authors of the report, Emma Seery.　 

 

At the start of 2014, Oxfam calculated that the richest 85 people on the planet owned as much as the poorest half of humanity.

 

The charity said that between March 2013 and March 2014, these 85 people grew 668 million US dollars (USD) richer each day. 

 

If Bill Gates were to cash in all of his wealth, and spend 1m (USD) every single day, it would take him 218 years to spend it all.　

 

In reality though, he would never run out of money: even a modest return of just under two percent would make him 4.2 million (USD) each day in interest alone, Oxfam said. 

 

Extreme wealth is not just to be found in richer nations. The very very rich exist alongside desperate poverty in many countries.

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