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Saturday, January 22, 2022

As many of the world’s wealthiest people wrap up virtual talks today at the World Economic Forum based in Davos, Switzerland, Oxfam reports the incomes of 99% of the world’s population dropped during the pandemic while the world’s 10 richest men saw their wealth double. Meanwhile, vaccine profits have minted at least nine new billionaires at Moderna, BioNTech and China’s CanSino, amassing a combined new wealth of over $19 billion. To discuss the rise of billionaires and the policies that got us here, we speak with New York Times global correspondent Peter Goodman, author of the new book “Davos Man: How the Billionaires Devoured the World.” Goodman says billionaires’ championing of “stakeholder capitalism” is ruining U.S. democracy, and attributes the Omicron variant to “our unwillingness to challenge patents.”

 Vaccine billionaires abound, even with anti-vax boycotting cutting fractionally into the haul. Davos is for Davos people.  Those Carlin noted as, "A big club and you ain't in it." The headline is the lead-in paragraph at this Democacy Now post.