Two straight years of ‘excess profits’ for the world’s 722 largest companies

As the entire world experienced a cost-of-living crisis, the world’s 722 largest companies posted excess profits of more than $1 trillion for the second year in a row, fueled by rising prices and interest rates.

According to an analysis by the international charity Oxfam and ActionAid, based on Forbes’ “Global 2000” list, incidental profits for 722 companies stood at $1.09 trillion in 2021, compared with $1.1 trillion in the previous year. last year.

Thanks to these increases, the total profits of the companies increased by 89 percent compared to the average of the period 2017-2020.

In this period when millions of people around the world are struggling with the cost of living crisis, international companies have increased their profits dramatically with rising costs and interest rates.

One billion workers in 50 countries faced pay cuts totaling $746 billion in 2022 as company profits soared.

MORE THAN TWICE IS REQUIRED FOR HUNGER IN AFRICA

45 international energy companies made an excess of $237 billion in annual profits during this period, representing approximately 22 percent of the total number. Thanks to rising profits, the number of “energy billionaires” in the world has risen to 96 and their total assets to $432 billion.

In this period when “extreme wealth” and “extreme poverty” rose simultaneously for the first time in 25 years, 18 food and beverage companies earned an average of $14 billion in annual incidental profits.

That is more than double the funding gap of $6.4 billion needed to provide vital food aid in East Africa.

Oxfam estimates that by 2022, when global food prices rise by an average of 14%, one person will likely die of hunger every 28 seconds in Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia and South Sudan.

While 28 international pharmaceutical companies generated incidental profits of $47 billion per year, windfall profits for 42 large retailers and supermarkets averaged $28 billion per year.

Nine aerospace and defense companies generated a total of $8 billion in annual excess profit.

CALL TO APPLY TAX

According to Oxfam and ActionAid, which have called for taxes on “excess” corporate profits, taxing 50 to 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 vulnerable to the climate crisis.

In addition, the $440 billion funding gap required to provide social protection and health support to 3.5 billion low- and lower-middle-income people in the world, and the $148 billion funding required to Filling the gap in access to pre-school, primary and secondary education in these countries is covered by these taxes.

‘People are fed up with corporate greed’

Commenting on the analysis, Amitabh Behar, interim executive director of Oxfam International, said: “People are fed up with corporate greed. “It is shockingly shameful that companies make billions of dollars in profit while people around the world struggle to meet the basic necessities of life, such as adequate food, medicine and heat.”

Claiming that big business raises prices to make big profits and “loot people under the guise of multiple crises,” Behar said:

“Some increasingly dominant companies are monopolizing markets and keeping prices too high to line the pockets of wealthy shareholders. Big pharmaceutical companies, energy giants, and major supermarket chains have brazenly inflated their profit margins during the pandemic and cost-of-living crisis. Most worryingly, in the absence of any regulation, including progressive taxation, governments have been invited to do so.

Arthur Larok, ActionAid’s general secretary, said excess corporate profits should be said to be “enough” and called on governments to tax excess corporate profits. (AA)