The Davos Club: Meet the People Who Gave Us a World in Which 62 People Own as Much as 3.6 Billion

The Davos people talk about poverty and pledge money to charity. But it's just spare change to them.

Global elites meet in the remote Swiss town of Davos each year for the World Economic Forum. The conclave began in 1971, but it became an essential destination in the 1990s. When globalization became the buzzword, Davos became its headquarters. Big business, politics and the media meet, exchange business cards and go away better connected to each other. Deals are sometimes struck, but more than anything harmony among the world’s elite is established. This is what the Davos Summit is intended to do, to create a Davos civilization for the important people of the planet.

Each year, before the summit, Oxfam International publishes a report on global wealth. This year’s report came out with some shocking news. In 2010, 388 individuals owned as much wealth as half the world’s people, around 3.6 billion people. The obscenity then was dramatic. Last year, the number fell to 80 human beings who own as much as 3.6 billion people. This was getting to be too much.

The data this year is even more shocking. Only 62 people own as much as 3.6 billion people. Sixty-two! Inequality has been on a steady march forward.