Oxfam

The best thing to come out of the Davos jamboree is the annual survey released by Oxfam that shows the wealth chasm between the super-rich and the rest of us.

The “Survival of the Richest" report has the one percenters grabbing two-thirds of all the new wealth (worth $42T) that has been created since 2020.

That’s twice the share of the bottom 99 percent.

The pandemic proved to be a financial blessing for the billionaire crowd who chalked up $1.7M for every $1 of new global wealth earned by a someone in the bottom 90 percent of the heap.

Oxfam reports that 1.7B workers live in countries where inflation is outpacing wages and more than 820M people—one in ten people on Earth—are going hungry.

The World Bank reports the biggest increase in global inequity and poverty since WWII. Entire countries are facing bankruptcy with the poorest nations now spending four times more repaying debts to rich creditors than on healthcare.

Oxfam blames decades of tax cuts for the richest and companies for fueling inequality. I

It reports that Elon Musk, who was the richest man on Earth before the collapse of Tesla’s stock price, paid a “true tax rate” of about three percent between 2014 and 2018 while a flour vendor in Uganda, who makes $80 a month pays a tax rate of 40 percent.

Oxfam believes an annual five percent wealth tax on the world’s billionaires and multi-millionaires could raise $1.7T a year, enough to lift 2B people out of poverty and deliver universal healthcare and social safety nets for everyone living in low- and lower-middle countries.

An exclusive focus on putting Oxfam’s recommendations to work would be a way for Davos 2024 to gain relevance in the “real world.”

Publicis works to stamp out stigma of cancer in the workplace. In tandem with the Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, Working with Cancer, Gustave Roussy Institute and other organizations and charities, the Publicis Foundation has launched a coalition to erase the fact that 50 percent of cancer patients are afraid to tell their employer about their disease for fear of losing their jobs.

Publicis CEO Arthur Sadoun went public about his cancer and treatment in 2022 and his company provides cancer patients with job security for at least one year.

The Publicis Foundation is looking for companies to join the movement at workingwithcancerpledge.com and outline their commitments to cancer patients.

Walt Disney Co., Google, Microsoft, Omnicom, Verizon, Toyota, L’Oréal, Walmart, McDonald’s, Renault, Unilever, Meta and PepsiCo are among companies to have signed on.

Mums the word from Marjorie Taylor Greene… Joe Biden’s “Inflation Reduction Act” will shower billions in subsidies on companies creating clean energy projects. The Wall Street Journal tracked 30 announcements of investments in batteries and solar and wind components facilities and found that 27 of them are in Red States.

That includes a solar panel plant by South Korean Qcells' US operation in Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene’s district, a noted climate change denier.

Greene also has trashed the Inflation Reduction Act as a measure that “forces Americans on the energy disaster Green New Deal.”

Scott Moskowitz, head of market strategy for Qcells, told the WSJ that elected officials from both parties welcomed the investment in Georgia, but there’s been no word from Greene.

Bospar makes headway in tackling use of the odious "San Fran" term. The latest results from Bospar’s San Francisco Naming Day Survey finds that 16.5 percent of Americans call the city San Fran, which is down from 28 percent in 2018.

There’s also good news on the “Frisco” front, which dropped from 13 percent to seven percent, but “City by the Bay” term is holding steady at 15 percent.

Tom Carpenter, Bospar principal, says it’s important that Americans refer to San Francisco by its proper name to support its global branding.

The branding tussle has moved into the spotlight as the San Francisco 49ers make their way to the Super Bowl.

Though the 49ers are associated with San Francisco, their home stadium is in Santa Clara, 40 miles south of the City by the Bay.

San Francisco went by the name Yerba Buena until Jan. 30, 1847. That’s when mayor Washington Allon Barlett thought he could get a bigger business pop by renaming the city after the well-known San Francisco Bay.

Bartlett was a marketing genius.