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The Inquiry

Should we ban billionaires?

The Inquiry

BBC

News Commentary, News

4.61.7K Ratings

🗓️ 12 December 2019

⏱️ 24 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Excluding dictators and royalty, there are around 2,000 people in the world who are billionaires. Some inherit wealth while others might build fortunes through inventions, businesses or investments. Some say individuals holding onto extreme amounts of money is wasteful because it could be diverted to other areas that would benefit more people such as education and healthcare. Others reason than some billionaires should keep what they have because they drive economic growth and inspire others to innovate. Are billionaires the right focus or should attention move to the systems and processes that enable them to make and keep huge amounts of money?

Experts: Dr Paul Segal Roxanne Roberts Caroline Freund Will Wilkinson

Presenter: Celia Hatton Producer: Charmaine Cozier Researcher: Diane Richardson

(Photo: Billionaire Kylie Jenner arrives at the 2019 Met Gala in New York City. Credit: Karwai Tang/Getty Images)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

Welcome to the inquiry with me Celia Hatton.

0:03.0

Each week one question, four expert witnesses and an answer.

0:08.0

Inver was born into a poor family in Sweden's countryside in 1926, a family that prized hard work.

0:22.0

Inver started. a family that prized hard work.

0:27.0

Invar started selling matches at age five and loved the feeling of making a profit.

0:31.0

At 17, he founded a mail-order company selling replicas of his uncle's kitchen table.

0:38.0

His business name, I-K, his initials, and then EA, the first letters of his farm and village, IKEA.

0:46.0

Inghvar was an innovator.

0:51.0

He made his low-cost furniture even cheaper by selling it in parts that customers could assemble.

0:59.0

Ikea boomed, spreading to 29 countries. Invar-Kamprad was estimated to be one of the world's richest men by the time he died, age 91.

1:10.0

But there's another way to think about Ingvar-Kamprat.

1:15.0

He became a billionaire because he didn't just discover how to make money,

1:22.0

he figured out how to hold on to it. A large part of

1:26.7

IKEA is registered as a charity in Holland. Yes, that's right. Most of the world's largest furniture company is owned by a

1:37.2

holding company that's owned by a charity. It's a complicated setup that's dropped much of Ikea's tax bill to a minimum.

1:47.0

An Invar Camprad lived in tax exile from his beloved Sweden for the same reason.

1:53.0

For 40 years, he lived in Switzerland.

1:56.0

It's a jarring tale but not an unusual one.

2:02.0

If you take away the dictators and the Royals, the world has about 2,000

2:06.5

billionaires, 90% of them men. And many of them have dual stories, dazzling success alongside troubling details of how they got or

2:16.7

stayed rich.

2:18.6

Now people are starting to question if such wealth is wrong.

...

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