Luxury jets and evacuation centers

A LATE July meeting of the G20 economies in Rio de Janeiro resulted in an agreement that was unprecedented in the fiscal history of nations. That was to impose a global "wealth tax" on the superrich, the few thousand rich individuals — around 3,000 according to poverty tracker Oxfam — who piled up a total of more than $40 trillion in wealth over the past 10 years. And whose total wealth more than exceeds the combined wealth of many poor nations. Of course, there is very little need to state the context for the historic wealth accumulation: the bottom 50 percent of the global population pitifully lagged, with billions of people in that cohort suffering from extreme hunger and intractable poverty.

But even with the consensus to impose a " wealth tax" on the superrich was arrived at, the most influential voice on fiscal policy who was in that meeting, US Treasury Janet Yellen, acknowledged that the bold and history-making declaration on the "wealth tax" is tough to implement.