We are witnessing a COVID-19 driven explosion in inequality. This week, Oxfam released its annual report, Inequality Kills, showing that the pandemic is killing at least 1 person every 4 seconds, while the ten richest men have doubled their fortunes during this same pandemic. This is the biggest single increase in billionaire wealth in recorded history. Max and Nadia talk to Branko Milanovic, world-renowned authority on inequality, to find out why.Branko is a Senior Scholar at City University of New York’s Stone Center on Socio-economic Inequality and Centennial Professor at London School of Economics' International Inequalities Institute (III). He was the Lead Economist in the World Bank’s Research Department for almost 20 years, before leaving to write his book on global income inequality, Worlds Apart (2005). He has since authored three more award-winning books – The Haves and the Have-nots (2011), Global Inequality (2016) and Capitalism, Alone  (2019).Please do share the episode on your social media.If you’re joining us on EQUALS for the first time, tune in to our earlier interviews – from talking with the award-winning journalist Gary Younge on what we can learn from Martin Luther King Jr to fight inequality, to best-selling author Anand Giridharadas on whether we need billionaires, Zambian music artist PilAto on the power of music, thinker Ece Temelkuran on beating fascism, climate activist Hindou Ibrahim on nature, and the Managing Director of the International Monetary Fund Kristalina Georgieva on what comes after the pandemic. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.