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I became reacquainted with Raffi in the spring of 2020, around my son’s first birthday. These were the early days of the pandemic: People had barely stopped hoarding toilet paper; we’d started going to the car wash for fun. It was on one of these drives that I first burst into tears to Raffi’s “All I Really Need.” Ostensibly, I was playing the track for my baby, who was babbling in his car seat behind me as I drove through eerily quiet San Francisco, trying to forget Trump had just suggested we all drink bleach.

This story was originally published by the Guardian and is reproduced here as part of the Climate Desk collaboration. The world’s 3,000 billionaires should pay a minimum 2 percent tax on their fast-growing wealth to raise about $313 billion a year for the global fight against poverty, inequality, and global heating, ministers from four leading economies have suggested. In a sign of growing international support for a levy on the super-rich, Brazil, Germany, South Africa, and Spain say a 2 percent tax would reduce inequality and raise much-needed public funds after the economic shocks of the pandemic, the climate crisis and military conflicts in Europe and the Middle East. They are calling for more countries to join their campaign, saying the annual sum raised would be enough to cover the estimated cost of damage caused by all of last year’s extreme weather events. “It is time that the international community gets serious about tackling inequality and financing global public goods,” the ministers say in a Guardian comment piece.

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