The world’s stock markets have fallen by over 10% in a matter of weeks. Some markets have not seen such falls since 1929. The Royal Bank of Scotland, Rob Sewell – editor of Socialist Appeal – reports, have warned that 2016 will be a “cataclysmic year”.

George Osborne, the Tory chancellor, who only six weeks ago was boasting about the strength of the British economy, has now had to issue a bleak warning for the coming year. A culmination of weakening world growth, plummeting oil prices, and a sharp slowdown in China, amongst other things, has blown Osborne’s economic predictions out of the water.

Christmas, we are told, is a time of parties, feasts, and the giving of gifts. So it would seem, as Mark Zuckerberg, founder of Facebook, announced that he would be giving away some $45 billion of his wealth. Such philanthropic gestures, however, raise an obvious question: where do rich donors get all this wealth from in the first place?