Gregory's Server#FollowTheMoney 𧔠17/n and here the whole Forbes Rich List for 2024. The planet has a record 2,781 billionaires now who are worth a record $14.2 trillion.
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 #FollowTheMoney 𧔠19/n This is what I am thinking about now. Not at all the first to say this or even think it myself, but just to emphasise: better not to think of billionaires as evil scheming money grabbers - i mean, they are - but as vessels for money, capitalism itself. Like, sci-fi wise, human bodies that look like humans from the outside but have been taken over by an AI - money itself. And itâs ruling everything! #FollowTheMoney 𧔠20/n Now really is the time of monsters. #Gramsci #FollowTheMoney 𧔠21/n Suddenly remembered that at the end of 2022 I posted this here. So embarrassing - cringe, as my children would say! That I actually wrote âthe new world is almost bornâ. No itâs not. The time of monsters is in full, full swing, the new world really is not born yet. All we can do is to keep on trying to organise to make it happen one day. #Gramsci #FollowTheMoney 𧔠22/n Last point and then I will stop for today: saw #Hamilton a few weeks ago and was really struck by how then it was possible to start a revolution, raise an army and WIN! Like, that would just be totally impossible now. The imbalance in military power, just as in wealth (and control over media etc etc) is just so VAST now. Itâs impossible to beat. Thatâs why noone really even tries anymore. #FollowTheMoney 𧔠24/n. Like, watching the blue tits busy building their nest in the box outside our kitchen window, feeding their young, flying back and forth: most of us humans are so much closer to them than to scheming billionaires. And: this forever (i hope forever- in peril due to other!) reality - of birds, trees, parents hugging children, just enjoying being together - this is perhaps the real reality. Or at least always also there. Mustnât forget! #FollowTheMoney 𧔠25/n back to a reality most of us in the UK inhabit on a daily basis: the crumbling public sector. Found this report on NHS dentistryâs struggle for survival really very moving just now. #NHS #dentistry #UKpolitics https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m001y0kf?partner=uk.co.bbc&origin=share-mobile #FollowTheMoney đ§”27/n The piece btw contains a necessary critique of my sci-fi âmoney rulesâ take a few posts above. Although i still like the idea of all this being a kind of superorganism. But yes, it is about power - political economy, not just economy. #FollowTheMoney 𧔠30/n Wow. As Bregman says: Stunning graph: the plummeting tax rates of the richest Americans. For the first time in history, billionaires have a lower effective tax rate than working-class Americans. Look at 1980 - I do continue to think that *everything* could have been different if Carter hadnât lost to Reagan. #FollowTheMoney 𧔠31/n I think the graph came from this New York Times piece but donât have a subscription so canât check. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2024/05/03/opinion/global-billionaires-tax.html #FollowTheMoney 𧔠32/n Watched âThe Founderâ on Netflix yesterday, about McDonalds. Really interesting- would recommend it. Particularly how the real breakthrough came when Kroc, advised by Sonneborn, went for real estate. Checked it on Wikipedia: âMcDonald's present-day real-estate holdings represent $37.7 billion on its balance sheet, about 99% of the company's assets and 35% of its annual gross revenue.â #FollowTheMoney đ§”34/n #ClimateDiary We had a veg box for 12 years from Hankham Organics; 3 weeks ago we suddenly had a note with our box that they were closing, as it wasnât working financially any more. đąđąđą And a fish merchant who we got smoked salmon for Christmas from closed this year too, for the same reasons. Plus Goldsmithsâ woes of course (#AcademicVenting). So many good, small organisations struggling and ending. #FollowTheMoney 𧔠36/n Here a positive, progressive use of money flows: 1400+ Columbia University alumni from its 20 schools have pledged to withhold all âfinancial, programmatic, and academic supportâ until school meets demands related to divestment, student discipline, and community safety. #FollowTheMoney đ§”37/n Even though all of us living in the UK know that homelessness is terrible (and has grown exponentially since 2010), it is still shocking to see this graph. (There are notes on methods: all countries included both rough sleeping and invisible homelessness). |
#FollowTheMoney 𧔠18/n
Spotify too. Everywhere money is being sucked out (or who has the agency here really? More in next post) from artists to billionaires
https://mstdn.ca/@ned/112249803518261424