World's richest five men double wealth since 2020
World's richest five men double wealth since 2020
Since 2020, billionaire fortunes are up while the wealth of the bottom 60% has declined. Oxfam has urged governments to rein in the "billionaire class."
Imagine all the good that could be done with that amount of money.
Even a simple redistribution back to the people who should have been getting this money (i.e. workers) would have a profound impact on the quality of life of millions.
Luxury yacht and private jet manufacturers be salivating rn.
It estimated that 148 top corporations made $1.8 trillion in profits, 52 percent up on 3-year average, allowing hefty pay-outs to shareholders even as millions of workers faced a cost of living crisis as inflation led to wage cuts in real terms.
I guess we know where all this “inflation” came from.
And stop calling it "profits", it's theft. They are stealing from customers by overcharging, and they are stealing from employees by not paying them enough.
There's absolutely no reason why their workers aren't getting a large chunk of that money, especially when "profits" are up an average of 52 goddamn percent.
When the hell is enough money enough for these assholes? What are they planning to do with all this hoarded wealth? Buy a country?
They plan to buy bunkers and staff (I really do not mean hire staff, I do mean buy - they are debating how to control their staff once the economy collapses, and have floated the idea of bomb collars) to ride out the apocalypse they are actively causing.
It’s all very backward thinking. They can’t even envision not ruining the planet, they are planning for it as an inevitability.
https://www.businessinsider.com/photos-inside-luxury-bunkers-ultra-rich-prepare-for-doomsday-2022-9
Profit is theft and it always has been.
I am confused. From what you're saying, profit shouldn't exist, only business expenses.
So a Mom and Pop shop doesn't need to make any profit to pay for their living expenses (not business) and shouldn't be allowed to have money to go on trips or vacation themselves?
Employees are able to go work to make money to spend on living costs, personal things, and vacation.
I have a friend who owns a tea shop with no employees. So she isn't allowed to make a profit? Only allowed to make enough to keep the business running? Sounds like that would be miserable. Might as well close the store and be an employee of another business.
I disagree, because profits can be used to upgrade equipment, reward employees, R&D, invest in expanding the business, etc.
When used properly, profits keep businesses healthy and self-supporting without relying on shareholders, the government, or bad actors to get involved.
But absurdly excess profits shouldn't exist, and absurdly excessive wealth hoarding by individuals should never be allowed to happen.
They are buying countries - or parts of it. For example Larry Ellison bought Lanai, which is an Hawaiian Island. There are probably more examples.
And that rich people are building sophisticated bunkers is a known fact.
A trillion is a million millions, or a thousand billions. That’s a truly unfathomable number.
Isn't that all inflation and all profits? There's a pretty clear correlation with inequality for both.
My question has always been; what are they planning to do with the poor / middle class when they no longer need us?
Don't worry, they don't have that much foresight. One of the reasons that people cling on to conspiracy theories of evil cabals running the planet are so popular is because it's slightly more comforting than coming to the realization that no one is actually controlling anything. Society is held precariously on a knifes edge by social norms. And no one actually knows what's going to happen, because no one is really controlling anything but their small greedy power enclave they have carved out wherever on this rock.
We'll basically be turned into fuel cells... like on The Matrix... but it'll be billionaires controlling the machines... probably made by Tesla.
They will literally always need us, read chapters 15 and 16 of Capital which covers automation.
That's nothing, I once quadrupled my wealth by finding $20 in an old jacket.
Look at Mr. “Can Afford an Old Jacket” over here.
It belonged to my brother first, I got it when he upgraded to one with fake fur around the hood.
I wonder when people will just lose it and start culling these guys for real.
You have lower class people fighting each other in the mud over "welfare queens" and nobody seems to be reaching the logical conclusion that the real enemy is up in that ivory tower.
I wonder when people will just lose it and start culling these guys
I know you were being rhetorical but to expand on that anyway, for many very good reasons not until enough people realize it's the only way anything will get better for us, and a short bit after we realize they won't hesitate to do the same.
The fun thing is if the powder keg goes off they are infinitely more exposed if they want to spend their money. Poor people can just walk back into the crowd and blend with the masses. Rich people are going to want to spend their money on services and services usually means blindly trusting a chain of labor. Even if you micromanage your services you can't watch over the entire supply/service chain...
Thanks, I was feeling a little too happy today.
The truth here is so simple and petty... Corporations and the psychopaths who run them saw COVID as a personal sleight, an attack on them personally. Period.
When things started to eventually "Open up" and financial numbers started to recover, it wasn't enough to just rebound, they had to take revenge on society and get rolling, record profits through gouging, shrinkflation, etc.
Really and truly, this is what happened. Even if they didn't know what was driving them necessarily, they are such broken narcissists that the motivation was/is, "You took from ME, and there are the severe and prolonged consequences for that".
100%
You have it completely backwards. They loved every minute of COVID and that's exactly how their wealth doubled. They were positioned perfectly to be able to take advantage of the situation and that's exactly what they did.
The Lockdowns ended up being poison to the middle class. Not to mention horrible for the mental health of millions and removed the development of children in specific demographics. :-(
Finance is a dead god rotting and we will fight the maggots for every scrap of hydrocarbon rich waste
i still can't believe we were meant to accept 'we're actively gambling on the buildings' as a viable excuse for why people should return to the office
Well that's the actual reason, the productivity bullshit is the excuse.
And the masses(TM) still buy this hook line and sinker as normal progression of a strong economy that serves everybody's needs.
Someone is just going to literally eat them at this point out of spite
This is the best summary I could come up with:
The world's five wealthiest men have more than doubled their wealth since 2020, while five billion people have been made poorer, according to a new report by British charity Oxfam.
It estimated that 148 top corporations made $1.8 trillion in profits, 52 percent up on 3-year average, allowing hefty pay-outs to shareholders even as millions of workers faced a cost of living crisis as inflation led to wage cuts in real terms.
"This inequality is no accident; the billionaire class is ensuring corporations deliver more wealth to them at the expense of everyone else," Oxfam International interim Executive Director, Amitabh Behar, said.
To address the imbalance, the charity urged governments to curb corporate power by breaking monopolies, instituting taxes on excess profit and wealth, and promoting alternatives to shareholder control like forms of employee ownership.
"Corporate power is used to drive inequality: by squeezing workers and enriching wealthy shareholders, dodging taxes, and privatizing the state," Oxfam said.
"Around the world, members of the private sector have relentlessly pushed for lower rates, more loopholes, less transparency, and other measures aimed at enabling companies to contribute as little as possible to public coffers," Oxfam said.
The original article contains 329 words, the summary contains 193 words. Saved 41%. I'm a bot and I'm open source!
Anybody got their home addresses?
Can we switch to an alternative timeline yet?
The good news is that they all deserved it! /s
I'd be truly curious to see a study on wealth disparity today vs those halcyon hyper capitalistic days of the robber barons.
I tend to believe that the latter was worse, especially with standards of living, but I also think we're on a track of mathematical certainly to exceed it in our present system.