If you regularly follow debates about public policy, especially those involving wealthy tech bros, it’s obvious that there’s a strong correlation among the three Cs: climate denial, COVID-19 vaccine denial and cryptocurrency cultism.

The paranoid style in American plutocrats

https://www.sanjuandailystar.com/post/the-paranoid-style-in-american-plutocrats
#editorial #news #UnitedStates #plutocrats #ClimateChange #COVID19 #CovidIsNotOver #antivaxxers #crypto

@pluralistic this is an excellent summary. Thank you! Also good reading: Butler to the World by Oliver Bullough. #corruption #wealth #billionaires #kleptocrats #plutocrats #enablers

The Hubris of #Plutocrats Who Shield Themselves From the Climate Crisis

However far they run, they cannot escape the coming heat.

“Jackson Hole” features prominently in a rip-roaring story on the “dissident right” by James Pogue in the Feb 2023 issue of Vanity Fair. The town and its surrounding landscape comprise the kind of place that highfalutin’ refugees have long been drawn to, given its climate and natural beauty, their own sense of privilege

#ClimateCrisis

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/the-hubris-of-plutocrats-who-shield-themselves-from-the-climate-crisis/

@heidilifeldman We've learned nothing except that the #plutocrats are still running the show.

- Kicks the climate can down the road while robbing the next generation.
- Disturbs weather patterns in ways that are most likely to benefit the abuser.
- Pollutes the #environment and creates #health problems.
- Enables #billionaire class to continue exploiting people and places.

We say "Prison for polluting #plutocrats" who even **think** to call #geoengineering a public service.

#imprisonList #imperialism #colonialism #pollution

@AnthonyFStevens I've now read your eighteen part manifesto, and while there are interesting ideas in it, it's still fundamentally neoliberal in outlook, looking to loans on international money markets (i.e. another way of ensuring the #plutocrats keep profiting).

The UK isn't "broke". Wages are not paid by the nation, but by corporations, which are raking in record profits. Anyone who believes in taxation as a social good who is not contemplating some form of #WealthTax probably hasn't really grasped the scale and nature of #inequality under capitalism (accelerating under its current neoliberal manifestation).

"Better links between universities and industry" entails further corporatisation of education and research (a neoliberal priority).

Why is the rail infrastructure so archaic and neglected? Privatisation, which has been a disaster, but was also a core neoliberal plank from #Thatcher onwards.

Public-private partnerships: not a solution, but another metastatis of neoliberal state capture, privatising much of the profits while effectively socialising losses and risks. Businesses often prefer this on risky infrastructure builds, so they can effectively walk away from the provision of critical needs once they've extracted maximum value (cf #ThamesWater).

Why do the ultra rich and powerful seem to think they will be immune from the global collapse of society? They seem indifferent to the death by starvation or violence of billions of people: that they will somehow retreat to safe bunkers and survive. History shows that when civilisations collapse eventually the poor and desperate turn on the elite, and by then there are no laws to save them.
#plutocrats #survival #ClimateCrisis #GlobalWarming

With our food systems on the verge of collapse, it’s the plutocrats v life on Earth..
Climate breakdown and crop losses threaten our survival, but the ultra-rich find ever more creative ways to maintain the status quo..#Earth..#plutocrats https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/jul/15/food-systems-collapse-plutocrats-life-on-earth-climate-breakdown

@chriscaple @c_9 @djsaunders03 @alysondecker @absamma @BlackAzizAnansi

Billionaires move in billionaire social circles.
Percentage wise there are few of them, it is easy for them to meet with each other.

Put these people under a spotlight.

Prevent people from amassing these insane sums of money, by taxing them to the hilt.
Maybe we even should put a cap on total property anyone is allowed to posess.

Prevented money from exerting undue influence on Politics.

#Democray #Plutocrats

Which do you think #plutocrats & #megacorps prefer?

A) Use #AI #automation to improve/maintain physical/economic #infrastructure to save the planet & ppl can live better, healthier lives where jobs are optional value-add to #UBI & #UHC?

or

B) Use #AI to max short-term #profits, muddy information, trap #consumers, replace #workers, divide #citizens, dismantle governments, subvert #justice so ppl are disunited, poor, powerless, desperate, even grateful to serve plutocrats’ interests for scraps?

Silicon Valley’s Titans Are Realizing a Lot of People Really Don’t Like Them

A #bank run led to a wake-up call for America’s most coddled class of #plutocrats.

https://newrepublic.com/article/171125/silicon-valley-bank-bailout-criticism

#capitalism #bailout

During my lifetime, the proportion of Australia's GDP claimed by corporate profits (i.e. largely going into the coffers of the #plutocrats) has doubled.

Here's an expert breaking down the numbers, demonstrating that we are not facing an #inflation crisis so much as an unparalleled moment of #CorporateProfiteering. Even just looking at the last three years, if wages had stayed at the same proportion of GDP, then the average Australian worker would be $5k/yr better off.

Put differently, corporations have ripped about $15k from the average Australian worker since the start of the pandemic.

"wage growth has now lagged consumer prices for seven consecutive quarters. This is also a record. As a result, #RealWages have fallen by 5% in the three years since December 2019."

That's the result of opportunistic profiteering, aided and abetted by largely captured regulators.

It doesn't stop till it is made to stop.

#Auspol

https://theconversation.com/underlying-australias-inflation-problem-is-a-historic-shift-of-income-from-workers-to-corporate-profits-200700

IT MAY NOT BE 3D CHESS, BUT IT'S A GOOD PLAN

#Biden's attack on #plutocrats & #robberbaron legislation sets the stage for raising the #socialsecuritytax above the $168,000 limit, which will swell social security coffers:

*Biden has endorsed raising the payroll tax cap on upper earners to expand #SocialSecurity payments. He sought to expand Medicare benefits for dental, vision and hearing services, but that effort was blocked by a few centrists, mainly Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.*

4/4

@toomas_ilves @tendar the world ancaps long for. #Plutocrats like #PeterThiel strive for as #utopia because humanity didn't already try that social order before. #history #sarcasm

An #ABC article that acts as a loudspeaker for a multinational communications company, advertising its latest PR campaign: give multinational corporations more power.

This is why people are losing trust in mainstream media. Because here is (allegedly) "Australia's most trusted news source" uncritically repeating the agenda of a rich and powerful organisation, and treating what amounts to a corporate press release as real news, without the need for further context or editorial comment.

Distinguishing between "business leaders" and "rich and powerful" is doing a lot of work here. They are effectively A-B testing public perceptions of phrases that refer to more or less the same individuals and interests.

Under #capitalism, whenever you hear "markets" or "business" or "investors" or any other obfuscatory circumlocution for where power and influence lie in a world run by money for profit, it is best to mentally substitute "very, very rich people". There is no magical entity called #TheMarket with a mind or agency of its own. The market is merely a reification of the collective desires, fears, prejudices, agenda and values of the #plutocrats who hold nearly all the beans and call nearly all the shots.

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-02-08/trust-slump-as-division-rules/101939406

Lite rolig detalj om plutokraterna Wallenberg, de verkar ha slaktat sitt gamla valspråk "Esse non videri" på sin hemsida.

I deras egna ord; "”Esse non videri” – att verka, inte bara synas vara."

Helt fel, det är mycket enklare än så; "att inte synas".

Men detta kanske är en del av deras strategi att inte synas. 😉

#corruption #plutocrats #richmansworld #piglatin

https://www.wallenberg.com/sv/familjen

Money Quote:
"In all, 22 percent of Americans who have ended a friendship cited #Trump as the reason."

Your hate for a #Strawman, #DonaldTrump, is destroying your society. The #Plutocrats are laughing their @$$es off at you.

"One in ten people in US have no close friends. The share who have no close friends rose from 3% in 1991 to 12% in 2021. The share who have 10 or more close friends has also fallen from 33% to 13%.

#Survey: "The State of American #Friendship"
https://www.americansurveycenter.org/research/the-state-of-american-friendship-change-challenges-and-loss/

Strange things happen in the...
#TwilightZone. #corporatism #plutocracy #plutocrats #Oligarchs

Elon such a free speech guy…. Isn’t he?!?!! Preventing #mastodon links, banning journalists etc etc etc….
I’m so sick of arrogant, ego jostling, billionaires and right wing, conspiracy cultists- fucking up this planet, while half the population is too busy to notice ….
#twitter #trump #plutocrats #facists #musk #GOP

Beaverton: Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future quit rather than take assignment to visit Elon Musk https://www.thebeaverton.com/2022/12/ghosts-of-christmas-past-present-and-future-quit-rather-than-take-assignment-to-visit-elon-musk/ #satire #canada #commentary #AChristmasCarol #FeaturedPost #Plutocrats #ElonMusk #Twitter #Money