Billionaire chronicles

Speech recognition? That kind of stroking takes both hands.

(I thought affluent owner was part of the standard package?)

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“This luxury yacht is owned by a shift worker at a grocery store with three mortgages and student loans.”

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Pressure Drop is the only legitimate vessel in that list.

I have a new idea for the rest though. I heard on the news today that Turkey is still touchy about letting minesweepers transit the Bosporus. These yachts aren’t military vessels. Just get them to the Black Sea and ram them into any mines they see. It’s a win-win for the world

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I dunno. Pollution. Not sure what the solution to getting rid of them is but billionaires are the most toxic of waste we produce.

Caution is needed.

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Do we need to start the “Trillionaire chronicles” topic?

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Les Tricoteuses chronicles?

No. We need to start shopping for guillotines.

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937db5874af632e6584b44f9901a2dfa

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I think we’re going to have to automate that a bit - a whole line of them in one.

Disrupt billionaires

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Using AI! And blockchain!

I’m imagining a hat like oddjob’s, but an autonomous drone.

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i thought this coverage had an interesting take

“If you’re going to have tax policy that will redistribute income in favor of the poor… you’re going to find it very difficult,” says John Mukum Mbaku, an economist at Weber State University [because] the wealthy can influence policy-making.

Instead, governments should invest in improved public services to propel people out of poverty [ by ] improving access to free or low-cost education, medical care, nutritious food, clean water and basic sanitation…

“Education should be considered by governments as an investment in human capital development [ and ] the future of your country.”

It’s an intervention the Oxfam report recommends as well, saying that investing in people and communities provides "the best bulwark against extreme corporate power

my take: that the wealthiest made 3% above inflation over these last few years is just insane.

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I mean, why do they think education and other public spending has been so defunded? The wealthy have influenced policy to defund it in order to reduce or eliminate tax policies that redistributed weath to the poor in the form of such policies.

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yeah, i caught that too. i’m guessing that he feels it’s easier to argue for that specifically than for higher taxes, stock transaction taxes, a wealth tax, etc. in and of themselves

and here in the states, if you look at biden’s policies, you do kind of see that. a push for free education, but not a strong push for raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations

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For the US, I think the opposite is the most feasible, politically. The public has been so programmed and misdirected with education, healthcare, etc. and it’s easy to confuse the issue. Instead, it’s really easy to say, “these people have too much money and these people do’t have enough. Let’s take some from this pile and put it in that pile.” It’s so straightforward that the right-wing playbook of distraction and misinformation has a tougher time manipulating public opinion.

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They have set up foundations and think tanks that will influence policy from beyond their graves.

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Not if a large part of the electorate see themselves as temporarily embarrassed billionaires and the people who would receive the money as undeserving layabouts (even if they themselves would be on the receiving end)

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