• kalkulat@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    16
    ·
    2 hours ago

    158 families isn’t much to feed 300 million starving people. We need rules on who gets to eat the 0.01%

    • MBech@feddit.dk
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      11
      ·
      3 hours ago

      Golf is such a perfect rich person sport. It wastes a ton of space, destroys local wilflife, the hardest part is done by the caddy (i.e. not the rich person), and at the end you feel like you accomplished something, but you’ve done absolutely fuck all other than show off your expensive shit.

  • NotMyOldRedditName@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    25
    ·
    edit-2
    4 hours ago

    Citizens United was the final straw in the downfall of America democracy.

    It’s been inevitable since.

    Unless it’s overturned it’s over, and I don’t think they can overturn it.

    • kalkulat@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      8
      ·
      edit-2
      2 hours ago

      Citizens United

      Corporations have been ‘people’ since the 1886 USSC decision in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad.

      Yet somehow, unlike most people, they’ve escaped having to go to jail when they commit crimes. I’d call that an unfair advantage.

  • pinheadednightmare@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    11
    ·
    4 hours ago

    In the end, when Trump is certified as the modern day hitler, these families need to be held accountable…. Like the soldiers of the concentration camps.

    • turtlesareneat@discuss.online
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      4
      ·
      3 hours ago

      There are only a few outcomes that would lead down that road, and while I hope for one of them, I am pretty convinced they’ll all die happy and rich in their warm beds of old age after getting lots of plastic surgery and riding on lots of jets and jetskis

  • Lovable Sidekick@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    edit-2
    4 hours ago

    The way to return democracy to the people is to limit the involvement of money. First step is to repeal “Citizens” United, the law that officially sold the US government to corporations and the wealthy under the guise of Freedom (as usual). Second, organizations (including but not limited to corporations) should be outright banned from political compaign contributions. Organizations aren’t citizens. They can’t vote. They shouldn’t be allowed to pour money into elections.

    • Tikiporch@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      27 minutes ago

      People talk about the Harambe timeline, but Citizens United is when the shit started going sideways.

    • WoodScientist@sh.itjust.works
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      3 hours ago

      It’s not enough to reform campaign finance. We need to destroy the class of people behind this. We need to really wage class war, a class war of annihilation.

      We need a national wealth cap. 1000x median household income. Anything more is taxed at 100%.

      • ReverendIrreverence@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        1
        ·
        13 minutes ago

        Let’s start with stopping Billionaires. Once someone gets to $999,999,999 they are awarded a plaque that states something along the lines of “Yay, you won Capitalism (or, frankly, corporatism)” and force them to divest themselves from all companies and stocks etc and live on their ranch in Aspen and live off the almost Billion. Any income that ends up topping their financial worth over a Billion is taxed at 100%

  • Eugene V. Debs' Ghost@lemmy.dbzer0.com
    link
    fedilink
    English
    arrow-up
    23
    ·
    7 hours ago

    An oligarchy is what America has been for over a decade now officially. Every politician is bought and sold, told to vote on every bill by the companies lobbyists that line their pockets. Every vote is controlled by mass propaganda on every network and every corporate social media.

    But we’re a democracy, right?

  • yucandu@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    38
    ·
    11 hours ago

    Should figure out where they live and protest on their street instead of burning down the local 7/11.

    • BaldManGoomba@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      6
      ·
      7 hours ago

      The only access to them is media in the backroom or private event held by rich asking what do you think of protests on main street because you can’t get close to their property and if you can they are probably in another house

      • yucandu@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        ·
        6 hours ago

        People snuck into a military airbase and spray painted an RAF plane the other day and got away with it.

        Rich people get complacent. They’re so proud of themselves, so fat and satisfied. They can’t imagine that anyone like us would ever get inside their house, walk their floors, spit in their food.

  • chingadera@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    162
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    14 hours ago

    “mainly selfmade wealth”

    That doesn’t exist, let’s stop fucking pretending it does.

    • kalkulat@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      2 hours ago

      They get to play in a sandbox designed for them. They’re taught how to play in the sandbox, and are given the toys to play (roads, electricity, raw materials for example). We get to be the sand.

    • unphazed@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      5 hours ago

      Only two super wealthy people come to mind: Oprah and Rowling. Both are bastards (Oprah mostly because of who she endorsed and her increasing lack of connection to the average American).

    • danc4498@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      ·
      7 hours ago

      I made all my money myself. After I graduated from private school with my personal trainer and one on one tutoring and my car I didn’t have to work for and my apartment I didn’t have to pay for I definitely earned my first job myself. I mean, my dad didn’t interview with his good friend from the country club, I DID! Give me the credit I deserve! I am a self made man!

    • dhork@lemmy.world
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      38
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      14 hours ago

      What they really mean is that they didn’t inherit their immense wealth, which means there was a time in their lives when they weren’t obscenely wealthy.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        English
        arrow-up
        54
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        12 hours ago

        they didn’t inherit their immense wealth

        Except even that doesn’t hold up under close scrutiny. A big component of the market cap of any Fortune 100 company stems from equity and debt held by the generationally wealthy, typically through family funds managed by private equity groups. Amazon and Tesla aren’t worth $1T without the Vanderbilts and the Carnegies and the Adelsons and the Waltons bidding up asset prices. Microsoft doesn’t exist today without Bill Gates’s mom sitting on the IBM board of directors and handing her son the contracts for their 1980s OS. Hell, Berkshire Hathaway is owned by the sons of a Congressman and a federal judge, respectively.

        What’s more, the biggest source of market capital is inevitably government contracts. You can’t tell me that Michael Dell is “independently wealthy” when the bulk of his fortune came via the Texas public school system buying all his company’s computers. Particularly when the governors, legislators, and board members making these decisions are (a) big shareholders of the Dell corporation and (b) legacy scions of wealthy Texas families.

      • chingadera@lemmy.world
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        9
        ·
        13 hours ago

        I get what they’re getting at, but selfmade has that connotation with it.

        They could say not inherited vs inherited wealth

        • haui@lemmy.giftedmc.com
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          33
          arrow-down
          1
          ·
          13 hours ago

          Not inherited is also wrong. Because more than 50% of americans live paycheck to paycheck, one can assume that private schools, elite universities, etc are also inherited wealth.

          They dont spawn with billions but they started at the top and just built exploitation empires.

          The is no such thing as self made wealth and an insane majprity of it is already being very comfortable and just going full bore.

          I’m not saying financial success has nothing to do with capabilities and discipline but surprisingly little.

          Or to quote jay gould, who said it before:

          I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops.

          • boonhet@lemm.ee
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            12
            ·
            13 hours ago

            The is no such thing as self made wealth and an insane majprity of it is already being very comfortable and just going full bore.

            There’s basically one self-made billionaire I’m aware of. Wealth turned him into a right-wing asshole unfortunately, but the original creator of Minecraft, Notch, is the closest thing to a self-made billionaire I can think of. He originally built Minecraft on his own and it was already doing insanely well when other people got involved. He did not have a rich background.

            Now where we can argue about the self-made part: 1) None of what he did would’ve been possible without prior work by others (same goes for ANYTHING to do with computers nowadays), 2) There’s no guarantee he could’ve sold the game for over 2 billion dollars without help from others.

            • haui@lemmy.giftedmc.com
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              5
              arrow-down
              2
              ·
              12 hours ago

              We’re arguing on the assumption that living in western europe isnt “rich”. Even the people living from state welfare with running water are better off then 50% of the planet because they even have clean water.

              Notch btw started as a programmer at the age of 18 (wikipedia) and lived in sweden, one of the richest countries in the world. Having the time to learn programming at that age is already a sign of (white) privilege.

              There. Is. No. Self. Made. Wealth. Period.

              That on the other hand is not saying that notch wasnt successful, he undeniably was. But he is an unethical prick for keeping the money and engaging in debauchery. He does not deserve praise, neither does any rich person. You know who deserves praise? Dr. Ernesto “che” guevara does.

  • Rhaedas@fedia.io
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    42
    arrow-down
    1
    ·
    13 hours ago

    Whenever I see the 1% or 99% numbers when discussing wealth inequality, this fact is the first thing that comes to mind. We need to use decimal points to get to the real ones in power. 1% contains a lot of people who have money, but are still out of the loop as the rest of us, or as Carlin said, “not in the Club”. They are millionaires, but like they say, the difference between a million and a billion is about a billion.

    And that’s US - many Americans are in the 1% in worldwide numbers, with rough income numbers being around half a million income. Again, they may or may not be comfortable depending on their expenses, but having money doesn’t mean you have power. It’s the .1 that is the beginning of that, and the .01 is moving the pieces for everyone.

    (The numbers are just estimates, there’s gray areas everywhere, the point is the top people want us to be yelling at the top middle and ignore what they do.)

    • PastafARRian@lemmy.dbzer0.com
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      18
      arrow-down
      1
      ·
      12 hours ago

      Bingo. My entire circle is 1-5%ers, we are privileged and comfortable and not saying we’re not part of the problem. But we’re powerless. Start by eating the richest, by the time you get to me I’m going to guess there won’t be a problem any more…

      • Sineljora@sh.itjust.works
        cake
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        edit-2
        11 hours ago

        “Powerless”, but how many sets of guns/armor can your circle buy? 1000? 10,000? They’re still astonishingly poor and closer to homelessness or kidnapping to El Salvador than being rich. Better to pick a side in the class war, and doing nothing is picking oppression. Eating the rich also includes non-rich wealthy class-traitors.

    • Opinionhaver@feddit.uk
      link
      fedilink
      English
      arrow-up
      5
      arrow-down
      7
      ·
      12 hours ago

      Exactly. Millionaires aren’t the problem. That’s why I can’t stand these thought-terminating clichés like “eat the rich.”

      Someone with even several hundred million to their name is dirt poor compared to billionaires.

      • moonlight@fedia.io
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        12
        ·
        12 hours ago

        Millionaires aren’t rich, they’re “well off”. (Or maybe not even, it’s possible to have 1M+ in assets and be struggling financially)

        Being rich is a completely different lifestyle. Like you never even think about money, and get people to do your grocery shopping and stuff. Megayachts and private jets, etc.

        • Opinionhaver@feddit.uk
          link
          fedilink
          English
          arrow-up
          6
          ·
          12 hours ago

          Well, I guess that depends on how one defines “rich.” To me, it means someone whose passive income exceeds their spending. What you’re describing, I’d call “wealthy - which is one or two steps above that.

  • TooPoor@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    17
    ·
    12 hours ago

    If my math is correct 158 families would be around .00005%. They have no clue what life is like for the average person yet they have so much influence. Gross.