The rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer, according to a new report that highlights the reasons behind worrying figures — such as the fact that global poverty will not be eradicated for another 229 years.
While the vast majority of the EU's population has become steadily poorer recently, its top five richest billionaires have increased their wealth from €244bn in 2020 to €429bn in 2023, an Oxfam report revealed on Monday (15 January).
This represents a 76 percent increase in just three years — at a rate of €5.7m per hour.
"This inequality is no accident; the billionaire class is ensuring that corporations deliver more wealth to them at the expense of everyone else," said Amitabh Behar, Oxfam International's interim executive director.
We really should tax %% them all: their businesses, the Royal houses; no exceptions, or offshore bla bla. Then we can redistribute their wealth/power more socially.
That would be a great idea, if they didn't hold their respective countries', and EU legislatures by the balls.
Billionaires are never going to voluntarily or willingly give up their power.
There is good reason we say "eat the rich" instead of "tax the rich".
It's an Anarcho-Capitalist-Primitivist thing: Switch to a deindustrialised setting so that we save the planet and continue with capitalism as completely deindustrialised that's the only way to have a sustainable and sufficient (for the current population) source of food, to wit, the rich.
Contrary to US, this is Europe, and we ( should) have socialist foundations; unfortunately since a decade or so, it's become more and more " capitalistic and right winged" in a bad way. We need to stop that trend.
As for regulations, if I wasn't clear before - those who make the regulations are either obscenely rich themselves and/or are funded and controlled by the obscenely rich. Changing regulations isn't going to happen unless the obscenely rich approve, and they never will.
As for the suggestion that Europe has socialist foundations - Europeans (previously all feudal) literally created capitalism and enslaved half of humanity to feed it. The countries they pillaged now designated "developing" and still exploited for cheap labour and resources. (edit to add: even Scandinavia, with its socialist veneer is neoliberal at best and heading exactly in the same direction the rest of us are, if a few years behind us) (edit to add more: and while the Soviet Block might have been told they had communism or even just socialism, that wasn't actually the case, just more imperialism and some state capitalism as a treat)
The idea that it's only been a decade of decline to the right is so ignorant I can't do anything other than laugh at the suggestion. Honestly - where to even start??? Maybe with fascism also being a European creation?
You could seriously benefit not only from actually educating yourself on the history of where you're from, and of the systems you live by, as well the current history as well, since you're clearly completely clueless, but also from reducing your confidence in your ignorance. It's not a good look.
literally created capitalism and enslaved half of humanity to feed it.
That's one side of the equation. On the other there's the EU officially being a social market economy and USians would get an aneuryism reading some parts of the German constitution. Like "Property entails obligations. Its use shall also serve the public good.". Or that, going way beyond eminent domain, means of productions can be socialised without even having to prove social good. Expropriate big landlords? Berlin is currently in the process of doing exactly that.
And that while no doubt Europe is causing a lot of problems elsewhere by its sheer economic weight alone, there's also stuff like the upcoming Supply Chain Act, making anyone importing anything into Europe responsible for checking that human rights were observed. There is no fucking way in hell such a thing would even be considered by the Yanks.
You could seriously benefit not only from actually educating yourself on the history of where you're from, and of the systems you live by, as well the current history as well, since you're clearly completely clueless, but also from reducing your confidence in your ignorance. It's not a good look.
Tnx for the explanation, I did read most of Rousseau's work, doesn't mean I remember everything I read.
And just because I dont know this slogan, and you feel like I don't agree with you, there is absolutely no need to be condescending. Not very social are we now?
Also, you like to pinpoint only the worse elements of Europe, and you won't acknowledge Europe's socialist inheritance like here:
"The first modern socialists were early 19th-century Western European social critics. In this period socialism emerged from a diverse array of doctrines and social experiments associated primarily with British and French thinkers—especially Thomas Spence, Charles Fourier, Saint-Simon, Robert Owen. " .
Oh seriously, fuck off with your tone policing. You were wildly and yet so confidently incorrect, and I called you on it. Maybe instead of scratching back because your ego is bruised, be capable of admitting you were wrong and that you *shock horror* don't actually know everything, and just fucking listen? You might actually learn something..
Refuting your nonsense isn't "pinpoint only the worse elements of Europe", it's literally just acknowledging reality, you not wanting to do that because it makes you uncomfortable is not my problem.
Quoting a tiny part of wiki that confirms your ignorance to yourself but ignores literal and material reality (not only is socialism inspired by much earlier societies and not an independent philosophy that was "invented" by any one person, but the fact that the scholars who defined modern socialism did so in Europe doesn't magically change history, where European capitalist government fear socialism like it's the fucking plague. All of which is probably in the wiki, but you just chose to overlook) isn't helping your case, nor your ignorance.
Anyway, you're clearly not interested in actually knowing things, but only "feeling" them, so I'm not going to waste any more of my time talking to a brick wall..