Today, my membership cancellation has been processed by the NSW Branch of the #Labor Party (#NSWLabor). It no longer represents me, nor many thousands of others I’m sure, and has used up all the loyalty and trust I once had invested in it.

From now on my membership fees and any donation I might have made to the Party will be directed elsewhere (not a political party), to where I think will help #Australia get back on track to #SocialDemocracy where the benefits equally flow to all Australians and not just the #ChoosenFew. As for my vote, it will have to earn it back.

#Poverty is a political choice
#HousingAffordability is a political choice
#CivicLiberties are a political choice
#EquityDiversityInclusion are a political choice
#WealthDistribution is a political choice
#CostOfLiving is a political choice

There is no getting away from #politics nor our civic duty to make sound political choices for all of us living, on this stollen land, on the great #SouthernLand.

#Antifa #TaxTheRich #AusPol

"Billionaire wealth jumped by over 16 per cent in 2025, three times faster than the past five-year average, to $18.3 trillion – its highest level in history, according to a new Oxfam report today as the World Economic Forum opens in Davos.

Billionaire wealth has increased by 81 per cent since 2020. This comes as one in four people don’t regularly have enough to eat and nearly half the world’s population live in poverty.

The report Resisting the Rule of the Rich: Protecting Freedom from Billionaire Power analyses how the super-rich are securing political power to shape the rules of our economies and societies for their own gain and to the detriment of the rights and freedoms of people around the world.

The surge in billionaire wealth coincides with the US Trump administration pursuing a pro-billionaire agenda. It has slashed taxes for the super-rich, undermined global efforts to tax large corporations, reversed attempts to address monopoly power and contributed to the growth of AI-related stocks that have provided a boon to super-rich investors world-wide.

His presidency has sent a clear warning sign to the rest of the world about the power of the ultra-rich. Rather than solely a US phenomenon Oxfam’s paper demonstrates that rising oligarchy is undermining societies worldwide. Oxfam’s report finds:

- The collective wealth of billionaires last year surged by $2.5 trillion, almost equivalent to the total wealth held by the bottom half of humanity – 4.1 billion people.
- The number of billionaires topped 3,000 last year for the first time, while the richest, Elon Musk, became the first ever to surpass half a trillion dollars.
- Billionaires are 4,000 times more likely to hold political office than ordinary people.
- The $2.5 trillion rise in billionaires’ wealth would be enough to eradicate extreme poverty 26 times over."

https://www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/billionaire-wealth-jumps-three-times-faster-2025-highest-peak-ever

#Inequality #Billionaires #WealthDistribution #Capitalism

How do Europe's highest earners compare to the wealthy worldwide?

The income gap between the lowest and highest earners remains stark in Europe, despite policy measures to tackle such inequality.

According to the latest Eurobarometer survey, 81% of Europeans believe that income gaps are too wide and 78% believe that governments should take more action to reduce them.

https://mediafaro.org/article/20251222-how-do-europes-highest-earners-compare-to-the-wealthy-worldwide?mf_channel=mastodon&action=forward

#Income #Salaries #Rich #IncomeDistribution #Wealth #WealthDistribution #Inequality #IncomeGapEurope

The real reason why so much money is spent on fossil fuels and weapons manufacturing:

"In discussions of the composition of wealth, a common distinction is made between non-financial assets and financial assets. Within the latter category the uncommon distinction is drawn between ‘capital ownership assets’ (referring to ownership in enterprises) and other financial assets. The reason is that capital ownership assets come with a degree of actual or potential economic power – in the sense of having the capacity to significantly influence enterprises’ policies. The article empirically applies this distinction to 24 OECD countries that report uniform data on this (in line with the OECD guidelines). For the OECD average of these countries around 2019, it is shown that whereas the top 10% of households owns 51% of the total net wealth and 68% of the total financial assets, the top 10% owns 85% of the total capital-ownership assets. For individual OECD countries, the last figure ranges from 63% (Greece) to 97% (Lithuania). The figure for the USA is near to the latter, at 94%."

https://brill.com/view/journals/hima/31/4/article-p90_3.xml

#Capitalism #WealthDistribution #Inequality