Joan VT
Robert ReichA handful of billionaires now have unprecedented control over banking, the food we eat, the health care we can access and, now, the information we receive.
This is what oligarchy looks like.
This is what oligarchy looks like.
MauraScary
Bodhi O'Shea@rbreich Oh! Oh! Oh! I have questions 🙋♂️🙋♂️🙋♂️ Like how many hand fulls are needed before it's not an oligarchy? Not kidding. I'd be cool with making everyone a billionaire. Just interested in your take.
Grumble@rbreich Eat the Rich.
JDN 6Guaranteed case of food poisoning
Mike | Abundance Protocol@rbreich what is the solution though? Can government credibility regulate the information economy?
Richard RatheI've always thought it was odd that we routinely and negatively refer to "#Russian #Oligarchs" but not the same powerbroker types in our own backyard?! 🤷♂️
Cypher@richardrathe @rbreich because they don't also directly run the state
admin@cspcypher
The Russian oligarchs are owned by the State (well Putin, who in the fine tradition of fascists everywhere has the "I am The State!" worldview lol)
The Russian oligarchs are owned by the State (well Putin, who in the fine tradition of fascists everywhere has the "I am The State!" worldview lol)
@zhuk ok that's fair correction haha
@cspcypher no worries 👍
MisterStars@rbreich gosh, who could have seen this coming. If only those wacky, unelectable liberals had warned those clear eyed, sensible “3rd Way” centrist Democrats back in the 90s, before it was too late. 🙄
Quiquaequod@rbreich If anyone thinks this doesn’t affect them, enjoy your organic food, identity-agnostic events, and subscription-free breathing while it lasts.
ニルス・スキニール@rbreich
The world is now what mid-18th C England was like. But with nowhere to deport the unwashed (i.e. the 97%)
The world is now what mid-18th C England was like. But with nowhere to deport the unwashed (i.e. the 97%)
Audr3y
Shaman@rbreich wonder if this hasn't been deliberately done as we kept taxing rich people and corporations less and less.
#TaxTheRich
Would love to see a study of the economic impact of making individual incomes below $50k/yr tax-free and recovering that by raising taxes on corporations, capital gains, and top earners. There's enough money there, just not distributed right!
#TaxTheRich
Would love to see a study of the economic impact of making individual incomes below $50k/yr tax-free and recovering that by raising taxes on corporations, capital gains, and top earners. There's enough money there, just not distributed right!
Scimmia di Mare@RulesBuster @rbreich be careful of what you share 🙂
Dwight D. Eisenhower on tax cuts and a balanced budget
Dwight D. Eisenhower is often quoted from his February 17, 1953 News Conference in which he said, The fact is there must be balanced budgets before we are again on a safe and sound system in our economy. That means, to my mind, that we cannot afford to reduce [...]
@Madmonkey @rbreich ... I am not surprised that Forbes magazine sees taxing really rich people as " .. economic destruction ..". On the other hand, whether Ike thought high taxes are good or not, he did not want to lower them until deficits came down. Today, we simply refuse to properly #TaxTheRich & corporations to create more and more #Billionaires, who then try to manipulate our democracy to further increase their wealth to the detriment of the rest. #TaxTheRich
@RulesBuster @rbreich see, I'm not saying I don't agree. But for the sake of truth I must say Eisenhower have never said something like that.
@Madmonkey
I tried to verify the quote came from Eisenhower, but couldn't.
All I found was this on apnews.com, which is kind of a similar idea:
" The super rich could avoid the high taxes by investing their money in things that make America stronger. If they wanted to avoid high taxes, they could invest in business expansions and higher employee wages. They could give a million or two to tax-exempt non-profits that feed, house and clothe poor people ..."
Source: https://apnews.com/article/2184e9f18f6f4acca1ed007bdcdca818
I tried to verify the quote came from Eisenhower, but couldn't.
All I found was this on apnews.com, which is kind of a similar idea:
" The super rich could avoid the high taxes by investing their money in things that make America stronger. If they wanted to avoid high taxes, they could invest in business expansions and higher employee wages. They could give a million or two to tax-exempt non-profits that feed, house and clothe poor people ..."
Source: https://apnews.com/article/2184e9f18f6f4acca1ed007bdcdca818
@RulesBuster again, not saying it's wrong. It only seems to me unfair to put in someone mouth things he never said.
HouseOf55@rbreich what do you suggest, Robert? Until there is action in an equal opposing direction it will keep heading towards Idiocracy. People left to their own devices don’t generally do well or contribute to their own care, forget the world or their girl or whatever…20 years of imbeciles raised on “your truth” and never “the truth”. Despicable. The ONLY way to fix this mega mess is the Power of the Schwartz. Free the Ripple. Free the World.
JR@rbreich Not unprecedented, there was the Gilded Age.
Godfrey642@rbreich The problem is @JohnnyPunkster77 that for billions of sheeple it ISN'T obvious.
They vote for and ensure that Trump Modi Putin (Bolsonaro) types keep the oligarchs happily shafting the rest of us with impunity, as they've been doing for decades.
The solution is education, transparency and honesty plus democratic socially focused politics and policy. Not deregulating so that the market makes decisions rather than common sense. The market doesn't have the nation's interest at heart.
As a Brit, as outrageous as i found the brief Truss (Kwarteng) combo earlier this year, I found it more disturbing than words can convey, that the markets effectively killed the £ and UK trade to get rid of her. UNELECTED traders around the world have enormous power over markets currency and therefore governments.
**That doesn't mean nations should give up extreme right-wing politics to adopt extreme left-wing politics.**
Trump types bash on about anything that counters with right-wing policy is "far left and Marxist". That's nonsense.
Policies that focus on social care still allow for business growth, but without the greed.
It's not healthy for any nation to have oligarchs who take EVTHG while there is huge need amongst swathes of poor.
Interesting that MAGAs hate the notion of "handouts" but that's EXACTLY what the super rich get in tax breaks.
Carza@rbreich time for the little people to get some control back. But don’t ask me how! I shall leave to the brains of all this.
Red Faster@rbreich Colonialism is not unprecedented
John Teehan@rbreich But any of us could be a billionaire next, so regulating them means regulating ourselves and that just ain’t right, right? Right? I mean, how am I supposed to keep my family fed with mere millions?
Rin (Rins2pworth Twitter)
🌪 MikeMathia 📡
Itzme2@rbreich And the richest one seems to be on Russia’s side…
Scenario@rbreich Don’t forget the energy grid.
@rbreich Billionaire with the most Corporations wins the control over mankind. And no one can stop them from de$troying and de$truction in their game for control.
GCHRD.org@rbreich we must continue to strengthen and improve the rational-legal framework with laws and international treaties that eliminate the oligarch heads of state first.
Then we might have the time and resources to tackle the oligarchs of business.
No business or person should have dominion over democracy.
Peter B@rbreich for any change to happen the people must rally around campaign finance reform and term limits on ALL publicly elected officials.
Catbus@rbreich I agree with and appreciate these takes of yours, but what I don't appreciate is your continuing insistence that "voting blue" will fix the situation, as both parties are fully subservient to the investor class
Incognitim@ancient_catbus
The left has to make a *concerted and sustained* effort to primary corporate dems and uproot the ghouls in the dnc, much like tea party/maga did to 'normal' 🙄 republicans.
Just voting blue won't fix extreme wealth inequality or a VAST number of other issues, but letting the red team run rampant all but ensures that christian nationalists will set domestic policy on abortion, marriage, guns, schools, immigration, elections...
@rbreich
The left has to make a *concerted and sustained* effort to primary corporate dems and uproot the ghouls in the dnc, much like tea party/maga did to 'normal' 🙄 republicans.
Just voting blue won't fix extreme wealth inequality or a VAST number of other issues, but letting the red team run rampant all but ensures that christian nationalists will set domestic policy on abortion, marriage, guns, schools, immigration, elections...
@rbreich
Trashfirekitten@ancient_catbus @rbreich Both parties are complicit in maintaining the oligarchy. It is not democrats versus republicans, it never has been, it is capital-holders versus the rest of us
Agonio@rbreich I suppose oil companies had the same before. In any case, it's true, it's wrong, but it's also smaller than we think. We still have control of anything of value in our life.
There will always be someone feeling accomplished at controlling our money and services, and we can make our best to democratise them, but life is much more than that, and learning to take consciousness of our dependency to consumerism is the key to reduce those oligarchs influence on us and society around us.
Silvia Rasmussen@rbreich slowly but steadily.
Hopper@rbreich plus their private jets give them a gigantic carbon footprint. I’m kinda sick of it.
@rbreich Always has been
Ricard Pardell@rbreich I’d say #plutocracy is a more precise word.
Roz Derors@rbreich Get the money out of politics. Destroy Citizens United and dark money contributions. And the very rich will have to use their money for philanthropy like the Carnegie’s and the Rockefeller’s of old.
Sir Dr Rusty o the Isle 🖤💛❤️@rbreich capitalism is...
A Reformed Pastafarian@rbreich this is capitalism's end game. At this point, all that's left is to see which oligarch gets to control everything, and then pick out the spike that their head will be put on.
"Extinct" Onceler@rbreich Stop honoring rich people's fiat money. Create local currencies for mutual aid. Disempower the rich, and make the possibility of wealth separated from human welfare undesirable.
@rbreich oligarchy, slavery, whatever you wish to call it, it never really left.
@rbreich and our future water sources
Julian Toedter@rbreich don't disagree that there's too much control, wealth and power in the hands of too few but instead of oligarchy which is a lot more direct, maybe an oligopoly that has developed over time with governance and regulation becoming less effective, and the people at large becoming disenfranchised.
adonna@rbreich this may explain why they needed to destroy twitter
Chris Der Englander@rbreich we alao still have choices. Use them everybody!
SSFC KDT (MOVED)
alamo@rbreich how to undo it? This issue are rooted in my country
Jan Hildegard@rbreich In other words, America has become Russia, without a Putin. (see Bill Browser "Red Notice" and Rachel Maddow's "Blowout")
mörkringe@rbreich surprisingly few Americans have switched over to Mastodon. Maybe they’ve already climatized to having autocrats rule over them?