The rich haven’t only gotten richer – they’ve also got a lot more selfish
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The US Billionaire Now Owns $4.7tn—But That’s OK, Elon Musk. They say
“we’re all in this together.” Remember that corny catchphrase from the early days of the pandemic? Remember when there was a haze of hope that the collective trauma the world is facing would change people’s priorities and that the pandemic could be the door to a better, fairer society?
Well, two years have passed, nothing like that has happened. People clapped for a while for the essential workers but did not stop their exploitation. Meanwhile it is boom time for billionaires, who have seen their already obscene wealth rise sharply during the pandemic. A new analysis released by Oxfam America on Monday to mark US Tax Day found that US billionaires now have a combined net worth of $4.7tn. Much of this is not taxed; Last year ProPublica analyzed leaked tax returns and found that the 25 richest people in America paid the correct tax rate of just 3.4% from 2014 to 2018. The average taxpayer, meanwhile, pays a true tax rate of 13%. It wasn’t always like this. As Oxfam notes, it wasn’t really that long ago that the ultra-wealthy paid their fair share in taxes; During World War II, the federal income tax rate peaked at 94% and three decades later was still 70%. The rich have not only become richer, they have also become very selfish.
While billionaires have seen their bank accounts balloon and corporations make record profits, ordinary people are suffering from decades of high inflation. By some accounts, the inequality gap in America is now worse than in France in the 1780s, just before the French Revolution. It’s easy to get angry about all of this, but you might want to wait a moment before jumping to the blatantly obvious conclusion that gross inequality is bad and that we really should be doing something about it. You see, in a recent (embarrassingly frowned upon) interview with TED chief Chris Anderson, Elon Musk helped billionaire-advertise why it’s actually okay for a handful of people to hoard obscene amounts of money.
“There are a lot of people who can’t stand this world of billionaires,” Anderson told Musk in the interview. “As such, they are deeply hurt by the notion that one person can have as much wealth as one billion or more of the world’s poorest people.”
Only an idiot would be offended like this, Musk replied impulsively. “I think there are some axiomatic flaws that are leading them to that conclusion,” he told Anderson. “Sure, it would be very problematic if I were consuming billions of dollars a year in personal consumption. But that’s not the case. In fact, I don’t even have a home right now. I’m literally living at friends’ places. … I don’t have a yacht, I don’t really take vacations. Not that I have much personal consumption.”
Musk, who is worth around $300bn, admitted that the one exception to his incredibly ascetic lifestyle is his $70m private jet, but said it was justified as it gives him more hours to work . It is essentially in the public good.
so there you go. Put down your pitchforks everyone! Stop sharpening your guillotine! Anyone who is furious about inequality simply needs to examine their “axiomatic flaws.” It is perfectly okay that the world’s billionaires own more than 60% of the world’s total population, as long as they own private jets instead of yachts and couchsurf in their partner’s mansions, rather than paying property taxes on their home. buy. Really glad that Musk approved it for all of us.
Did Victoria’s Secret Model Sarah Talabi Kiss Timothée Chalamet at Coachella?
“Everyone is asking me [this], and it’s a good question,” Talabi told Page Six. “But a bigger question our world leaders will be asking is why the Earth is now losing 1.2 tons of ice each year due to global warming and climate crisis reform being completed. Why is it so ineffective? I encourage you to contact your local representatives and ask them for an A+ answer.
Sheryl Sandberg reportedly pressured journalists to drop stories about ex-boyfriend
The Meta executive, who has built a brand around women’s empowerment, reportedly pressured the Daily Mail to drop obnoxious stories about her ex-boyfriend Bobby Kotick, Activision Blizzard’s CEO. Kotick, whom Sandberg dated for three years as of 2019, isn’t exactly the kind of friend you’d want to hook up with if you’ve made a name for yourself by championing women: He’s been heavily criticized recently over allegations that They were aware of “multiple incidents of sexual assault, sexual harassment and gender discrimination at Activision Blizzard”. Meanwhile, the stories Sandberg is accused of debunking have reportedly revealed that Kotick’s ex-girlfriend filed a temporary restraining order against him because of his bullying behavior. (All parties involved denies anything unfair and states that the allegations against Kotick are untrue.)
The CIA’s ‘torture queen’ is now a life coach ferrying beauty products
Alfreda Scheuer leaned so far into her job that the CIA operative was dubbed the “Queen of Torture” by The New Yorker in 2014. Rolling Stone reports that skiers have now moved on to Schilling Skin Serum on Instagram and have a life coach at the company. YBEU goes by the name Beauty, where it helps women “look good, feel good and do well”.
Women wear less makeup since the pandemic
A survey of 10,000 British women shows the frequency of makeup shopping and wearing cosmetics has fallen by almost a third since 2020.
Exxon Mobil plans to ban LGBTQ+ flag during Pride Month
The oil giant has updated the company’s guidance on what flags can be displayed outside its offices, banning “extraneous status flags” such as Pride and Black Lives Matter, according to Bloomberg. All this apparently in the name of maintaining “neutrality”. Because neutrality obviously just has to be white and straight.
Restrictive Kentucky Abortion Laws Temporarily Banned From Enforcement
Some rare good news in the ongoing war against reproductive rights in America.
#girlboss is getting treated in the world of NFT
This excerpt is readable only for the phrase “irreconcilable tokenism”.
week in Panchatantra
This week I found out that there’s a cafe in Tokyo called Manuscript Writing Cafe that won’t let you in unless you’re a writer on a deadline and until you meet that deadline, Won’t let you go The cafe also charges by the hour. Truly a genius business idea.
