#world billionaires

[dontmean2bepoliticalbut]

#us politics #twitter #tweet #2022 #elon musk #united nations #end world hunger #world hunger #fuck billionaires #billionaires #eat the fucking rich #fuck capitalism #anti capitalism #@CaptAmazo

[inkedberries]

i absolutely love fics where bruce and clark have no idea who their secret identities are and they fall in love. that’s my iv drip

#world's finest #superbat #superman #batman #dc #more of THEM #im gonna go crazy #investigative journalist clark kent and billionaire philanthropist bruce wayne MEETING AAAH #my art #fanart

[lazycranberrydoodles]

i think the barbie movie would have a profound psychological impact on hua cheng

prev comic / next comic / follow for still more hualian barbie movie content because i am not done

bonus angsty version 🎉 i hate love expressions just a couple tiny lines on the mouth and eyebrows and it goes from silly to sad

:(

#this is a haha hua cheng devoted joke but idk it’s nice to think about how much of his identity and self worth is placed on xie lian #obviously since he was 10 most of his major life choices were to serve the crown prince #but in the interval time he became one of the most dangerous men in the world and decided it was his responsibility to create a ghost haven #he works on artistic mastery and alternatively brokers deals with and evades assassination attempts by heaven #if asked i think he would say he only does good for dianxia’s sake (What Would Dianxia Do) and is actually a bad person #and similar stuff about his combat and art skills #theres a question here about how much of his success is due to being such a determined person and how much #of it is luck from ‘the savior’ reversing the star of solitude #how much hua cheng is left when you take away xie lian? #he would say nothing #xie lian would say a billionaire genius playboy philantrophist etc #tgcf looooooves to talk about destiny and free will and so do i #all this to say if it was in character for hua cheng to cry at a movie hed be sobbing #this can be read as pre or post confession btw #the poll decided which version of the comic was the ‘main version’ above the cut #tgcf #art #comic #hualian #hua cheng #xie lian #tian guan ci fu #heaven official's blessing #hob #mxtx #my art #barbie #barbie movie #tgcf meme #lmao

[gluseagh]

Michael Bloomberg Net Worth

Michael Bloomberg Net Worth

Michael Bloomberg net worth 2022: Michael Rubens Bloomberg is an American politician, businessman, philanthropist, and author. He is the majority owner and co-founder of Bloomberg L.P.. Michael Bloomberg net worth 2022 is $60 billion. Michael Bloomberg Profile Bloomberg was born at St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, in Brighton, a neighborhood of Boston, Massachusetts, on February 14, 1942, to William…

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#Michael Bloomberg #World billionaires

[wisebeth]

do swifties realise criticising taylor swift isn't always “misogyny” and there are valid reasons to not like her?

#taylor swift #anti taylor swift #is it even anti when it's not even blind hate but valid criticism? #swifties dni #she's a white billionaire she is far more privileged than 95% of the world population #i can assure you she's not the poor victim yall make her out to be

[ladyvaderpixetc]

Jon Stewart, hitting the nail on the head once again.

#gacked from Jessica Chastain's tweet #jon stewart #on the ridiculous lies regarding #trickle down economics #and billionaires hoarding wealth to play with #abolish billionaires #us politics #but also kind of #uk politics #hell it's #world politics #billionaires and privatisation are a global threat

[queerism1969]

#capitalism #inequality #eat the rich #late stage capitalism #anti capitalism #current events #corporations #fuck corporations #nestle #kill the rich #fuck billionaires #eat the fucking rich #fuck capitalism #anti capitalist #politics #world politics #american politics #democracy #us politics #conservatives

[juniperhillpatient]

the way some of y'all speak so condescendingly to & about vegans & vegetarians or just people trying to recycle or do a little better for the world is sick actually. sorry corporations are the real problem & everything is hopeless but I'm a receptionist lmao I won't fix that in my lifetime but I can minimize the animal products I buy & recyle & try not to buy aersol products & be nice to people. sorry the idea of doing the bare minimum infuriates some of u guys to ur cores but like. get fucked

#this is about a specific post condescending to vegans & vegetarians about how animal products are natural but also #this is a WHOLE culture on here that has always & will always infuriate me to my core #the world is ending & big corps & billionaires are behind it #i get that i'm not stupid #but i can do the very bare minimum to not make things worse where i can avoid it #sorry not fucking sorry

[kayas-kosmos]

Because of what's happening on Twitter...

I've made a little diagram to demonstrate why billionaires and the ultra-wealthy are bad for society.

(Text in Image)

"If we view society as a body, every sector is like a different organ within the body that serves a function and works in harmony with other organs to maintain balance. Every part of the body is important for the whole thing to function."

"The ultra-wealthy want you to believe they are the beating heart and thinking mind of the society – they are the innovators who create our jobs and their brilliance drives society forward. They deserve to be at the top of society because they have earned that. Without them, the body won’t function because they are the most important part."

"In reality, they are more like a malignant tumour, sucking all of the blood (resources) away from everything else (people and the planet) to fuel its own infinite growth, depriving the rest of the body and slowly killing it. Workers create all of the innovation and keep things running, the ultra-wealthy take all the credit."

------------------------------------------------------------------------

This is a public domain image so feel free to pinch it for whatever.

Elon Musk has put the careers of thousands of small business owners who depend on Twitter (myself included) in jeopardy by completely running it into the ground. Before this, Mark Zuckerberg had already been doing the same when he started pursuing Metaverse, making Instagram and Facebook much more unusable for artists. Do I really need to go into other examples of CEOs and very normalised practise of wage theft?

Meanwhile, the UK currently has the richest Prime Minister in its history. What is this man doing with this wealth? Continuing the Tory legacy of austerity in order to line his pockets and the pockets of his crony friends. This has resulted in a devastating cost of living crisis that continues to ravage the country as people's energy bills skyrocket out of control.

My diagram is pretty basic and lacks nuance, there's definitely more I could elaborate on with this comparison but I really don't have time. I just want people to get the basic point of how billionaires view themselves vs what function they actually serve. I'm also not here to debate whether some organs are more important than others since I'm not a doctor, that's not really the point here. And no, I don't care if people think I'm being harsh by comparing billionaires to a tumour. If they don't want to be compared to one they should stop acting like one. Jeff Bezos could end world hunger right now and chooses not to.

Also, I know a lot of people are going to come at me with the argument that billionaires give away massive amounts of money. First off, people like Jeff Bezos only give large sums of money to charity a.) for the sake of improving their public image and b.) because giving to charity allows them to write it off in their taxes. Also, charities in of themselves have a lot of problems, but that's a blog post for another day. Mutual Aid is a better way to help people directly. Really, the ultra wealthy need to be taxed, of course they do everything within their power to avoid taxes.

Also:

"Earning a lot of money" and "holding onto a lot of money" are two different things. You cannot be a multi-millionaire unless you hold onto that money. If you give away massive chunks of it to enrich society, you cease to be a billionaire.

Oh and this is worth a watch, too.

Furthermore:

Also before the inevitable great man comments:

Being a billionaire is a moral failing. Nobody needs that much money.

[Slight edit here - I made the assertion that a billionaire could not spend all of their money in their lifetime, but as someone in the comments pointed out it's very easy for them to completely waste billions in no time. Elon Musk and Mark Zuckerberg have shown that].

Anyway, if you would like to see more anti-Capitalist art from me, I am currently working on a webcomic called "Flowerpunk" - a story about a group of anarchists who are trying to save the city of Wyrdon from a supernatural plague known as "the rot." The comic heavily discusses disaster Capitalism and how the rich will use mass death and destruction as an opportunity to further line their pockets.

I also like to do little anti-Capitalist doodles relating to this project, which I plan to make into posters at some point.

Please consider donating a Ko-Fi also if you would like to help support this project. I am really struggling at the moment because I've basically lost a massive chunk of my client base due to this Twitter implosion and also because of the AI BS that has made it impossible for me to get any reach nowadays. The last year or so has been an absolute nightmare for my career because of all of this.

Thank you all for your continued support! Hopefully I can re-establish my audience here on Tumblr and wherever else I decide to go.

#Twitter #twitpocalypse #elongated muskrat #eat the rich #eat the fucking rich #tax the rich #tax the 1% #tax the billionaires #anti capitalism #workers of the world unite #working class solidarity #Can you tell that I am absolutely fucking done with this BS?

[frownyalfred]

i have no idea what the setup for it would be, but the idea of a fic in which gotham simultaneously learns that BATMAN and NIGHTWING, widely considered two of the most capable people in the world, are college dropouts AND that HARLEY QUINN was batman's classmate (and also that harley knows his identity, apparently? she insists she doesn't but no one is buying that he turned up to classes in the cowl) refused to leave my brain, and seemed like the kind of premise you'd get a kick out of.

This reminds me of the Facebook spam “Mark Zuckerberg was a college drop out!!” Because yeah, technically he was. But there’s a big difference between your buddy dropping out of community college because he didn’t like getting up early and Bruce Wayne, who dropped out of medical school to become a ninja and work through his trauma on a mountain somewhere.

I’m sure there’s a lot of Gothamites who play the “but Batman is a college dropout too!” card with their buddies 😅

#tbc there is nothing to judge in dropping out #but sometimes it’s just life stuff #sometimes it’s trauma #sometimes you’re a genius billionaire about to ruin the world in 5-10 years #etc etc #bruce wayne #batman #dc #nightwing #dick grayson #asks #anon #clearing out asks

[mostlysignssomeportents]

The super-rich got that way through monopolies

Catch me in Miami! I'll be at Books and Books in Coral Gables on Jan 22 at 8PM.

Just in time for Davos, here's 'Taken, not earned: How monopolists drive the world’s power and wealth divide," a report from a coalition of international tax justice and anti-corporate activist groups:

https://www.balancedeconomy.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Davos-Taken-not-Earned-full-Report-2024-FINAL.pdf

The rise of monopolies over the past 40 years came about as the result of specific, deliberate policy choices. As the report documents, the wealthiest people in America funneled a fortune into neutering antitrust enforcement, through the "consumer welfare" doctrine.

This is an economic theory that equates monopolies with efficiency: "If everyone is buying the same things from the same store, that tells you the store is doing something right, not something criminal." 40 years ago, and ever since, the wealthy have funded think-tanks, university programs and even "continuing education" programs for federal judges to push this line:

https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/13/post-bork-era/#manne-down

They didn't do this for ideological reasons – they were chasing material goals. Monopolies produce vast profits, and those profits produce vast wealth. The rise and rise of the super rich cannot be decoupled from the rise and rise of monopolies.

If you're new to this, you might think that "monopoly" only refers to a sector in which there is only one seller. But that's not what economists mean when they talk about monopolies and monopolization: for them, a monopoly is a company with power. Economists who talk about monopolies mean companies that "can act independently without needing to consider the responses of competitors, customers, workers, or even governments."

One way to measure that power is through markups ("the difference between the selling price of goods or services and their cost"). Very large companies in concentrated industries have very high markups, and they're getting higher. From 2017-22, the 20 largest companies in the world had average markups of 50%. The 100 largest companies average 43%. The smallest half of companies get average markups of 25%.

Those markups rose steeply during the covid lockdowns – and so did the wealth of the billionaires who own them. Tech billionaires – Bezos, Brin and Page, Gates and Ballmer – all made their fortunes from monopolies. Warren Buffet is a proud monopolist who says "the single most important decision in evaluating a business is pricing power… if you have to have a prayer session before raising the price by 10 percent, then you’ve got a terrible business."

We are living in the age of the monopoly. In the 1930s, the top 0.1% of US companies accounted for less than half of America's GDP. Today, it's 90%. And it's accelerating, with global mergers climbing from 2,676 in 1985 to 62,000 in 2021.

Monopoly's cheerleaders claim that these numbers vindicate them. Monopolies are so efficient that everyone wants to create them. Those efficiencies can be seen in the markups monopolies can charge, and the profits they can make. If a monopoly has a 50% markup, that's just the "efficiency of scale."

But what is the actual shape of this "efficiency?" How is it manifest? The report's authors answer this with one word: power.

Monopolists have the power "to extract wealth from, to restrict the freedoms of, and to manipulate or steer the vastly larger numbers of losers." They establish themselves as gatekeepers and create chokepoints that they can use to raise prices paid by their customers and lower the payout to their suppliers:

https://chokepointcapitalism.com/

These chokepoints let monopolies usurp "one of the ultimate prerogatives of state power: taxation." Amazon sellers pay a 51% tax to sell on the platform. App Store suppliers pay a 30% tax on every dollar they make with their apps. That translates into higher costs. Consider a good that costs $10 to make: the bottom 50% of companies (by size) would charge $12.50 for that product on average. The largest companies would charge $15. Thus monopolies don't just make their owners richer – they make everyone else poorer, too.

This power to set prices is behind the greedflation (or, more politely, "seller's inflation"). The CEOs of the largest companies in the world keep getting on investor calls and bragging about this:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/11/price-over-volume/#pepsi-pricing-power

The food system is incredibly monopolistic. The Cargill family own the largest commodity trader in the world, which is how they built up a family fortune worth $43b. Cargill is one of the "ABCD" companies ("Archer Daniels Midland, Bunge, Cargill and Louis Dreyfus") that control the world's food supply, and they tripled their profits during the lockdown.

Monopolies gouge everyone – even governments. Pfizer charged the NHS £18-22/shot for vaccines that cost £5/shot to make. They took the British government for £2bn – that's enough to pay last year's pay hike for NHS nurses, six times over,

But monopolies also abuse their suppliers, especially their employees. All over the world, competition authorities are uncovering "wage fixing" and "no poaching" agreements among large firms, who collude to put a cap on what workers in their sector can earn. Unions report workers having their pay determined by algorithms. Bosses lock employees in with noncompetes and huge repayment bills for "training":

https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/04/its-a-trap/#a-little-on-the-nose

Monopolies corrupt our governments. Companies with huge markups can spend some of that money on lobbying. The 20 largest companies in the world spend more than €155m/year lobbying in the US and alone, not counting the money they spend on industry associations and other cutouts that lobby on their behalf. Big Tech leads the pack on lobbying, accounting for 82% of EU lobbying spending and 58% of US lobbying.

One key monopoly lobbying priority is blocking climate action, from Apple lobbying against right-to-repair, which creates vast mountains of e-waste, to energy monopolist lobbying against renewables. And energy companies are getting more monopolistic, with Exxonmobil spending $65b to buy Pioneer and Chevron spending $60b to buy Hess. Many of the world's richest people are fossil fuel monopolists, like Charles and Julia Koch, the 18th and 19th richest people on the Forbes list. They spend fortunes on climate denial.

When people talk about the climate impact of billionaires, they tend to focus on the carbon footprints of their mansions and private jets, but the true environmental cost of the ultra rich comes from the anti-renewables, pro-emissions lobbying they buy with their monopoly winnings.

The good news is that the tide is turning on monopolies. A coalition of "businesses, workers, farmers, consumers and other civil society groups" have created a "remarkably successful anti-monopoly movement." The past three years saw more regulatory action on corporate mergers, price-gouging, predatory pricing, labor abuses and other evils of monopoly than we got in the past 40 years.

The business press – cheerleaders for monopoly – keep running editorials claiming that enforcers like Lina Khan are getting nothing done. Sure, WSJ, Khan's getting nothing done – that's why you ran 80 editorial about her:

https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/14/making-good-trouble/#the-peoples-champion

(Khan's winning like crazy. Just last month she killed four megamergers:)

https://www.thesling.org/the-ftc-just-blocked-four-mergers-in-a-month-heres-how-its-latest-win-fits-into-the-broader-campaign-to-revive-antitrust/

The EU and UK are taking actions that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago. Canada is finally set to get a real competition law, with the Trudeau government promising to add an "abuse of dominance" rule to Canada's antitrust system.

Even more exciting are the moves in the global south. In South Africa, "competition law contains some of the most progressive ideas of all":

It actively seeks to create greater economic participation, particularly for ‘historically disadvantaged persons’ as part of its public interest considerations in merger decisions.

Balzac wrote, "Behind every great fortune there is a crime." Chances are, the rapsheet includes an antitrust violation. Getting rid of monopolies won't get rid of all the billionaires, but it'll certainly get rid of a hell of a lot of them.

I'm Kickstarting the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.

If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:

https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/17/monopolies-produce-billionaires/#inequality-corruption-climate-poverty-sweatshops

#billionaires #wef #climate #monopoly #world economic forum #competition #antitrust #consumer welfare #inequality #corruption #davos #guillotine watch

[headcanonthings]

Bruce posting to the official Bruce Wayne Twitter account: I truly go into househusband mode when I'm someone's soulmate- like, I'll make you pancakes and bacon every morning.

Clark, responding: This is a lie.

Clark: I'm literally dating him. This is a lie.

Clark: HE DOESN'T EVEN KNOW HOW TO COOK A PANCAKE, WHAT IS THIS.

#this is how the world learns that reporter clark kent is dating billionaire bruce wayne #clark is embarrassed but a little relieved its been done #bruce quietly finds it hilarious because he didn't think clark would actually respond like that #he made the tweet on a dare from his kids #the batkids are loving it #are taking the opportunity to continue roasting bruce over his lack of kitchen skills #partly because they love roasting bruce but also since it helps bring a little attention of off clark #incorrect quotes #incorrect dcu quotes #incorrect Batman quotes #incorrect superman quotes #incorrect superbat quotes #dcu #bruce wayne #batman #clark kent #superman #superbat

[caspercryptid]

You know frankly at this point if you don't understand that the screen actor's guild isn't just A-Listers who can ""afford"" to be exploited then like. That's not only a You problem but You're not even worth arguing with. Trying to make the case that it's okay for like, Margo Robbie to have her image AI exploited until the end of time because she has a high net worth is a morally indefensible position even before the actual fact that most actors are Not rich, and not only do the A-Listers have the right to participate in the strike but they actually NEED to participate, because if it was just the collective background actors striking Hollywood would replace them all with scabs by exploiting Different young people who want to make it in the industry. The A-Listers aren't replaceable. By joining the strike they aren't being Greedy, they're helping protect other actors. But also they had the right to good working conditions in the first place!! They have a right to control their image and for their work to be treated with respect!

#also they actually are WORKING for the money they're making #these aren't billionaires people the difference between like a actor who is worth 10 million or 20 million dollars or even 100 million #is still WORLDS away from a BILLIONARE #some people do not understand the difference between a million and a billion dollars #these are not the Elon musks of the world #these are not the rich people you need to be angry at #sag aftra

[gluseagh]

Richest Man in the Philippines 2022

Richest Man in the Philippines 2022

Read about the richest man in the Philippines and the list of the richest people in the Philippines in 2022. According to a report by the business magazine Forbes, the Philippines has over 10 billionaires currently. Diversified, Real estate, food, retail, drugstores are among the major sources of income for most of the wealthy people in the Southeast Asian country. Richest Man in the Philippines…

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#richest in philippines #World billionaires

[skinnypaleangryperson]

So, so, so ridiculously relieved I deleted my BoJack fanfiction off of AO3. Doesn't happen very often but every now and then a new consumer will post about looking for fanfiction and we'll say that 'disappointed" at the lack of fanfiction or even at the fanfiction itself. I'm relieved that finally my work is made the exception to that after years of breakdowns of being called worthless and other various vague posts. It's literally all that I have in many ways, genuinely, and you don't even know about what my life is like in the living hell it is in this celebrity, slave wage culture outside of that niche interest and passion I have

#in every possible way I'm told that I'm worthless and I'm trying to go into full-blown shutdown mode because I'm sick and tired #I've even attempting to exist when it's so clear that I don't matter and I've always only been under the illusion that I ever have #there's not even any point in even posting anymore #thank God #full-blown shutdown mode and eventually my death and it was like I was never here #I'm one of the fear that I'm pretty sure was actually genuinely too good for this world but keep letting those billionaire pigs be #praised and being tolf that they deserve everything

[firstkillers]

Anyways this whole submarine thing has proven that people on this site aren’t actually able to commit to eating the rich.

#oh no there is a 19 year old on there #he’s a little itty bitty kid who has no thoughts of his own #so he signed a legal document that said you could die in this thing #fuck that #he’s 19 rich kid #he knows exactly what he's doing #they made their decisions to go into that death tube to go to a mass grave of working class and immigrants #these billionaires have contributed to the climate crisis #the so called kid #would have one day also have become another rich person sucking the life out of the world #so fuck him and fuck the rest of them #let the sea take their souls #it is their retribution for the souls of immigrants and working people they have taken #oceangate #titan #titanic