現在已經惡化到極端不公平(extremely unfair)，少數人一開始就已經極端有錢（極端富豪 Extreme Rich），你寶貴的人生還无條件接受他們的遊戲規則陪他們玩？絕望嗎？躺平嗎？會吵的孩子有糖喫。你不行動，一生不會有出息
the world’s first trillionaire by 2027
“Trillions of dollars exist for financing development – but too much public money is captured by private power.”
violence is on the rise
The rules-based world order is in retreat and violence is on the rise, forcing countries to rethink their relationships
Inside Job is a 2010 American documentary film, directed by Charles Ferguson, about the 2008 financial crisis. Ferguson, who began researching in 2008,[3] said the film is about "the systemic corruption of the United States by the financial services industry and the consequences of that systemic corruption",[4] amongst them conflicts of interest...
When you train people to be good in learning the rules, it is harder to have a rebellious spirit ... people who are not afraid to break the norm, to fail a little
SINGAPORE — They have hopped around countries to build up businesses, before settling on Singapore to sink their roots more than 10 years ago. To them, there is no better place than Singapore for entrepreneurs, so much so that one of them, fish farm Barramundi Asia’s managing director Joep Kleine Staarman declares
There is this whole obsession for people to be similar to other people
/what needs changing first is for society to be less critical of those who fare less well academically. “If people are not good in school, don’t write them off. Work on their specialties. Oftentimes, they may be the ones with the potential to be the entrepreneurs of tomorrow/
"It’s instant replay of the same old crap. The first time they went to jail. The second time, nobody went to jail, but there were some significant financial penalties. And the third time, it was a complete pass that allowed people to get the idea that if you’re big enough and important enough, you can get away with anything. And that, I’m afraid, has permeated the society."
The latest Corruption Diaries episode is out! A new podcast episode every Wednesday: "It’s instant replay of the same old crap. The first time they went to jail. The second time, nobody went to jail,...
their wealth has grown three times faster than the rate of inflation ... The wages of nearly 800 million workers have failed to keep up with inflation and they have lost $1.5 trillion over the last two years, equivalent to nearly a month (25 days) of lost wages for each worker
The world’s five richest men have more than doubled their fortunes from $405 billion to $869 billion since 2020 —at a rate of $14 million per hour— while nearly five billion people have been made poorer, reveals a new Oxfam report on inequality and global corporate power. If current trends continue, the world will have its first trillionaire...
This inequality is no accident; the billionaire class is ensuring corporations deliver more wealth to them at the expense of everyone else…… through squeezing workers, dodging tax, privatizing the state, and spurring climate breakdown
analysis of World Benchmarking Alliance data on more than 1,600 of the largest corporations worldwide shows that 0.4 percent of them are publicly committed to paying workers a living wage and support a living wage in their value chains
But they’re also funneling power, undermining our democracies ... No corporation or individual should have this much power over our economies and our lives
Bernard Arnault is the world’s second richest man who presides over luxury goods empire LVMH ... He also owns France’s biggest media outlet, Les Échos, as well as Le Parisien
at least 228 of America’s biggest (Fortune 500) corporations — representing more than two-thirds of some 300 companies with political action committees — have given $26.3 million to election deniers during the 2021-2024 election cycles... giant corporations that announced they wouldn’t support election deniers but reversed course include FedEx, which has given the deniers $303,000 since January, 2021. Home Depot, $602,500. Johnson & Johnson, $138,000. McDonald’s, $107,000. UPS, $575,000. Verizon, $250,500. Walmart, $297,000. Wells Fargo, $244,500
They say they want to build public trust and avoid political upheaval, but they’re bankrolling election deniers
Note that these numbers show only the donations that corporations are openly disclosing — not funds they’re channeling through trade associations, super PACs, and dark money groups
And the same companies will be giving millions to the “others side” too. As my dearly departed Mother used to say, “playing both ends against the middle”
In this case, the "other side" is the United States of America
Big money has created a deep cynicism about our democracy, which Trump and election-deniers are exploiting to the hilt. Those of us who care about democracy must do more than vanquish Trumpism. We...
烏衣巷在南京秦淮河南岸，原為東吳烏衣營的駐地，故名，後為東晉時高門士族的聚居區，東晉開國元勛王導和指揮淝水之戰的謝安都住在這裏，在刘宋、南齐时期，定居于乌衣巷的琅邪王氏支系因为官位不高，门第被琅邪王氏定居于马粪巷的一支马粪诸王压倒。...
Wealth isn’t a zero-sum game in which the rich get richer only if others become poorer, but political power is zero-sum
Friends, This week brings us to one of the core problems of widening inequality — the inevitability that concentrated income and wealth at the top comes with political power. Wealth isn’t a zero-sum game in which the rich get richer only if others become poorer, but political power
difference between “pre-distribution” and “redistribution” of income and wealth
We now turn to policies where widening inequality is directly implicated. The first and most obvious (and most politically contentious) involves taxing higher-income people and redistributing to lower-income people. My goal today is to get students to reexamine their assumptions, both about how the system of taxing and redistributing actually works (or doesn’t) and about the practical consequences.
Friends, Today I examine the morally and politically complex question of who deserves public assistance. Just click below, and you’re in the class. I reach back into history — to the 14th century, as well as to the last 40 years in America — to see how this question has been answered differently over time. And contrast the dominant view since the Clinton administration with a remarkable experiment America conducted between July and December 2021.
It’s impossible to reform our economic system without altering the allocation of political power that prevents such reform
What we must do
movement... to unite the poor, working and middle class, people of color and white people — everyone who has barely had a raise in 30 years and who now feels cynical, powerless, and disenfranchised
starting in July 2021, 36 million American families began receiving pandemic payments of up to $3,000 per child ($3,600 for each child under six).The result? Child poverty dropped by at least a third, and the typical family gained some breathing space.This hugely successful experiment ended abruptly in December 2021 when Senator Joe Manchin joined 50 Republican senators in rejecting President Biden’s Build Back Better Act, which would have continued it.They cited concerns over the experiment’s cost — an estimated $100 billion per year, or $1.6 trillion over 10 years. But that’s less than big corporations and the rich will have saved on taxes from the Trump Republican tax cut of 2018. Repeal it, and there would be enough money. The cost is also less than the increase in the wealth of America’s 745 billionaires during the pandemic. Why not a wealth tax?The experiment died because, put simply, the oligarchy didn’t want to pay for it
Capitalism is consistent with democracy when democracy is in the driver’s seat — reducing the inequalities, insecurities, joblessness, and poverty that accompany unbridled profit-seeking
human domination and destruction of nature follows from social domination between humans
Murray Bookchin (January 14, 1921 – July 30, 2006[2]) was an American social theorist, author, orator, historian, and political philosopher. A pioneer in the environmental movement,[3] Bookchin formulated and developed the theory of social ecology and urban planning within anarchist, libertarian socialist, and ecological thought. He was the...
Bookchin's vision of an ecological society is based on highly participatory, grassroots politics, in which municipal communities democratically plan and manage their affairs through popular assembly, a program he called Communalism. This democratic deliberation purposefully promotes autonomy and self-reliance, as opposed to centralized state politics. While this program retains elements of anarchism, it emphasizes a higher degree of organization (community planning, voting, and institutions) than general anarchism. In Bookchin's Communalism, these autonomous, municipal communities connect with each other via confederations
The best arena to do that is the municipality—the city, town, and village—where we have an opportunity to create a face-to-face democracy
an ecological social society that maintains a balance between its parts and whose communities can organize their lives independently
Democratic confederalism[1][2] (Kurdish: Konfederalîzma demokratîk), also known as Kurdish communalism or Apoism,[nb 1] is a political concept theorized by Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan about a system of democratic self-organization[4] with the features of a confederation based on the principles of autonomy, direct...
