When @wef opens in #Davos , @Oxfam puts out their alternative State of the World rpt. This year's shows that:
• The richest 1% hold 45.6% of global wealth, while the poorest half of the world have just 0.75%.
• 81 Billionaires hold more wealth than 50% of the world.
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OXFAM2/
• 10 billionaires own more than 200 million African women combined.
The richest got WAY richer during the #pandemic -- the top 1% richest got 63% wealthier in 2020-21. We mere mortals got only 10% richer in 2 years, on average.
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OXFAM3/
Food & energy costs are the main drivers of #inflation; companies in those sectors in 2022:
• made $306bn in windfall profits;
• increased profits 256% in 2022 compared w/the 2018–2021 average;
• paid $257bn to stock shareholders in 2022
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OXFAM4/
- 76% of them increased their profit margins
Meanwhile:
- For the first time in 25 years, extreme wealth
& extreme poverty have sharply increased simultaneously.
- Between 702 to 828 million people faced hunger in 2021– almost a tenth of the global population
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OXFAM5/
- high-income economies bounced back in 2021; poorer ones did not
- this was partly due to #COVID19#vaccine inequality; vax rates proved a strong predictor of economic recovery
- 1/5th of developing countries will have a lower per capita GDP in 2023 than in 2019
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OXFAM6/
Despite their enormous gains in personal & corporate wealth over the last two years, taxation of the Super-Rich has declined in most countries. Taxes fall proportionately hardest on lower income consumers, as VAT (value-added tax).
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OXFAM7/
The Cayman Islands doesn't have a deep water port -- ships must anchor at sea, and shuttle in smaller boats.
BUT most of the world's mega-yachts are registered in Caymans.
Why?
Same reason Uber-Rich park their wealth in the sandbar-country's banks: Secrecy.
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OXFAM8/
Concentration of media ownership in the hands of a few Super-Rich poses a challenge to reforms.
- France: 11 billionaires own over 80% of newspapers sold daily, 57% of TV market & 47% of radio
- Mexico: Most media is owned by the country’s richest man, #CarlosSlim
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OXFAM9/
- US: #JeffBezos#MichaelBloomberg#RupertMurdoch & #ElonMusk – have significant control over national news
- India: 72 TV channels reaching over 800 million people are owned by one billionaire, Mukesh Ambani
But, @OXFAM says, if the ultra-rich paid full taxes👇🏽
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As #JoeBiden hunkered down in Delaware & Party leaders scrambled to figure out how #Democrats can win the election, I kept thinking of March 31, 1968. On that day the White House put out word of a mysterious speech LBJ would give from the Oval Office.
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@BeschlossDC
2/ In a world without Internet or 24-hour news cycles the buzz in Washington about the event failed to reach the American people until that night. America assumed LBJ’s address would be about the widening war in Vietnam. On live television, a very haggard-looking LBJ began:
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3/ "Good evening, my fellow Americans:
Tonight, I want to speak to you of peace in Vietnam and Southeast Asia.
No other question so preoccupies our people. No other dream so absorbs the 250 million human beings who live in that part of the world."
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While #Trump claims no direct connection to #Project2025 it's clear han no #Republican in national power has denounced the Heritage Foundation 887-page manifesto. I put a few hours into scrutinizing the Project's plans for @HHSGov & health agencies. (pages 449-502)
🧵unfolds:
2/Health & Human Services @HHSGov must “respect for the sacred rights of conscience” for Federal workers & healthcare workers broadly who object to #Abortions contraception, gender reassignment & other issues.
“Radical actors inside & outside govt are promoting..."
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3/ “...harmful identity politics that replaces biological sex w/subjective notions of 'gender identity' & bases a person’s worth on his or her race, sex, or other identities. This destructive dogma, under the guise of 'equity,' threatens American’s fundamental liberties..."
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When a society attacks its toiling scientists, ranking the opinions of quacks, religions & charlatans above those of scientific insight and discovery, it is a sorrowful time.
Scientists who have been persecuted for their work...
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2/ -Muhammad ibn Zakariyā Rāzī or Rhazes of Baghdad (860 - 932 AD) beaten into blindness for introducing medical advances from non-Arab countries
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-Michael Servetus (1511-1553) made discoveries in blood circulation. Burned at the stake by Calvin in Geneva
-Henry Oldenburg (1619-1677) promoted sharing scientific insights, labelled a spy, held in the Tower of London
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In 4 earth-shattering decisions this term, #SCOTUS gutted authority from all federal regulatory agencies. These are very radical decisions – essentially overturning all the sentiments of our nation’s founders debated in The Federalist Papers.
In this 🧵I'll lay it out.
2/Today, w/Corner Post v Federal Reserve #SCOTUS decided that anybody can sue a fedl agcy, over anything, w/no statute of limitations.
Dissenting, Justice Jackson: “The majority throws caution to the wind & engages in...misguided reasoning about statutory limitations periods..."
MORE supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf…
3/Jackson: "The far-reaching results of the Court’s ruling in this case are staggering.”
“In one fell swoop, the Court has effectively eliminated any limitations period for APA lawsuits....This means that, from this day forward, administrative agencies can be sued in perpetuity over every final decision they make."
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This utterly reprehensible Pentagon disinfo campaign executed by the #Trump admin to create Asian suspicion of the Chinese #COVID #vaccine is reminiscent of the CIA's use of a fake #polio vax effort in Pakistan to obtain...
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...DNA samples from children living in the Osama bin Laden compound in 2011. In both cases, geopolitics trumped public health, leading to countless deaths, assaults on health workers and vaccinators and undermining the credibility of #vaccines . This is appalling.
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In resp to angry public health leaders who later learned of the 2011 #CIA/#polio/binLaden effort, the #Obama admin on May16, 2014 stated that since Aug2013 a policy was in place forbidding the CIA from using #vaccination progs, workers, or genetic materials obtained...for intell.
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Trump’s deal to Big Oil [give my campaign $1B & all #Biden climate & green policies will be void] echoes the Teapot Dome Scandal in another #Republican #POTUS race 100 yrs ago. Until now, it was the biggest presidential corruption case in US history.
MORE history.com/topics/roaring…
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In 1920, the US Navy was converting its fleet from coal to oil and wanted oil on federal lands reserved for military needs. Republican Warren Harding was running for POTUS: he told oil execs to back him & he would let them drill those reserves. When he became President...
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Harding appointed mining bigwig & Big Oil ally Alfred Fall as Sec. of Interior. Fall handed over prime oil drilling rights to Sinclair's Mammoth Oil & 1 other company, without competitive bidding. By 1923 Sinclair was sucking so much oil out of Teapot Dome WY that...
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