Food and energy companies more than doubled their profits in 2022, paying out $257 BILLION to already wealthy shareholders at a time when globally, more than 800 million people were going hungry.
Only 4 cents in every dollar of tax revenue came from wealth taxes, & around half the world’s 2,700 or so billionaires live in countries with no inheritance tax on money they give to their children. The UK has around 170 billionaires, many of whom have non dom status. #TaxTheRich
A tax of just 5% on the world’s multimillionaires & billionaires could raise $1.7 TRILLION (an almost unimaginable amount) a year - enough to lift TWO BILLION people out of poverty, & fund a global plan to end hunger.
Not all rich people are greedy selfish bastards, but what do those who ARE greedy & self-interested multimillionaires & billionaires - along with the governments (like the UK's) they fund & who represent their interests - do to protect themselves from democracy & the 99%?
The level of net wealth that marks the threshold for entering the top 1% varies widely among different countries & territories eg to be in the top 1% of earners in the US, you need to bring in $600K/yr, & in terms of net worth, have around $11million (in the UK about £2million).
"For the past 13 years people have been obliged to live their lives at the mercy of this irrational force called the market. But we know to our cost that this approach has failed. The market must serve our needs, not we the needs of the market" - John Smith, 1992. #EnoughlsEnough
Govts "have power... to bring about change, to improve the lives of the people whose trust they carry. That is why it is so unacceptable, so unbearable to see the injustice in our country, the waste of human talent, the lack of hope, loss of pride, because it is not inevitable."
"This Conservative government has an idea about people that I must say I find totally objectionable. Fundamentally, they believe people are driven, purely by greed and self-interest. They believe all of us are motivated by a desire to accumulate wealth with no regard for others."
Sunak will today propose broadening the definition of “serious disruption” even further, in a draconian new public order bill to help police stop what he calls a “disruptive minority” from using tactics such as blocking roads & slow marching.
Sunak's proposals to help the police stop disruptive public protest, means heading even further down a route that has drawn heavy criticism from civil rights groups. The UK Govt now more closely resembles an illiberal authoritarian state than a functioning modern democracy.
Sunak - mistakenly imho - believes the public & business will support the government’s efforts to stop protesters causing serious disruption following a series of high-profile protests by groups such as #JustStopOil and #InsulateBritain.
Rees-Mogg accuses Jews of being illuminati. Braverman tells Holocaust survivor she won't apologise for labelling asylum seekers 'invaders'. Johnson book says Jews control media. Tories use antisemitic conspiracy theory of Cultural Marxism. Bridgen compares vaccines to Holocaust.
Despite sections of the UK press accusing Jeremy Corbyn's @UKLabour of being 'antisemitic' every week, in 2019 the national news media chose to largely ignored Jacob Rees-Mogg directing an unequivocally antisemitic trope at fellow parliamentarians.
A Holocaust survivor with an MBE for her work on Holocaust education, told Braverman her dangerous rhetoric was similar to that used to justify murdering her family under the Third Reich. Braverman refused to apologise, & doubled down.
*as used by right-wing politicians & pundits, #TuftonStreet 'think-tanks', the right-wing press & right-wing 'influencers', Spiked, the Spectator, Times Radio, talkRADIO, & Britain's Fox News, GB News.
This creative, divisive, & profoundly misleading use of language by free-market elites, & the hard-right & far-right, has evolved gradually over the last forty years, emerging hand-in-hand with underregulated free-market capitalism, the #climatecrisis, & the #CostOfLivingCrisis.
The manufactured "war on woke" is a distraction, designed to divide voters.
Under cover of COVID, wealth has been transferred from poor to rich on an unprecedented & unimaginable scale, eroding democracy & resulting in hardship, conflict, mass death, & environmental collapse.
The barbaric #Rwanda Plan is reminiscent of the Nazis' heinous Madagascar Plan. Braverman's dangerous "invasion" rhetoric is profoundly un-British English nationalism, & her use of the antisemitic 'Cultural Marxism' conspiracy theory, which inspired Anders Breivik, is grotesque.
No doubt there are in Britain & across Europe & America thousands of far-right racists who use *exactly the same rhetoric* as Suella Braverman & Priti Patel to demonise THEM as 'outsiders', who are 'invading' Britain, & 'replacing ingenious pure bloods'.
Last year, the @GoodLawProject launched a legal campaign to uncover the insidious network of 'think-tanks' & lobby groups based around #55TuftonStreet.
These shadowy organisations have a disproportionate & harmful influence over UK politics.
The @GoodLawProject set out to expose who’s behind them & who’s funding them.
They've recently been looking into @RestoreTrustNT, who unsuccessfully tried to infiltrate the @nationaltrust & want to shut down debate on issues like slavery & LGBTQ+ rights.
In 2021, 'Restore Trust' had 6,100 current & former @nationaltrust members - just 0.1% of its membership - & endorsed Stephen Green, leader of anti-homosexuality Christian fundamentalist lobby group, Christian Voice, which has claimed abortion is comparable to the #Holocaust.