A major problem with letting billionaires decide how your country is run is that they will back whichever psycho promises the lowest taxes and least regulation, no matter how completely batshit and unfit that person is:
hamiltonnolan.com/p/nations-ar…
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this thread to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
pluralistic.net/2025/06/23/bil…
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Nations Are People
Do you deserve to die for your own bad government?Hamilton Nolan (How Things Work)
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Wohnungsverband erwartet Einbruch im Neubau
Schlechte Nachrichten von der Baufront: Der wichtige Verband GdW rechnet mit einem weiter angespannten Markt.
boersen-zeitung.de/unternehmen…
Why do 2 x 0.25 l in the MCI cost less than 1 x 0.5 l?
Not only with cola, also iced tea etc.BYTESEU (Bytes Europe)
Le Chuwi MiniBook X 2025 a, sur le papier, tout pour plaire. Compact et efficace, il embarque tout ce qu'il faut pour travailler en mobilité..
minimachines.net/?p=132162 #ces2025 #chuwi
Chuwi MiniBook X 2025 : le netbook 10.51" Intel N150 à 303€ !
Le Chuwi MiniBook X 2025 a sur le papier tout pour plaire. Compact et efficace, il embarque tout ce qu'il faut pour travailler en mobilité.Pierre Lecourt (Minimachines.net)
Last week I mentioned that I had some ladybird news, so here it is! The tree I planted last year is doing amazingly and to my utter delight, I discovered that the ladybirds are also really into it. Like... REALLY into it.
(there's ladybirds having sex all over this tree, is what I'm saying)
I didn't take a picture of the mating ladybirds for their own privacy but here is a single ladybird just hanging out on the fronds, hopefully thinking of laying eggs. I am going to be so happy if we get dozens of baby ladybirds in a month or so 🥰
Microsoft adds Steam games to its Xbox PC app on Windows
Microsoft adds Steam games to its Xbox PC app on Windows
Microsoft is started to test its new aggregated gaming library on PC. It lists Xbox, Battle.net, m and other PC storefront games within the Xbox PC app.Tom Warren (The Verge)
koeln.adfc.de/pressemitteilung…
actionnetwork.org/letters/dema…
US citizens: call on RFK jr and his subordinates to un-cancel the vaccine research for HIV and bird flu, which they recently canceled.
"Il cortocircuito tra ciò che sappiamo essere violento e inquinante e il condono della sua esistenza è la legittimazione industriale: la produzione non si ferma davanti a nulla."
#Arborio #AllevamentiIntensivi #Capitalismo #23giugno
lifegate.it/arborio-allevament…
Perché continuano ad aprire maxiallevamenti, come quello di ovaiole ad Arborio
Ad Arborio sta per aprire un nuovo allevamento di galline ovaiole. A pagarne le conseguenze gli animali, l'ambiente e le persone del luogo.Valeria Berzero (LifeGate)
Die #Raser-Info-Presse lebt ihr #Carbrain wieder aus und verdichtet ihre an #Autoidioten gerichtete Berichterstattung aufs Wesentliche:
"Achtung, Kontrolle!
Die Bielefelder Polizei benennt die Top 11-Unfallschwerpunkte der Stadt."
Süffisant ergänzt der Benzinschnüffler von der Redaktion:
"Vor allem der Schutz von Fußgängern und Radlern steht auf der Agenda."
Ja, klar. Bei der Polizei. Nicht bei dir, du "Achtung, Kontrolle"-Fritze.
nw.de/lokal/bielefeld/mitte/24… €
Bielefelder Polizei benennt die Top 11-Unfallschwerpunkte der Stadt
Die Polizei nimmt elf auffällige Kreuzungen besonders mit Kontrollen in den Fokus. Vor allem der Schutz von Fußgängern und Radlern steht auf der Agenda.Jens Reichenbach (Neue Westfälische)
JLab’s new party speaker puts a light show in your pocket
Even the compact $20 option in JLab’s new party speaker lineup has customizable RGB lighting.
JLab’s new party speaker puts a light show in your pocket
JLab has launched four new water resistant party speakers with RGB lighting that syncs to your music.Andrew Liszewski (The Verge)
Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Billionaires have farcical, almost unimaginable resources. These let them take over whole political parties, even "left" parties, with the result that all real electoral options disappear. Voting for the other party gets you a different set of aesthetics, but the same existential threats to the human race and the planet:
theguardian.com/world/2025/jun…
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Keir Starmer backs US strike on Iran but warns of wider ‘escalation’ risk
Jessica Elgot (The Guardian)Mastodon Migration reshared this.
Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
After generations of increasingly oligarch-friendly policies and billionaire entryism into the Democratic Party, America may well be cooked, a total write-off for generations to come. The path to saving the world and our species arguably lies through strengthening other countries to resist American psychos and protect the planet from the consequences of their brainwormed leadership.
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Writing for *Jacobin*, Alex Hemingway sets out a plan for imposing a wealth-tax on Canada's oligarchs, one that incorporates lessons from previous attempts at such a tax:
jacobin.com/2025/06/wealth-tax…
Even on the left, the idea of a wealth-tax is controversial - not because leftists are sympathetic to billionaires, but because they are skeptical that a wealth tax can be carried out. It's a practical, not an ideological objection:
pileusmmt.libsyn.com/196-the-p…
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Designing a Wealth Tax for Today’s Robber Barons
jacobin.comCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
After all, under capitalism, wealth always grows faster than the economy at large, meaning that over time, the rich will get steadily richer, and inequality will widen and widen:
memex.craphound.com/2014/06/24…
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Thomas Piketty’s Capital in the 21st Century – Cory Doctorow's MEMEX
memex.craphound.comCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Ideally, we would counter the trend of wealth piling up into dynastic fortunes with continuous redistribution and predistribution: taxing capital gains at the same rate (or a higher rate) than income, so that income from labor isn't treated worse than income from ownership; steeply graded progressive taxes, with top rates in of 70-99%, high inheritance taxes, and so on.
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
So here we are, trapped in the new oligarchy. It's too late to rely on income taxes, not if we're going to euthanize enough rentiers to free out politics from their toxic influence and save the human race any of several foreseeable mass-extinction events. Making the ultra-rich poor again is going to require new tactics.
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
In Canada, the 1% owns 29% of the country's wealth. The 87 richest families in Canada control as much wealth as the bottom 12 million Canadians combined. This is better than the US (where the 1% own 35% of the country), but not by much:
policyalternatives.ca/wp-conte…
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Can we make a wealth tax work? Here's Hemingway's program for making it work in Canada:
* Make it apply to all wealth equally. No carve-outs for real-estate, which makes it very easy to shift wealth among asset-classes to duck the tax;
* Aim it at the super-rich alone. Avoid even the upper middle-class, who lack the liquid assets to pay the tax and could get wrecked if they have to liquidate their holdings at the same time as everyone else, which will depress asset prices;
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
* Use third-party assessments of asset values. Don't take billionaires' word for how much their assets are worth! Canada's got an advantage here, thanks to the Canada Revenue Agency's requirement for financial institutions to report their account holders' income, including capital gains. Canada's also recently created "beneficial owner" registries that record the true owners of assets;
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
* Use lifestyle audits: anyone caught engaging in tax-evasion will face severe penalties, as will the enablers at financial services firms that help them
One frequent objection to high taxes is that it encourages capital flight - rich people hopping to another territory to avoid taxation. That's a reasonable fear, given how pants-wettingly terrified the rich are of paying tax.
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Hemingway points out that a wealth tax is different from an income tax - income taxes are levied on the outcome of productive activities, while wealth taxes target accumulated wealth. High income taxes can starve a country of the capital it needs for a productive economy, but that's not the case with wealth taxes.
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Hemingway points to the OECD's Common Reporting Standard, through which more than 100 countries have agreed to share financial information, which will help Canada catch billionaires as they funnel their wealth offshore. Meanwhile, if the rich try to move *with* their money, we can hit them with an exit tax, like the 40% that Elizabeth Warren has proposed.
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
It's an article of faith that the rich will move offshore at the first hint of a wealth tax, but the research shows that rich people often have reasons to stay that trump their taxophobia. The economic effect of rich people Going Galt is pretty darned small:
warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/economic…
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
The modern prophet of oligarchy and its origins is the French economist Thomas Piketty. In a recent *Le Monde* column, Piketty examines the failure of a French wealth tax proposal that would have shaved a modest 2% off the fortunes of the 1,800 French people with more than €100 million:
lemonde.fr/blog/piketty/2025/0…
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Ultra-wealthy, the Senate beside the story
Le blog de Thomas PikettyCory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
The proposal passed the National Assembly, only to die in the Senate, an institution with a long history of pro-oligarchic activism (the Senate killed *every* French income tax passed by the Assembly from 1896-1914). The Assembly's wealth tax addressed the problem of tax exiles, levying the wealth tax for 5 years after an oligarch relocated.
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
For Piketty, this didn't go far enough: he wants a pro-rated tax based on the years an oligarch spent in France in their lifetime: if you were educated and cared for at French expense from birth and went on to become a billionaire, then a modest share of your wealth would forever be owed to the country that made it possible. Piketty says that a wealth tax could be paid in shares instead of cash, with the stock going into a trust for workers, who would get board seats as well.
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
He points out that decarbonization is going to require large sacrifices from all of us, but that these will be impossible to demand with a straight face so long as the super-rich are paying taxes that are trivial relative to their assets and income.
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Cory Doctorow
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
I'm at the end of my 24-city book tour for my new novel *Picks and Shovels*!
Catch me in #LONDON with RILEY QUINN from #TRASHFUTURE on July 1:
howtoacademy.com/events/cory-d…
And in #MANCHESTER at Blackwell's Bookshop on July 2:
eventbrite.co.uk/e/an-evening-…
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Cory Doctorow – The Fight Against the Big Tech Oligarchy | How To Academy
How To AcademyQole
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Aaron
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
Aaron
in reply to Aaron • • •Aaron
in reply to Aaron • • •Aaron
in reply to Aaron • • •Cory Doctorow
in reply to Aaron • • •@hosford42 Sure. I like co-ops. I've been serving on co-op boards since I was 17, and I'm keynoting the UK co-op conference in Manchester in July (I also keynoted the international year of the co-op UN launch in Delhi last year).
But also: capitalism exists. Doing nothing about improving the conduct of firms until they go co-op requires that we accept untold - perhaps existential - harms to billions and possible the end of humanity.
Aaron
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Cory Doctorow
in reply to Aaron • • •@hosford42 sure, sounds gpkhg0h0jood.
But also we need to discipline existing firms with regulation, competition, and strong labor.
Aaron
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Winter Trabex
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •GhostOnTheHalfShell
Unknown parent • • •We have to talk about ending billionaire as a social economic strata. Their wealth has to be dismantled and brought back to earth, or they will kill us quite literally.
Antitrust is largely dead, but the fundamental fact remains corporations, build billionaires in corporations are built a top revenue they draw from us from our pennies.
We still have power at the community level to push the operation of these corporations out to shut them down and push them out.
GhostOnTheHalfShell
Unknown parent • • •Of all the difficulties of a wealth taxes, chief amongst them is their ability to hide their wealth from tax audit. (See Blair Fix on Canadian wealth networks). So chiefly, they can avoid taxation. Even with all these difficulties, taxing wealth works to bring in revenue for state golfers, which does finance the operations of state and local governments.
But net worth is the disease. Net worth is driving poverty.
It simply is not sufficient to talk about taxes…
Robin Barton
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Cory Doctorow reshared this.
SpaceLifeForm
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •normy foxyoreos
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •Sensitive content
normy foxyoreos
in reply to normy foxyoreos • • •Sensitive content
"If you take this marshmallow, it will hurt everyone, *including you* for the rest of your life. You understand? But since you already have so many marshmallows, surely you can wait and -"
Billionares: (already eating the marshmallow) "Sorry, I wasn't listening. Give me another marshmallow or I'll burn down this entire fucking building and everyone inside of it."
paul
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •"Some of y'all forget the reason we have food safety regulations is because companies used to do things like adding chalk to spoiled milk so it looked normal.
Regulations don't exist because governments enjoy them. They exist because pure unadulterated capitalism would kill us."
cr: @EpiEllie
We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both.
Louis D. Brandeis
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Quasit
in reply to paul • • •@amiserabilist
Here's a short story by Lord Dunsany, written in 1915, about the food of the day. It's pertinent.
THE FOOD OF DEATH
Death was sick. But they brought him bread that the modern bakers make, whitened with alum, and the tinned meats of Chicago, with a pinch of our modern substitute for salt. They carried him into the dining-room of a great hotel (in that close atmosphere Death breathed more freely), and there they gave him their cheap Indian tea. They brought him a bottle of wine that they called champagne. Death drank it up. They brought a newspaper and looked up the patent medicines; they gave him the foods that it recommended for invalids, and a little medicine as prescribed in the paper. They gave him some milk and borax, such as children drink in England.
Death arose ravening, strong, and strode again through the cities.
Dźwiedziu
in reply to Cory Doctorow • • •That's some modest, thought out proposals.
…that die in a [French] senate.
In the meantime a clock is ticking.
As someone on the stupidest places on the Internet* has nicely put it (from memory): tax is an insurance; an insurance against a revolution.
* Quora this time
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WallOffTrump
Unknown parent • • •I have been waiting for a Trump era espionage novel. Just read A Spy Alone by former MI6, Charles Beaumont. Nice ripping yarn but also the best yet analysis of the current coup of globalized oligarchs and propagandists against "the masses" and citizens of every nation. It ain't east vs west; it's 1% against 99%.