Rip-Off.

 

          Following on from my previous post on that group of useless prats, those pampered, privileged parasites that live in opulence off the sweat of our labour, I thought this little video would help to make the point. Thanks Loam for the link.

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Insanity.

          If ever there was an incident that showed up the gross inequality and crass stupidity of this economic system, "Blue Origin" must be up there for first prize. For sheer self indulgence at a preposterous cost, and utter waste of the world's resources, Jeff Bezos must claim the crown. His self indulgent trip which he opened to bidders for the few seats available drew bids from 159 countries with well over 7,000 pampered parasites bidding in the millions to get their fantasy fulfilled. Bidding started at $4.8 million, the winning bid was $28 million for a 10 minute journey, with approximately three minutes at zero gravity. Of course in this crazy world such an endeavour sets of a rush of copy cat acts, and that other pampered parasite Richard Branson wants to be in the scene with his billion $ enterprise Virgin Galatica, to set up a little competition to satisfy those idiotic pampered plundering parasites who have millions plundered from the ordinary people, which they wish to throw at living in the fantasy world of the idiots.

 

Photographer: Matthew Staver/Bloomberg

           While this little bunch of plundering parasites indulge themselves in their little fantasies, paid for by wealth stolen from those trapped and woven into their schemes of exploitation, millions die of hunger, millions are homeless, and millions don't have clean water to drink. Even in the so called developed countries, food banks grow, homelessness grows, child poverty grows, health services creak under strain, education systems flounder through lack of funding, social services get shaved. While this little group of pampered plundering parasites squander $28 million on their twisted minds ten minute flight of fancy. No doubt there will other ancillary costs of a few million, but what does that matter when you can milk the people for more when you need a little spare million or two.
          Truly a world of insanity managed by idiot fantasists, and we accept it, are we the insane?

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Plundering.

 

          Look at the numbers under this system and you see the glaring inequality, you realise the magnitude of the plundering by the few of the riches produced by the multitude. Numbers paint a picture, in this case a picture of blatant robbery of the fruits of the labour of the many, the inhumane exploitation of the many. Under no stretch of the imagination can any of this take place in a democracy. This world has yet to experience democracy, and if we persist with the present system of capitalism and its unavoidable greed driven excesses, we never will see democracy, just ever growing inequality and endless wars to increase and defend the power and privileges of the plunderers.  

 

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Thieving Bosses.

       So Jeff Bezos, the world's richest man, steps down from his cushy job of CEO of Amazon. I doubt if he will have any money worries stepping down from his extremely lucrative little number. It could be mere coincidence that he steps down as Amazon is found guilt of stealing more than $61 million from its workers, it seems that the company simple pocketed all those millions of dollars given by the public as tips for the workers. We know that all large corporation exploit their works to varying degrees, but this one surely takes the biscuit. Of course the media are never too hard on large corporations when they are caught blatantly pilfering their workers money, after all they are dependent on, owned by, and are the mouthpiece of, the corporate world, so we expect this usual whitewashing of their corporate bosses.

    However the point that I would like to make is that the company has been fined, well and good, but the decision of what to do with that money as it came in was made by one or more individuals at the top of the tree. They have names, they as individuals should be held to account for what was obvious theft and corruption, when do we see them brought to account? The anonymous company leaves those individuals sitting pretty, and able to carry on their devious deceptive corrupt endeavours. Actions always have names and faces.
       The following is an extract from Mint Press News, describing how the media reported this blatant stealing of workers money,

       Even worse, many more framed the news as a mere allegation, despite the fact that the FTC had made a formal ruling. Forbes, for instance, led with the headline “Amazon Will Pay $61.7 Million Settlement After Allegedly Withholding Tips From Delivery Drivers.” Others (Daily Caller, Daily Mail) did the same. Meanwhile, in a tweet on the news, Vox claimed that (emphasis added) “Amazon will pay $61.7 million in a settlement over allegations that the company used customer tips to subsidize the hourly wages of some delivery drivers.” Thus, the fact that Amazon had been caught stealing was watered down into a claim that it was merely “subsidizing” “some” of its employees’ wages.
     Perhaps the worst offender was business and tech news site ZDNet, whose headline was “Amazon will pay $61.7 million to settle Flex driver tip dispute with FTC,” which obscured the matter into a foggy and very technical sounding financial dispute. Only a very small number of outlets, including Slate and The Huffington Post, echoed the FTC’s decision by using the word “stole” in their headlines. 

Read the full article HERE:

 

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Inequality.

         This world is awash with wealth in all shapes and forms, but it is very thinly spread on the majority of the world's population. By far the largest heap of that wealth, though created by the many, is heaped on the few. It is poured over and accumulated by the few, those who own and manage this brutal system of exploitation. Ever since the inception of capitalism, this has been so, but the efficiency of the system of production and exploitation has raced ahead at an unbelievable speed, creating wealth at an ever growing rate, but the distribution has always gone in favour of those owners and mangers of the system. The discrepancy between those few and the many has reach utterly gross and unacceptable inhumane proportions. Poverty and deprivation sprawls over our cities and towns, doorways become beds, food banks the accepted way of life for millions, and death by starvation for many, many more. Yet, within reach and plain view, we see luxury cars, private jets, grand mansions, lavish yachts and a swaggering coterie who weave the illusion that they are entitled to this life style.
        The chasm between these two groups, the many who create all that wealth, and the few who plunder it, is creating an ever growing anger and the many are starting to openly seek redress and justice. However justice will only come when this entire system of exploitation is torn asunder and replaced by a system of equality and fairness, a sustainable system freed from the cancer that is profit, a system moulded round the needs of all our people, and an end to power and privilege for the few. Though the following article is about U$A, it applies equally across the planet.

The following from Struggle-la-lucha:
 

     Almost 13 million people in the U.S. are “officially” jobless. The real number is far higher. Many haven’t received an unemployment check in weeks. Then there’s Jeff Bezos, who runs Amazon and owns the Washington Post. His stash ballooned by another $72 billion in the last six months.
       Over a million people have died of the coronavirus around the world. More than 210,000 expired in the United States of Trump. But it’s been party time for the super rich. Millions line up at food pantries and worry about being evicted or losing their home. Meanwhile, U.S. billionaires gained another $845 billion in wealth according to the Institute for Policy Studies. 
        This nearly trillion-dollar gain during the pandemic is merely dessert for these parasites. They’ve been having a feast for nearly 50 years. If workers were receiving the same share of the economy as they had in 1975, their wages would have approximately doubled by 2018. The bottom quarter of wage earners would be taking home an average of $61,000 per year instead of $33,000. Those in the middle would be making $92,000 instead of $50,000.
      These figures represent another $2.5 trillion dollars stolen every year from poor and working people by the wealthy and powerful. The study showing this “Grand Theft Payday” was commissioned by Seattle’s Fair Work Center and carried out by the RAND Corporation, a Pentagon think tank. Inequality has become so massive and repulsive that it’s obvious to RAND analysts who usually work for the military-industrial complex.
Big Capital’s counterattack
        This massive transfer of income isn’t the result of sunspots or UFOs. It’s the product of a worldwide class struggle between the rich and the rest of us. The class struggle doesn’t just include workers on strike or future union organizing drives at Amazon or Walmart. Every fightback against oppression is a class struggle.
     The Black Lives Matter movement is a class struggle. So is the struggle of the Filipino people against the U.S.-backed dictatorship of Rodrigo Duterte. Transgender people trying to survive is a class struggle.
       The height of the Black liberation struggle was in the 1960s and early 1970s. The master class was pushed back.
       The Vietnamese people defeated the Pentagon war machine. Africans in Angola, Guinea-Bissau and Mozambique won independence. French workers carried out a general strike in 1968.
       Big Capital staged a counteroffensive. Dozens of Black Panther Party members were murdered by police. New York Gov. Nelson Rockefeller massacred the Attica prisoners. Decades before Iraq was invaded, war criminals Donald Rumsfeld and Dick Cheney were destroying anti-poverty programs for President Richard Nixon.

Read the full article HERE:

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These Hard Times!!!

 

        So times are hard, it's a struggle to pay rent/mortgage, heating and eating. It's a worry seeing to the needs of the kids. You have a crap precarious job and your pittance of a pay fluctuates, you're never sure how much you'll get in the next pay packet. Or you could be shackled to a job seekers allowance, circumstances that will dominate your life until you are sold to some greedy employer. Like I said, these are hard times, well not for everybody, while you strain and struggle to live a half decent life, there is that other class of citizen. The pampered parasite class, the rich and wealthy that live off your sweat and toil, who prosper by your poverty. The grotesque difference in wealth distribution built into this capitalist system has now reached unimaginable proportions. While you try to sort your affairs in £s, there is that other group who shuffle their income in £-billions, a lot of it to tax havens, so that they don't have to contribute to the running of our society. The cornerstone of the capitalist system, exploit the many for the benefit of the few, syphon all the wealth created up to the few at the top, and let the rest struggle and scramble for an existence as best they can.

    Some new figures on that grotesque unequal distribution of wealth that is held up as a measure of success. We live in a system whose motto is "Greed Is Good".

       This from Huffpost:

 Jeff Bezos, president and CEO of Amazon and owner of The Washington Post.

        The world’s richest 500 people increased their collective wealth by 25% in 2019 – a stark reminder of worsening income inequality.
        The 500 wealthiest people held a collective net worth of $5.9t (£4.5t) – an increase of $1.2t (£917b) over 2019 alone, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index. Topping the list of richest people were familiar names: Amazon founder Jeff Bezos, followed by Microsoft founder Bill Gates, French luxury group head Bernard Arnault, Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett and Facebook co-founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg.
         The richest Briton to appear on the list was Jim Ratcliffe, the UK’s richest man and CEO of chemicals company Ineos – ranking at number 52 on the index with a total net worth of $20.8b (£15.9b). He was one of 16 people from the UK to appear on the 500-strong list. A total of 171 people on the list were from the United States.
         A study earlier this year found that the 400 richest people in the US owned more than the 150 million people in the bottom 60% of the country ― and that since the early 1980s, those 400 richest Americans had tripled their wealth.

        There you have it, these are hard times, well only for the many and for as long as we tolerate this crime against humanity that goes under the flag of capitalism. There is an alternative, just think about it.

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