this post was submitted on 30 Sep 2023
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Lefty Memes
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An international (English speaking) socialist Lemmy community free of the "ML" influence of instances like lemmy.ml and lemmygrad. This is a place for undogmatic shitposting and memes from a progressive, anti-capitalist and truly anti-imperialist perspective, regardless of specific ideology.
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That refers to funny image macros and means that generally videos and screenshots are not allowed. Exceptions include explicitly humorous and short videos, as well as (social media) screenshots depicting a funny situation, joke, or joke picture relating to socialist movements, theory, societal issues, or political opponents. Examples would be the classic case of humorous Tumblr or Twitter posts/threads. (and no, agitprop text does not count as a meme)
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I couldn't imagine spending $1 billion in my entire life, let alone 3-4.
The difference between someone with $1000 and a million dollars is the same between a millionaire and billionaire.
A million seconds is about 12 days. A billion seconds is about 32 years.
The proportional difference is the same, i.e. the same number of orders of magnitude separate them, but in absolute terms, someone with $10B is closer in wealth to your or I than to Bezos (which, to be clear, does not mean we shouldn't take it, merely that the height Bezos is at is unfathomable)
and these people are even 100× richer than other billionaires
Most of their billions is ownership in companies they grew into what they are today. It's not like they have billions to spend, it's that their ownership is worth billions according to the market.
They could go to any bank and leverage that asset for a loan for more than everyone who posts on this platform will make in their lifetimes no problem. That is a nonsense talking point
True, but that ownership gives them access to very low interest loans that they then use as spending money and don't have to pay taxes on it
https://www.businessinsider.com/american-billionaires-tax-avoidance-income-wealth-borrow-money-propublica-2021-6
While that may be technically true, is running defense for these people who would happily see you and everone you care about die if it would make them another buck really something you want to be doing?
also assets count as wealth if you tried to explain to king Solomon that he wasn't actually rich because his money was tied up in land and cattle he would call you and idiot and explain that land and cattle are his wealth
yes this is true but they have so much money available to spend that it makes amounts practically meaningless