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otthonzulles · 1 year
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theculturedmarxist · 1 year
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In photos of 2023’s World Economic Forum- or Davos as it is commonly called, after the Swiss resort town where it annually occurs- you might not notice the HEPA filters. They’re in the background, unobtrusive and unremarked upon, quietly cleansing the air of viruses and bacteria. You wouldn’t know- not unless you asked- that every attendee was PCR tested before entering the forum, or that in the case of a positive test, access was automatically, electronically, revoked. And if you happened to get a glimpse of the strange blue lights overhead, you could reasonably assume that their glow was simply a modern aesthetic choice, not the calming buzz of cutting edge Far UVC technology- demonstrated to kill microbes in the air.
It’s hard to square this information with the public narrative about COVID, isn’t it? President Biden has called the pandemic “over”. The New York Times recently claimed that “the risk of Covid is similar to that of the flu” in an article about “hold outs” that are annoyingly refusing to accept continual reinfection as their “new normal”. Yet, this week the richest people in the world are taking common sense, easy- but strict- precautions to ensure they don’t catch Covid-19 at Davos.
These common sense, easy precautions include high-quality ventiliation, use of Far UVC-lighting technology, and PCR testing. You’ll also see some masks at Davos, but generally, the testing + air filtration protocol seems to be effective at preventing the kind of super-spreader events most of us are now accustomed to attending.
It seems unlikely to me that a New York Times reporter will follow the super-rich around like David Attenborough on safari, the way one of their employees did when they profiled middle-class maskers last month. I doubt they will write “family members and friends can get a little exasperated by the hyper-concern” about the assembled Prime Ministers, Presidents and CEOs in Switzerland. After all, these are important people. The kind of people who merit high-quality ventilation. The kind of people who deserve accurate tests.
Why is the media so hellbent on portraying simple, scientifically proven measures like high-quality ventilation as ridiculous and unnecessary as hundreds of people continue to die daily here in the US?
Why is the public accepting a “new normal” where we are expected to get infected over and over and over again, at work events with zero precautions, on airplanes with no masks, and at social dinners trying to approximate our 2019 normal?
We deserve better. We deserve to be #DavosSafe as the hashtag going around on twitter puts it. Your children deserve to be treated with the care that world leaders are treating each other. Your family deserves to be protected from the disease which is still- unlike the flu- the third leading cause of death in the US. We don’t deserve to be shoved back into poorly ventilated workplaces while our politicians and press assure us that only crazy people would demand to breathe clean air.
Clean water and clean food are rights we fought for; we have regulatory bodies that ensure we aren’t exposed to pathogens via our water supply nor our food. In 1854, John Snow famously conducted his Broad Street Pump study in London and demonstrated that cholera was water-bourne; however, it took decades for our public policy to catch up with our scientific knowledge.
A public health case study published by the NBCI describes the years that followed:
The first use of chlorine as a disinfectant for water facilities was in 1897 in England. The first use of this method for municipal water facilities in the United States was in Jersey City, New Jersey, and Chicago, Illinois, in 1915. Other cities followed and the use of chlorination as standard treatment for water disinfection rapidly grew. During the 20th century, death rates from waterborne diseases decreased significantly, and although other additional factors contributed to the general improvements in health (such as sanitation, improved quality of life, and nutrition), the improvement of water quality was, without doubt, a major reason.
Forty-three years passed from the initial demonstration that pathogens were being spread via water, and public action and regulation to halt disease.
Can you imagine, in the 1890s, being somebody who argued against cleaning the water?
Can you imagine, in those years of plentiful cholera, calling the people who demanded shit-free water “hold outs”?
One thing COVID realists are accused of is being “doomsayers” and “fearmongers,” so let me share a dose of optimism about the future with you. When we choose- whenever we choose- to get COVID under control, there’s an exciting new world awaiting us. One, not only without constant COVID reinfection, but where our kids can grow up free of colds, flus, RSV, and many other common bugs. And no, contrary to what you may have heard, staying healthy (shockingly enough) is not bad for children!
Once we choose to institute ventilation standards and introduce new technologies like Far UVC lighting- and embrace masking as an easy, kind, and useful tool to control outbreaks- we can bring every nasty airborne pathogen under control the way we did cholera. We didn’t have the science before; now we do. (I mean that quite literally; I can’t recommend enough the linked Wired article cataloguing the long journey to establishing that Covid is, indeed, airborne).
We face a stark choice; down one road, the one with zero infrastructure upgrades, no air quality regulations, and Covid safety only for those who can afford it, you and your family will get Covid this year. You will get Covid next year. You will continue to get Covid over and over and over again, as the health problems - like cardiac damage, viral persistance, and immune system dysfunction- continue to build up. (The billionaires, of course, will not).
Down the other road, we quite simply treat ourselves the way Davos would. We engage with what the science is telling us and we build a safer, better world for our kids. We embrace the lessons this pandemic is teaching us, and let go of things we now know are harming people. We stop clinging desperately to the idea that 2019 will come back if we just get the virus one more time, and we come together to achieve what we’ve been told is impossible: elimination.
The economic elite thrive on our divisiveness and blame casting. They don’t mind that we’re calling each other names, engaging in racial stereotyping, or leaving disabled people to die, so long as we keep their machine running. But we can choose to stop throwing blame at each other, and direct it where it belongs: at the powerful people who’ve left us to suffer, at the politicians who are whipping people into a frenzy over masks instead of over our millions of dead, at the talking heads on TV that work so hard to convince us: you want to get sick. It’s better than being a *weirdo* or a *hold out*.
We needn’t wait 43 years to redirect our energies. France and Belgium have already introduced new air quality standards, and DIY projects to build Corsi-Rosenthal boxes for schools and healthcare settings have popped up around the country. We have the science, we have the technology. All we need now is the political will and the solidarity to truly end the pandemic- the kind of solidarity the super rich always show with one another.
The billionaires at Davos don’t accept continual Covid reinfection. They demand better. It’s time we demand better too.
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odinsblog · 3 months
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More than 250 billionaires and millionaires are demanding that the political elite meeting for the World Economic Forum in Davos introduce wealth taxes to help pay for better public services around the world.
“Our request is simple: we ask you to tax us, the very richest in society,” the wealthy people said in an open letter to world leaders. “This will not fundamentally alter our standard of living, nor deprive our children, nor harm our nations’ economic growth. But it will turn extreme and unproductive private wealth into an investment for our common democratic future.”
The rich signatories from 17 countries include Disney heir Abigail Disney; Brian Cox who played fictional billionaire Logan Roy in Succession; actor and screenwriter Simon Pegg; and Valerie Rockefeller, an heir to the US dynasty.
“We are also the people who benefit most from the status quo,” they said in a letter titled Proud to Pay, which they will attempt to deliver to world leaders gathered in Davos in Switzerland on Wednesday. “But inequality has reached a tipping point, and its cost to our economic, societal and ecological stability risk is severe – and growing every day. In short, we need action now.”
(continue reading)
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The super-rich got that way through monopolies
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Catch me in Miami! I'll be at Books and Books in Coral Gables on Jan 22 at 8PM.
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Just in time for Davos, here's 'Taken, not earned: How monopolists drive the world’s power and wealth divide," a report from a coalition of international tax justice and anti-corporate activist groups:
https://www.balancedeconomy.net/wp-content/uploads/2024/01/Davos-Taken-not-Earned-full-Report-2024-FINAL.pdf
The rise of monopolies over the past 40 years came about as the result of specific, deliberate policy choices. As the report documents, the wealthiest people in America funneled a fortune into neutering antitrust enforcement, through the "consumer welfare" doctrine.
This is an economic theory that equates monopolies with efficiency: "If everyone is buying the same things from the same store, that tells you the store is doing something right, not something criminal." 40 years ago, and ever since, the wealthy have funded think-tanks, university programs and even "continuing education" programs for federal judges to push this line:
https://pluralistic.net/2021/08/13/post-bork-era/#manne-down
They didn't do this for ideological reasons – they were chasing material goals. Monopolies produce vast profits, and those profits produce vast wealth. The rise and rise of the super rich cannot be decoupled from the rise and rise of monopolies.
If you're new to this, you might think that "monopoly" only refers to a sector in which there is only one seller. But that's not what economists mean when they talk about monopolies and monopolization: for them, a monopoly is a company with power. Economists who talk about monopolies mean companies that "can act independently without needing to consider the responses of competitors, customers, workers, or even governments."
One way to measure that power is through markups ("the difference between the selling price of goods or services and their cost"). Very large companies in concentrated industries have very high markups, and they're getting higher. From 2017-22, the 20 largest companies in the world had average markups of 50%. The 100 largest companies average 43%. The smallest half of companies get average markups of 25%.
Those markups rose steeply during the covid lockdowns – and so did the wealth of the billionaires who own them. Tech billionaires – Bezos, Brin and Page, Gates and Ballmer – all made their fortunes from monopolies. Warren Buffet is a proud monopolist who says "the single most important decision in evaluating a business is pricing power… if you have to have a prayer session before raising the price by 10 percent, then you’ve got a terrible business."
We are living in the age of the monopoly. In the 1930s, the top 0.1% of US companies accounted for less than half of America's GDP. Today, it's 90%. And it's accelerating, with global mergers climbing from 2,676 in 1985 to 62,000 in 2021.
Monopoly's cheerleaders claim that these numbers vindicate them. Monopolies are so efficient that everyone wants to create them. Those efficiencies can be seen in the markups monopolies can charge, and the profits they can make. If a monopoly has a 50% markup, that's just the "efficiency of scale."
But what is the actual shape of this "efficiency?" How is it manifest? The report's authors answer this with one word: power.
Monopolists have the power "to extract wealth from, to restrict the freedoms of, and to manipulate or steer the vastly larger numbers of losers." They establish themselves as gatekeepers and create chokepoints that they can use to raise prices paid by their customers and lower the payout to their suppliers:
https://chokepointcapitalism.com/
These chokepoints let monopolies usurp "one of the ultimate prerogatives of state power: taxation." Amazon sellers pay a 51% tax to sell on the platform. App Store suppliers pay a 30% tax on every dollar they make with their apps. That translates into higher costs. Consider a good that costs $10 to make: the bottom 50% of companies (by size) would charge $12.50 for that product on average. The largest companies would charge $15. Thus monopolies don't just make their owners richer – they make everyone else poorer, too.
This power to set prices is behind the greedflation (or, more politely, "seller's inflation"). The CEOs of the largest companies in the world keep getting on investor calls and bragging about this:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/03/11/price-over-volume/#pepsi-pricing-power
The food system is incredibly monopolistic. The Cargill family own the largest commodity trader in the world, which is how they built up a family fortune worth $43b. Cargill is one of the "ABCD" companies ("Archer Daniels Midland, Bunge, Cargill and Louis Dreyfus") that control the world's food supply, and they tripled their profits during the lockdown.
Monopolies gouge everyone – even governments. Pfizer charged the NHS £18-22/shot for vaccines that cost £5/shot to make. They took the British government for £2bn – that's enough to pay last year's pay hike for NHS nurses, six times over,
But monopolies also abuse their suppliers, especially their employees. All over the world, competition authorities are uncovering "wage fixing" and "no poaching" agreements among large firms, who collude to put a cap on what workers in their sector can earn. Unions report workers having their pay determined by algorithms. Bosses lock employees in with noncompetes and huge repayment bills for "training":
https://pluralistic.net/2022/08/04/its-a-trap/#a-little-on-the-nose
Monopolies corrupt our governments. Companies with huge markups can spend some of that money on lobbying. The 20 largest companies in the world spend more than €155m/year lobbying in the US and alone, not counting the money they spend on industry associations and other cutouts that lobby on their behalf. Big Tech leads the pack on lobbying, accounting for 82% of EU lobbying spending and 58% of US lobbying.
One key monopoly lobbying priority is blocking climate action, from Apple lobbying against right-to-repair, which creates vast mountains of e-waste, to energy monopolist lobbying against renewables. And energy companies are getting more monopolistic, with Exxonmobil spending $65b to buy Pioneer and Chevron spending $60b to buy Hess. Many of the world's richest people are fossil fuel monopolists, like Charles and Julia Koch, the 18th and 19th richest people on the Forbes list. They spend fortunes on climate denial.
When people talk about the climate impact of billionaires, they tend to focus on the carbon footprints of their mansions and private jets, but the true environmental cost of the ultra rich comes from the anti-renewables, pro-emissions lobbying they buy with their monopoly winnings.
The good news is that the tide is turning on monopolies. A coalition of "businesses, workers, farmers, consumers and other civil society groups" have created a "remarkably successful anti-monopoly movement." The past three years saw more regulatory action on corporate mergers, price-gouging, predatory pricing, labor abuses and other evils of monopoly than we got in the past 40 years.
The business press – cheerleaders for monopoly – keep running editorials claiming that enforcers like Lina Khan are getting nothing done. Sure, WSJ, Khan's getting nothing done – that's why you ran 80 editorial about her:
https://pluralistic.net/2023/07/14/making-good-trouble/#the-peoples-champion
(Khan's winning like crazy. Just last month she killed four megamergers:)
https://www.thesling.org/the-ftc-just-blocked-four-mergers-in-a-month-heres-how-its-latest-win-fits-into-the-broader-campaign-to-revive-antitrust/
The EU and UK are taking actions that would have been unimaginable just a few years ago. Canada is finally set to get a real competition law, with the Trudeau government promising to add an "abuse of dominance" rule to Canada's antitrust system.
Even more exciting are the moves in the global south. In South Africa, "competition law contains some of the most progressive ideas of all":
It actively seeks to create greater economic participation, particularly for ‘historically disadvantaged persons’ as part of its public interest considerations in merger decisions.
Balzac wrote, "Behind every great fortune there is a crime." Chances are, the rapsheet includes an antitrust violation. Getting rid of monopolies won't get rid of all the billionaires, but it'll certainly get rid of a hell of a lot of them.
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I'm Kickstarting the audiobook for The Bezzle, the sequel to Red Team Blues, narrated by @wilwheaton! You can pre-order the audiobook and ebook, DRM free, as well as the hardcover, signed or unsigned. There's also bundles with Red Team Blues in ebook, audio or paperback.
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If you'd like an essay-formatted version of this post to read or share, here's a link to it on pluralistic.net, my surveillance-free, ad-free, tracker-free blog:
https://pluralistic.net/2024/01/17/monopolies-produce-billionaires/#inequality-corruption-climate-poverty-sweatshops
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ireton · 1 year
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What did he just say ?
This is my message to the globalists at the house of Davos & Company “The Great Reset”: “You look upon the world through your ideological worldview. You don’t see people, you see return on investment. You impose your ideological worldview on society, which has destroyed peoples livelihood, and in return for their compliance you offer a promise of “freedom and protection” (as if people have a choice) and punish those who do not comply, be it by inventing a crisis, a war, a pandemic… But fear not, for the media have your back and will advocate your message, be it by censorship or criminalising anyone who disagrees with your narrative. I get it, you have this ideological worldview because you were born without a conscience and a soul. You’re an “echo chamber” like your predecessors. You’re so far removed from nature you need artificial intelligence to experience life.”
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dadsinsuits · 3 months
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Dino Patti Djalal
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victorysp · 3 months
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Queen Máxima today had a meeting with argentinian president Javier Milei during the World Economic Forum in Davos.
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They have to deploy a whole army to protect their secret meeting of globalist elites while they discuss their plans for the future of society. But don't worry, surely it's nothing nefarious 🤔
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THIS IS WHAT IVE BEEN FUCKING SAYING!!! The rich, the heads of corporations and media that have been pumping out articles and thinkpieces and guidelines trying to gaslight the general public into thinking everything is fine and we should return to normal — they KNOW it’s all bullshit. They KNOW covid isn’t a cold. They are using top-of-the-line science and tech to protect themselves while they’re content to let the rest of us get infected over and over again until we become disabled or simply drop dead.
[Alt text: Tiktok video by @Imani_Barbarin on twitter.
“If you’re somebody not wearing a mask in public spaces right now, I hate to be the one to break it to you — not really — but you’ve been fucking played. Because these are the images that are coming out of the World Economic Forum [in Davos, Switzerland].
(Showing a screenshot of a tweet from an attendee showing a PCR test) First off, they’re testing you right at the door. You test positive for COVID, your bracelet gets deactivated. You refuse to test, your bracelet gets deactivated.
(Showing a screenshot of a tweet with a picture of WEF attendees sitting in a room, bundled up in winter coats, with a HEPA filter next to their chairs) There are HEPA filters in every room. And people are wearing jackets because they have the windows open.
(Showing a photo from the WEF of a group of people looking at a slideshow. All are wearing what look like KN95 or KF94 masks or similar, and there is a blue light on a pole that looks like a Far UV light, which is another layer of covid protection.) And look at that! Masks!
You all got fucking played. You all are out here talking about hustle culture and intergenerational wealth? There is none for you. There’s none. When you’re disabled, you can’t make money. No, because everything is reliant upon your access to healthcare, which has income limits, you probably can’t even get or stay married, in a lot of cases. And you all are sitting up here talking about ‘we’re gonna set up guillotines for the rich and powerful’. They already set up guillotines and you walked right towards them. This is what collapse looks like. We’re already there.” End alt text.]
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Davos: Minister Reinforces Brazil's Commitment to Zero Deforestation
Marina Silva, minister of the Environment, was applauded during the panel and held a meeting with the president of the Inter-American Development Bank
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The Minister of the Environment and Climate Change, Marina Silva (Rede), was applauded at the opening panel of the Open Forum in Davos this Monday (16th) when she declared that the third Lula government is committed to "zero deforestation, protection of indigenous peoples, democracy and sustainability".
"There are great expectations regarding Brazil, which has always contributed to important sustainability agendas. Unfortunately, in the last four years, we have become pariahs", said the Brazilian minister in the panel entitled "In Harmony with Nature", which she shared with personalities such as Hindou Oumarou Ibrahim, president of the Association of Women and Indigenous Peoples of Chad.
The minister guaranteed that "sustainability will not be a sectoral policy, but a transversal one, covering energy, industry, mobility policies, across all sectors". "That's what will make the difference: acting in all dimensions. But this is not magic, nor does it happen overnight", she added.
Continue reading.
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theculturedmarxist · 1 year
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gamer2002 · 1 year
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We call this a fascist state's policy.
And has taxpayers funded the trip of this unelected official?
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matthewmlz · 1 year
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Klaus Schwab Talks about Justin Trudeau and WEF "Young Global Leaders"
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ireton · 1 year
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WARNING - CRUDE HUMOUR - BUT FUNNY    
High demand for prostitutes in Davos for those who are the moral authorities of the World.
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dadsinsuits · 3 months
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Ronald P. O'Hanley
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bopinion · 1 year
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2023 / 03
Aperçu of the Week:
"A regime that murders its own youth to intimidate its population has no future."
(Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock, who again summoned the Iranian ambassador to the Foreign Office after the execution of two more protesters in Iran)
Bad News of the Week:
In the 1980s, we took to the streets with the slogan "Make peace without weapons!" Nowadays, it's "We need more guns to keep the peace." Swords to plowshares was yesterday. A beautiful dream from which we wake up startled because a few despots on this planet apparently had a too small shovel in their sandbox. Or a too small penis in their pants. "Geostrategic interests" is the name of the game. The laughter gets stuck in your throat there.
Welcome to a new age of the arms race. Current lowlight: President Emanuel Macron announces that he will invest almost 700 billion in France's military by the end of this decade. Among other things, in aircraft carriers and - watch out! - nuclear weapons. Because "nuclear deterrence (is) an element that distinguishes France from other countries in Europe." So do baguettes and croissants. But they are much more digestible. And, "We see again, in analyzing the war in Ukraine, their high importance." Ooph...
Good News of the Week:
The global community faces a series of interlinked crises. As this year's Global Risks Report explained, a polycrisis. As the summary of the 53rd World Economic Forum in Davos puts it: "The scale of the challenge, the sense of urgency, and the importance of collaboration was a thread that linked all the discussions this week, whether on Ukraine, the climate crises, supply chains, technology and innovation, health, the economy and so much more." In his closing statement, WEF President Børge Brende therefore also says that "in an uncertain and challenging time, one thing is clear: We can shape a more resilient, sustainable and equitable future, but the only way to do so is together."
For years, the Swiss event has been as a gathering of global elites who, far removed from the everyday lives of ordinary citizens of the world, worshipped the capitalist El Dorado of globalization. That is increasingly changing, even if not everyone has realized it yet. For example, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, who used his appearance there as an advertisement for Germany as a business location instead of showing internationally long-awaited leadership in crisis management. This year's motto was "Cooperation in a fragmented World", which explicitly does not only mean economic cooperation.
WEF founder Klaus Schwab published the book "The Great Reset" a good two years ago. Conspiracy theorists (mis)understand the positions in it as evidence that a non-transparent neoliberal club is reaching for authoritarian world domination. In fact, it is exactly the opposite: in a disruptive age, the only viable perspective for the global community is to reorient the economy and society. Toward sustainability and social balance instead of profit maximization regardless its downsides.
Once again, it is UN Secretary-General António Guterres who puts it in a nutshell: "There are no perfect solutions in a perfect storm. But we can work to control the damage and seize opportunities. Now more than ever, it's time to forge the pathways to cooperation." Guterres apparently not only has better speechwriters, but also a clearer compass than Scholz. If the physical meeting of global decision-makers in appropriately placarded venues can also be understood as rallying behind the idea in terms of economic policy and aligning their future decisions and actions with it, the world can not only weather the polycrisis, but perhaps even emerge stronger. I hope I'm not being too naive here.
Personal happy moment of the week:
Winter has come after all. Which we enjoyed yesterday on a hike with friends around the Eibsee at the foot of the Zugspitze. As well as with the best pasta I've eaten in a long time. That's how a weekend has to be.
I couldn't care less...
...that French people see it as state overreach that the retirement age is to be raised moderately to 64. In Germany, we are already at 67, and even that will not be affordable in view of the baby boomers who will soon reach that age. To put it another way: the more years you work in the future, the fewer years you will spend in old-age poverty.
As I write this...
...I hope for the better: Today, according to the Chinese calendar, the Year of the Water Bunny begins. A year of hope, as it is called. We can all certainly use that.
Post Scriptum
"The (...) danger assumed on the basis of subjective perception is neither concrete nor present. Whether there will be climate changes is not scientifically proven, causal links between individual human impacts on the environment and climate phenomena are open." What sounds like Joe Manchin is an official pronouncement with which the energy company RWE - that's right: which is currently demolishing Lützerath - has defended itself in court against accepting responsibility for climate change. In 2006!
RWE is the largest producer of carbon dioxide in Europe. And in the next few years, it will earn about half a billion euros a year from coal alone, according to estimates by analysts such as Guido Hoymann, an expert on energy suppliers from Bankhaus Metzler. So money should be there when, hopefully, large-scale lawsuits are finally filed because fossil fuel companies have not only ruined the climate, but also lied about the consequences against their better judgment. The tobacco and fast food producers can sing a song about this.
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