Original post from u/Kvolti on reddit
More informations and pictures here:
https://www.greenpeace.org/italy/storia/27709/abbiamo-contestato-jeff-bezos-a-venezia/
This is where God gets to prove he’s real, and he’s on the side of the people. If it’s true, Venice will finally sink into the sea and become a legend, like Atlantis.
If that happens, I’ll finally go to church every Sunday. Hear me God? That’s what it will take.
Once this doesn’t happen remember that god is not real and that destiny it’s in your hands.
God knows you’re faking, because he knows that to believe in him you’ll have to give up on women’s rights, science, etc
Tax property, tax inheritance, tax capital gains no matter if realized or not, tax passive income of all kinds. Tax them progressively and tax the highest brackets high enough that these giant fortunes actually shrink. There is no other way (well… besides revolution) to reduce the spiraling inequality which is at the root of major problems all over the world.
Always hated that they pretend you cant tax unreleased gains when they are perfectly capable of raising loans against them. If unrealized gains can be used to secure loans then they have a quantifiable value that can be taxed.
Imagine if you took $100 billion from any of these Goblins, they wouldn’t even notice it, but that money could fund homeless solutions (or any other problem) forever.
$100B would put you at #19 richest person. If taken from Elon, he wouldn’t even lose a spot…
The problem is they have found it cheaper to buy ALL politicians than it is to actually pay tax. It only leaves a few options left…
There is no other way (well… besides revolution)
The backlash that you’ll receive from the cronies of mega-capital will make revolution inevitable. That’s assuming you can get so far as to democratically reform the tax code in an electoral system that cages voters, manufacturers consent, and manipulates the courts to guarantee only their people hold office.
I can’t even really disagree with you, but not trying still isn’t an option. It’s our job to at least try to convince our immediate peers.
If only poor people could purchase senators and congressmen (and Supreme Court justices).
Minimum tax that they can never go below. Start penalizing tax havens like Ireland.
There are already inheritance taxes but they should have caps on them since they hit intergenerational wealth and social mobility for lower and middle classes far more than the upper.
It’s trivial to design an inheritance tax that doesn’t tax a family’s (first) home and starts above a certain amount (500k, a million, two, make it 10 for all I care) that still allows lower and middle classes to build reasonable wealth. It’s also not that hard to not have a million loopholes for the excessively rich. That only gets difficult when people fall for the usual lies, like “businesses will close down and you will lose your jobs”.
Start penalizing tax havens like Ireland.
Tax based on passport, allow for taxes at their place of residence to take priority (so, you can pay low taxes in Ireland, but if it’s less than our tax, you pay the rest here), tax them a lot if they relinquish their passport. No need to start international beef about this.
Oh, of course it is trivial, the issue is the political will to do it. As for tax havens I was thinking more along the lines of corporate tax evasion by companies like Apple.
Checked Reddit and Fb, thousands of bots booing Greenpeace and defending Amazon.
It seems that picture got its results.
Classic bots
Good news, the first few dozen or so top-level comments on the r/pics thread are 100% anti-Bez
Mirror:
Venice? Wow, that’s actually kind of on-the-nose for a show of excessive wealth.
https://historywalksvenice.com/article/early-venice/why-did-venice-get-rich/
TL;DR: Venice exists in its current form (canal city on an ever sinking atoll) not because of climate change, and not because of some fishing village put their backs into it for hundreds of years, but because of money. LOTS, and lots of money from a shipping/trade boom a very long time ago.
The fact that Bezos built his obscene wealth on shipping and international commerce, just makes this even more appropriate in a gross kind of way. Like he’s deliberately connecting himself to Venice’s history, and everything that implies.
Talk about a gross oversimplification. Venice grew out of mosquito infested lagoon due to necessity. The Venetian people were driven into the lagoon multiple times over centuries as a means of protection from Germanic invasions in the 7th century. They capitalized on shipping and trade just like any other population would do and used those riches to make their citizens lives better. What would you have expected them to do? Turn away from the money spice trading and Mediterranean shipping traffic brought them because it would make them too rich? Because again, they were a people used to fleeing into a mosquito infested lagoon when their farming population was invaded by multiple armies.
For that reason, comparing an entire cultural population like Venice to a singular person is a false equivalency. Bezos hasn’t used his shipping fortune to enrich anyone but himself, but at least Venetian royalty built buildings and public spaces for their population.
at least Venetian royalty built buildings and public spaces for their population
Oh how kind of them to let it trickle on down
Shipping of enslaved peoples even
One day people will say “why do we let these weird weak old losers steal from us? We shouldn’t. Let’s get these assholes.”
15 minutes later it will be over
15 minutes later it will be over
Worse, we’ll have users telling us how this (somehow) is good for the left and downvoting everyone who lives there and says otherwise
The people are too blind and mute.
So the Venice entrance fee was introduced to deny access and make this event possible?
A sphinx cat has more sex appeal that this slimy lizard motherfucker
true
Ok so I’m out of the loop on the memes but this song james. Sounds like something out of a 90s sega side scrolling beat em up. I love it!
The original lyrics and singer are great too.
Oh dear gods, not again!
I can’t think of a moment in human history aside from now that a man can gather that much wealth, and piss of that many people and still keep his head. Most states would have taken his fortune by now. Hell even Crassus got his, and was rumoured to have had molten gold poured down his throat for his greed
I don’t get it, what’s to stop people photobombing his wedding with lots and lots of annoying drones
I think workers would be better than drones. Drones can’t even sting.
His private security
who control the air?
There are a lot of anti drone defense systems at this point
drone laws requiring an operator license and drones to broadcast a unique id traceable back to it’s operator.
and if you patch the drone firmware or build one yourself, it’s still trackable via radio signal triangulation to the controller’s position.
You can fly the drone without a license in secret, and the law only requires that you scribble the ID somewhere on the craft – something you do not need to do if flying for clandestine purposes.
Not all drone’s fly via radio, many use direct WiFi connections which can be completely spoofed over 3G proxies so that the drone and operator aren’t in direct contact with one another
I saw that short film years ago and it still sticks with me. Back then it seemed possible but the tech wasn’t quite there, now we see it in use.
and the law only requires that you scribble the ID somewhere on the craft
most bought drones also transmit it wirelessly too
many use direct WiFi connections
yes, the toy ones, once you get 10m away you aren’t controlling that drone anymore, let alone recieving pictures
which can be completely spoofed over 3G proxies
once you start introducing the internet the lag becomes unbearable, and also phone towers are aimed at the ground, not at the sky, so you’d get shit reception anyways
Tell that to these guys:
https://github.com/uavpal/beboptwo4g/wiki/faq#latency
Typically for direct connections (see this FAQ entry), the latency is around 50 ms. The pre- and post-processing of the live video stream is more than that, which you will also experience when flying in the original set-up (over Wi-Fi).
For more staged setups, there’s always MAVproxy
very cool stuff, i stand corrected
Video of the police removing it:
Jeff Bezos, probably: get tanks out there tomorrow…
noys
I think they don’t know how taxes work. Taxes are paid on income and realized capital gains. He’s not renting venice from his Amazon stock…
There is bo reason that he can’t be getting taxed on his Amazon stock. If he has enough money to remt out a city, he will have no issues paying 12 figures on his taxes
"A spokesperson from Everyone Hates Elon said: “As governments talk about hard choices and struggle to fund public services, Jeff Bezos can afford to shut down half a city for days on end just to get married. Just weeks ago he spent millions on an 11 minute space trip. If there was ever a sign billionaires like Bezos should pay wealth taxes, it’s this.”
Clara Thompson, Greenpeace campaigner, said: “While Venice is sinking under the weight of the climate crisis, billionaires are partying like there is no tomorrow on their mega yachts. This isn’t just about one person — it’s about changing the rules so no billionaire can dodge responsibility, anywhere. The real issue is a broken system that lets billionaires skip out on their fair share of taxes while everyone else is left to foot the bill. That’s why we need fair, inclusive tax rules, and they must be written at the UN.”
A tax on the super-rich would help to fund the necessary transition to a green and just future, fund affordable housing, cheaper public transport or home insulation. Greenpeace’s ship, the Arctic Sunrise, was anchored at the port of Venice last week-end to promote this transition and expose the damage the fossil fuel industry causes to the people and the planet."
Billionaires go so far as to ask donations to charities from their service customers so they can pay less taxes. They are effectively making themselves richer, common folk poorer and calling it altruism because some charities get money from average income people rather than billionaires.
This is a common misconception. If a person or corporation takes money for charity, like rounding up for bill at point of sale, that entity doesn’t get to write that off taxes. They can claim publicity for raising money for charity, but they didn’t get any direct financial windfall. They would only get something if they were to say, match the donation contribution.
Here is the kicker though; Often the entity in question will OWN the charity they are donating to.
Except if they found a loophole such that money you donate first goes to their business account and they make it legally seem like it is a donation made from their business account in which case they might still get a tax refund. Note that this is a speculation on my part and I am wondering if there are indeed loopholes that enable this or laws are clear enough to prevent this in any form and shape.
It might also work the same way if you make a donation through their own charities. How it would work is they donate some of their profit to their own charities and get the tax refund but they don’t use that money for charitable acts (as defined by common sense). They also get customer based donations to their charities which instead they use for what one would consider charitable acts, so the charity looks active instead of hoarding money. And then they use the other money they have donated themselves and gotten a tax refund for as whatever agenda pushing reasons as they see fit ( including political donations, investments in other companies ) since the definition of charitable act is quite loosely regulated.
This is what, me a regular guy, comes up with thinking about it for five minutes. An army of lawyers will make sure to find a way to turn your donations into tax reducing investments for the company.
The message is that billionaires can pay ‘more’ taxes, not that they have to pay on unrealized gains.
Why are you trying to ingratiate yourself to billionaires that would squash you under their heel in an instant like an ant and not bat a fucking eye?
You know that income tax and capital gains tax are not the only kinds of tax, right?
It’s how they should work. Rich people can pay people to set up constructions to avoid paying taxes.
I’m not exactly sure what you think the specific ask is…
It’s very general, somehow he has the funds to have a maddeningly extravagant wedding, so he can afford to have a tax burden…
It’s vague and doesn’t invite debate over the nature and nuance of his wealth, only that he can somehow pull off a celebration no reasonable person could dream of, including closing off a whole crap ton of Venice to general public use for a whole week. That’s a whole lot of spend that he can casually brush off indicating that in real terms he’s got unreasonable levels of wealth.
It’s not getting down in the details about unrealized gains and leveraging said gains through loopholes and the discussion about what taxable burden might should be associated with unrealized gains of that magnitude, it’s showing a clear example of “he has extravagant financial power, without as high relatively of a financial burden”.
He’s renting it from the interest and profits he gets from those stocks. I’m paying tax on the gains I get from my stocks and so should he.
