Red
Well-Known Member
So tone deaf. “Let them eat cake!”.
Anybody know if Trump has finished “draining the swamp”?
www.theguardian.com
It was a feast fit for a king – and any billionaire willing to be his subject. From gold-rimmed plates on gold-patterned tablecloths decorated with gold candlestick holders, they gorged on heirloom tomato panzanella salad, beef wellington and a dessert of roasted Anjou pears, cinnamon crumble and butterscotch ice-cream.
On 15 October, Donald Trump welcomed nearly 130 deep-pocketed donors, allies and representatives of major companies for a dinner at the White House to reward them for their pledged contributions to a vast new ballroom now expected to cost $300m. That the federal government had shut down two weeks earlier scarcely seemed to matter.
But two weeks later, the shutdown is starting to bite – and throw Trump’s architectural folly into sharp relief. On Saturday, with Congress still locked in a legislative stalemate, a potential benefit freeze could leave tens of millions of low-income Americans without food aid. Democrats accuse Trump’s Republican party of “weaponising hunger” to pursue an extreme rightwing agenda.
Images of wealthy monarchs or autocrats revelling in excess even as the masses struggle for bread are more commonly associated with the likes of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette of France, who spent lavishly at the court of Versailles, or Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos of the Philippines, who siphoned off billions while citizens endured deepening poverty.
But now America has a jarring split-screen of its own, between an oligarch president bringing a Midas touch to the White House and families going hungry, workers losing pay and government services on the brink of collapse.
Anybody know if Trump has finished “draining the swamp”?
The luxury gap: Trump builds his palace as Americans face going hungry
Schmoozing the super-rich to fund a $300m ballroom while cutting food aid for those on low incomes threw the president’s architectural folly into sharp relief
www.theguardian.com
It was a feast fit for a king – and any billionaire willing to be his subject. From gold-rimmed plates on gold-patterned tablecloths decorated with gold candlestick holders, they gorged on heirloom tomato panzanella salad, beef wellington and a dessert of roasted Anjou pears, cinnamon crumble and butterscotch ice-cream.
On 15 October, Donald Trump welcomed nearly 130 deep-pocketed donors, allies and representatives of major companies for a dinner at the White House to reward them for their pledged contributions to a vast new ballroom now expected to cost $300m. That the federal government had shut down two weeks earlier scarcely seemed to matter.
But two weeks later, the shutdown is starting to bite – and throw Trump’s architectural folly into sharp relief. On Saturday, with Congress still locked in a legislative stalemate, a potential benefit freeze could leave tens of millions of low-income Americans without food aid. Democrats accuse Trump’s Republican party of “weaponising hunger” to pursue an extreme rightwing agenda.
Images of wealthy monarchs or autocrats revelling in excess even as the masses struggle for bread are more commonly associated with the likes of Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette of France, who spent lavishly at the court of Versailles, or Ferdinand and Imelda Marcos of the Philippines, who siphoned off billions while citizens endured deepening poverty.
But now America has a jarring split-screen of its own, between an oligarch president bringing a Midas touch to the White House and families going hungry, workers losing pay and government services on the brink of collapse.
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Red
Well-Known Member
Trump picked “The Great Gatsby” as the theme of his Halloween party, the novel’s theme being the corrupting influence of wealth and social class. That was his theme choice the day before curtailing SNAP benefits.
View: https://x.com/DarkModeOnly01/status/1984803504473718989
View: https://x.com/OttavioMCMLXI/status/1984940572298326299
Let them eat cake.
View: https://x.com/DarkModeOnly01/status/1984803504473718989
View: https://x.com/OttavioMCMLXI/status/1984940572298326299
Let them eat cake.
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Red
Well-Known Member
Trump spent $3.4 million tax payer dollars to throw his Great Gatsby party at Mar-a-Lago. The day before SNAP benefits stopped.
View: https://x.com/mermaidmamamags/status/1985144224975839693
View: https://x.com/patriottakes/status/1985091114278310273
A president for all Americans? I think not.
View: https://x.com/mermaidmamamags/status/1985144224975839693
View: https://x.com/patriottakes/status/1985091114278310273
A president for all Americans? I think not.
Red
Well-Known Member
Top 10 US billionaires’ collective wealth grew by $698bn in past year – report
Oxfam warns Trump policies risk driving inequality to new heights – but Democrats have also exacerbated wealth gap
www.theguardian.com
The collective wealth of the top 10 US billionaires has soared by $698bn in the past year, according to a new report from Oxfam America published on Monday on the growing wealth divide.
The report warns that Trump administration policies risk driving US inequality to new heights, but points out that both Republican and Democratic administrations have exacerbated the US’s growing wealth gap.
Using Federal Reserve data from 1989 to 2022, researchers also calculated that the top 1% of households gained 101 times more wealththan the median household during that time span and 987 times the wealth of a household at the bottom 20th percentile of income. This translated to a gain of $8.35m per household for the top 1% of households, compared with $83,000 for the average household during that 33-year period.
https://www.theguardian.com/environ...running-down-planet-safe-climate-spaces-oxfam
Meanwhile, over 40% of the US population, including nearly 50% of children, are considered low-income, with family earnings that are less than 200% of the national poverty line.
When pitting the US against 38 other higher-income countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), the US has the highest rate of relative poverty, second-highest rate of child poverty and infant mortality, and the second-lowest life expectancy rate.
“Inequality is a policy choice,” said Rebecca Riddell, senior policy lead for economic justice at Oxfam America. “These comparisons show us that we can make very different choices when it comes to poverty and inequality in our society.”
The report outlines the way that systems in the US, including the tax code, social safety nets, and worker’s rights and protections, have been slowly dismantled, allowing concentrated wealth to turn into concentrated power.
Donald Trump’s “one big, beautiful bill”, passed by Congress in May, has been one of the “single largest transfers of wealth upwards in decades”, according to the report, by cutting tax for the wealthy and corporations.
But over the last few decades, Republicans have not acted alone.
“Policymakers have been choosing inequality, and those choices have had bipartisan support,” Riddell said. “Policy reforms over the last 40 years, from cuts to taxes and the social safety net, to labor issues and beyond, really had the backing of both parties.”
Policy recommendations outlined in the report fall into four categories: rebalancing power through campaign finance reform and antitrust policy; using the tax system to reduce inequality through taxes on the wealthy and corporations; strengthening the social safety net; and protecting unions
