this post was submitted on 19 Jan 2026
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cross-posted from : https://lemmy.zip/post/57305272

Total billionaire wealth in the EU reached €2.4 trillion by late November, exceeding Italy's entire GDP of €2.2 trillion and approaching France's €2.9 trillion economy, a new Oxfam report found.

Archived version: https://archive.is/20260118190308/https://euobserver.com/health-and-society/ara3abf5ee

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[–] BigBolillo@mgtowlemmy.org 110 points 1 week ago (5 children)

Not just rich people, also stupidity is a threat to democracy but how to fix it?

[–] hector@lemmy.today 16 points 6 days ago

The rich are the root of stupidity weaponized against liberal democracy, working people, and the common good.

Fixed by organization, innumerable groups federated on a main forum outside silicon valley's control cooperating on what we agree on in public and private ways as we see fit. With clear moderation rules appealed to a jury of peers to prevent govt, bus groups getting their hooks in and ratfucking it all.

[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml 11 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Rich people are a very solvable problem, so let's focus on problems we can solve first okay

[–] aphonefriend@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 6 days ago (2 children)

ALL the rich people, right? Including pootin and Pooh bear?

[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml 3 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

Again, let's focus on problems we can solve first. That means taking the beam out of our own eye before we go around criticizing the motes in others, or however that parable goes. We have far worse problems in our own home.

[–] dubyakay@lemmy.ca 3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

What makes you think that Pooh is rich?

[–] queermunist@lemmy.ml -3 points 6 days ago (1 children)

Racists like to compare President Xi to a yellow animal.

[–] dubyakay@lemmy.ca 1 points 6 days ago (2 children)

I was just playing along with their use of language. Irregardless, it doesn't strike me as Xi would be among billionaires.

[–] thethunderwolf@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Actually Xi is probably the richest person on earth.

Why? Because China is the world's 2.5th biggest economy (2nd only to the US when counting countries, but the EU is richer than China and is often counted), and it's the biggest dictatorship (for now, since the US is at risk of dictatorship). Being a dictator, he COULD just sell parts of the country and I'm pretty sure he wouldn't be stopped if he tried. And when something can be sold and thus converted to money, it counts as wealth.

[–] dubyakay@lemmy.ca -1 points 5 days ago

It's a good thing then that he uses his power to redistribute wealth, alleviating poverty and building infrastructure.

[–] TronBronson@lemmy.world 3 points 6 days ago

He doesn’t need private wealth when he controls an entire nation for life.

[–] 0x0@lemmy.zip 5 points 6 days ago

but how to fix it?

Better education.

[–] cecilkorik@lemmy.ca 174 points 1 week ago* (last edited 1 week ago) (3 children)

The stupidity is happening because it benefits rich people to fill the world with stupid people. Stupid, gullible people are the key to their endlessly growing profits and wealth extraction.

We already know how to solve stupidity. We have always known it. Education has been one of the core pillars of human civilization since antiquity. It wasn't the first man to discover fire who changed everything, it was the person who discovered how to teach the next generation to control fire at least as well if not better than they originally did.

Education has not failed us. Education has been sabotaged and dismantled. By rich and powerful people, for their own purposes.

First we get rid of those rich and powerful people who have set themselves against us, then we rebuild everyone's education and if we're lucky, we might get to move on with our civilization eventually. Nobody promised it's going to be easy. But it is necessary, if we wish the human race to continue, and traditionally we've been pretty stubbornly invested in that.

[–] Thedogdrinkscoffee@lemmy.ca 11 points 6 days ago (2 children)

I'll drink to that! Or anything really.

[–] Resonosity@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 points 6 days ago

Anything but your username!

[–] tehn00bi@lemmy.world 8 points 6 days ago

The kind of comment I come to lemmy for.

[–] logicbomb@lemmy.world 43 points 1 week ago (1 children)

One reason that people are stupid is because rich people need slave labor, so they set up a system where people don't learn to think for themselves.

[–] fort_burp@feddit.nl 39 points 6 days ago (2 children)
[–] oce@jlai.lu 2 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago)

This makes me think, there is some kind of "system creationism" philosophy in the far left that is not unlike the Christian one. Thinking that some all powerfull entity (or group) created/designed the situation by itself rather than thinking it is the result of extremely complex historical chain of events and balance between groups and environments. By extension it leads to thinking that somehow removing the powerful entity magically solves the problem.

[–] RaskolnikovsAxe@lemmy.ca -4 points 6 days ago (1 children)

What does destroyed mean to you?

[–] Agrivar@lemmy.world 9 points 6 days ago (2 children)

Razed to the ground and the ashes salted, to then be rebuilt better.

[–] RaskolnikovsAxe@lemmy.ca -2 points 6 days ago (1 children)

You're suggesting we burn our respective countries to the ground, full on civil war and complete destruction, fracture of civil society, starvation and economic collapse, with no guarantees about who, when or what will step into that maelstrom of human suffering, other than your assurances that it will be better than what we have now.

Sorry, but I'm skeptical that you have a reasonable way forward.

[–] bearboiblake@pawb.social 3 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)
[–] RaskolnikovsAxe@lemmy.ca -2 points 5 days ago

Thanks for contributing, guy who wants to abolish democracy.

I can tell you've really thought through this.

[–] wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz 0 points 6 days ago* (last edited 6 days ago) (1 children)

Why would you salt the ashes if you intend to rebuild? You're aware that that makes land inarable for generations, right?