Friday Flurry #12: The rich got richer, and social media somehow got worse
This week: Rich dudes still indiscriminately fucking us over from every direction. SURPRISE!
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The rich just got permanently richer
Any renters without family resources or strong prospects of marrying into wealth need to know they now have no normal pathway to home ownership for their families for another generation.
Realistically, they should look to migrate to Australia, which has a capital gains tax that helps fuel higher capital investment, higher productivity, higher wages and a much better prospect of saving a house deposit after the rent (albeit high and rising) is paid.
I’ve read and thought about a lot of things these week, but none are more important than this piece, by Bernard Hickey, on Labour ruling out a wealth tax.
So I deleted everything else I’ve written for you, to encourage you to read this instead. If you’ve only got a few minutes today, please spend it reading or listening to this edition of The Kaka - there’s no paywall on it, because of it’s importance.
(... But then I remembered how irrationally mad I am about the exploding popularity of Threads, so I put this bit back in too.)
Threads is garbage
Speaking of rich men getting whatever they want, let’s talk about this week’s big technology news: Threads.
I cannot believe how quickly this thing blew up and how many smart people I know were all over it at pace. I have questions.
Why did everyone froth at the launch of this thing? WTF is going on? Why are we cool with Facebook now? WHAT ARE YOU DOING?!
As I wrote about at length last week, Facebook has categorically fucked the world over, on many counts.
But even if you’re not super upset about them inciting violence, riots and genocide, mercilessly exploiting third world labour, eroding democracy, tinkering with elections, or actively participating in spreading disinformation (hey, we’ve all been there, right? my biggest question is far less considered or academic than most of the thoughtful commentary I’ve seen so far.
Tell me this: