The Billionaire Is The Threat, not the Solution | Hacker News Reader

The Billionaire Is The Threat, not the Solution

404media.co

40 pointsworik23 comments

Are we really going to pretend that legacy media hasn't always been brokered and controlled by immensely wealthy individuals, some would even say monopolistic elites?

The author should watch Citizen Kane and learn a thing or two.

> The author should watch Citizen Kane and learn a thing or two.

I've watched Citizen Kane, and I'm unclear about what you think the author should learn from it. Could you please explain?

Rosebud…

404 guy seems like a typical historiphobic young journalist. Do some research before speaking, young ones.

Here are some names off the top of my head: Rupert Murdoch. Robert Maxwell. John Edward Taylor.

I'm sure five minutes' duckduckgoing would bring in several more.

> Rupert Murdoch. Robert Maxwell

They started out as publishers. I do not know about the other guy

The point is billionaires think that being rich equates with being smart equates with always being right which equates with being a bully

Elon is a perfect example. He is rich and smart, but definitely not always right and certainly a bully

Rupert Murdoch inherited his media empire, it originally started as corporate propaganda when a 1923 millionaire secretly bought a couple of papers to publish anti-union stories near his mines and ports, so it probably supports the argument.

That doesn't make it better or negate the point of the article.

It's incredibly important to control ones own communication and the public interpretation analysis of ones Umwelt.

You can't allow news distribution or news analysis to be controlled by people with other interests than yours, and billionaires certainly have other interests. This was well understood by social democrats in Sweden, who as soon as they were established started their owns newspapers.

One must start ones own newspapers , appoint the journalists and be careful with their incentives. You want the newspaper you read seriously to be your personal intelligence organisation, and you should be as careful with who you appoint as the CIA is. You want something which only delivers the most reasonable analysis, without regard to consequences.

These things exist internally in banks when it comes to things that have effects on the stock market or the economy. There is however no present newspaper that can be used like that. They're all somebody else's propaganda, with the exception of the Swish-journalists.

the real threat is the globalists who pretend to care about you

If you took every penny from all the billionaires in the USA it would fund the US government for 8 months.

The threat is the Government.

the real treat is the wide and growing inequality, coming from individuals or goverments (made of individuals too) is the same.

> If you took every penny from all the billionaires in the USA it would fund the US government for 8 months

That's actually horrifying to me in the completely opposite way that it is to you.

That just a handful of people (<1000) can use individually at will more than half of resources that elected representatives of 300mln people administer in a year.

And Supreme Court Justices would need to pay for their own holidays.

> If you took every penny from all the billionaires in the USA it would fund the US government for 8 months.

How is this relevant? The article was about funding journalism, not funding the government.

This is merely an attempt to show just how lopsided the wealth distribution is. Imagine being able to afford to run the US government for any meaningful length of time with your personal wealth. I'm lucky I can run my modest household. Multi-billionaires are like black holes. They are capable of distorting the very fabric of society. Democracy has no meaning under these circumstances. We have a much more severe problem here than funding journalism.

> This is merely an attempt to show just how lopsided the wealth distribution is.

I'm confused about what "This" refers to and why you're replying to me, as opposed to the OP.

> We have a much more severe problem here than funding journalism.

I agree. Nonetheless, the submitted article is about funding journalism, so the OP's comment appears to be a non sequitur.

Or correctly invested, fuel the real good economy for 80years

You should share the secret of how to “correctly invest”, because the point of the parent comment was that it’s not about the capital

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Deal

The global market has changed a lot since 1930s.

In the 30s, customers can't place orders on the order side of the ocean and have it the same week.

yes, and some changes are not for the best. But for the real big global market of resources, oil, gas, steel, energy, high-tech.. some ideas are still valid imho, of course to be adapted. And i notice that the lifes of 99.99% of us people has not even a fraction of the freedom of capitals and goods, and this is another side of the problem.

Looking at inflation-adjusted dollars or even fraction-of-GDP, Biden has spent more on stimulus and new investment programs than the entirety of the New Deal. So what gives? Maybe it’s not a capital problem.

Yeah this ignorant. The root of Americas problem isn’t the government, it isn’t the billionaires, it’s the people, the culture. Billionaires don’t fund themselves, politicians don’t vote for themselves. The average adult has the literacy skills of a middle schooler and yet they’re entrusted to vote.

Schools aren’t failing just because teachers are underpaid. Learning is a two way street- the kids don’t want to learn. It’s the reason why most of our engineers and doctors are from cultures that value education.

The current American system is designed to exploit as much of the ignorant masses as possible.

Americas cancer is its culture.

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