this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2024
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A billionaire is a business themselves. One person can't even passively possess a billion dollars without tons of support staff
If you separate the direct actions of the person from the actions of the staff required to maintain and grow their wealth, you're missing most of the reason why billionaires are so harmful to society
Either we need the figures to represent a billionaires emissions when dealing only with their personal benefit, or we offset the current figures with the benefit to society for their ventures.
Im sure their personal emissions are bad enough. We dont need to make shit up. If willful ignornace had a physical form, it would be Lemmy's mascot. Truth is the only thing that matters.
But again, it's all for their personal benefit. A human Their money is managed to grow by any means, and that has a lot of knock on effects
They generally either put their money in funds with the highest returns (which often use unethical and illegal but accepted practices, and the best ones require large minimum deposits), or they directly own large percentages of a company and use that influence when it suits them
I see where you're coming from, but I think the line is blurry. Their direct personal actions don't capture the full extent of their actions, but this also assumes full responsibility for their ownership, where honestly it's impossible to know what level of emissions the companies would have if the billionaire's wealth machine wasn't involved
I wouldn't say this is totally unfair to say though - at the end of the day they own what they own, and letting others do your dirty work doesn't absolve you of responsibility
The fact that their life would barely be affected if they added emissions to their criteria for investment makes this worse - these are the figures the billionaires should be looking at to make decisions
The line isn't blurry, it's disingenuous. Those companies hire thousands of people. They serve millions of people. Otherwise advocating against billionaires using this argument means you automatically argue against any modern solution to a problem. No stores, no supply chain, no agricultute, no medicine. Hell, you can't even go for earlier periods - Genghis Khan was a billionaire and deserves flak for the gazillion horses his army used which contributed to climate change.
you're just typing a paragraph to employ the "job creators" myth as an argument lol
so being a middle man who does nothing but extract and capitalize on needs that people have makes you a job creator? pretty sure mcdonalds didn't create hungry people and people would have needed to buy a burger regardless of whether or not mcdonald's was a multibillion dollar corporation.
i will admit, mcdonalds does create some hungry people tho-- their own workers, who they underpay by massive amounts.
What's your point? There is no difference in 50 McDonalds locations and 50 independent burger joints when it comes to carbon footprint. If there is a difference, then it is in McDonalds favour - economy of scale, established logistics etc. Probably three different places need to pop up to offset one McDonalds beimg magically removed, each with its own AC, freezers, grills.
Of course it's different, and economies of scale are generally more efficient. 50 Independent Burger joints would likely be healthier and higher quality, they would do more to keep money flowing around the community rather than funneled away to corporate, and their ice cream machines wouldn't break
But you wouldn't have 50 - you'd have more like a dozen. Most local restaurants find the best place they can, because they want the store to succeed
Franchises want coverage - they want as many locations as possible. They want a new McDonalds next to the Wendy's, even if there's three other fast food restaurants all within sight already. They'll dictate every detail of it, because they win even if the store barely breaks even
Such as the famous McDonald's always broken ice cream machines. Billionaire shareholders in both companies mandate these machines, which must be repaired frequently by licensed technicians. They even shut down a couple that built a $40 device that was able to fix the glitch that causes the problem
And that's how it works from top to bottom. At every stage, the billionaires must get their hidden taxes. Like the ice cream machines, it generally costs more in every way to society - we would not be using decades old ice cream machines known for breaking down all the time, we wouldn't oversaturate towns with competing fast food franchises, we probably wouldn't be subsiding the food itself
Billionaires provide NO benefit to society.
And?