the filthy rich

Global System ‘Rigged for the Wealthy’ Delivers World With ‘More Billionaires Than Ever’

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Original article by Jon Queally republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Tech billionaires Susan Dell and Michael Dell speak as US President Donald Trump makes an announcement about “Trump accounts” in the Roosevelt Room at the White House on December 02, 2025 in Washington, DC. (Photo by Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images)

New annual report on “ambitions” of billionaires by wealth management giant UBS shows just 2,919 individuals have a combined wealth of $15.8 trillion.

A new assessment by the international wealth management giant UBS this week shows that the number of billionaires in the world has reached new heights and that the acceleration of inherited wealth represents a new chapter for the ultra-rich in the 21st Century.

The latest UBS Billionaire Ambitions Report, unveiled Thursday, details how just 2,919 individual billionaires have a combined wealth of $15.8 trillion. The number of billionaires in the world is up nearly 9 percent from the previous year. In the United States—where nearly a third of those on the list reside—924 billionaires hold a collective $6.9 trillion in wealth.

The assessment by UBS—which surveyed its own billionaire clients as part of the survey, now its eleventh edition—emphasizes a surge of inherited wealth among the billionaire class. According to the report:

In 2025, 91 heirs (64 of them male and 27 female) inherited a record USD 297.8 billion. That’s 36% more than in 2024, despite fewer people inheriting overall. Globally, inheritance bolstered the number of multigenerational billionaires, with some 860 multi-generational billionaires now overseeing total assets of USD 4.7 trillion. That’s up from 805 with USD 4.2 trillion in 2024.

Across the world, multi-generational billionaires are slowly extending down the generations, with the number of second-generation billionaires growing by 4.6% in the 2025 report, the number of third generation
by 12.3%, and the number of fourth generation and beyond by 10%.

The growing number of billionaires, including a rapidly increasing share who inherited their wealth rather than generating it themselves, says UBS, “heralds a new era” for the ultra-rich as “the great wealth transfer is intensifying as heirs inherit more than ever before.

The coming decades, the report notes, “will see growing numbers of billionaires and centi-millionaires as the Great Wealth Transfer continues to accelerate. Billionaires are estimated to transfer approximately USD 6.9 trillion of wealth globally by 2040, with at least USD 5.9 trillion set to be passed to children—either directly or indirectly through spouses.”

Of the $6.9 trillion currently held by US billionaires, the report estimates that $2.8 trillion of that wealth will be passed down to heirs over the next 15 years.

“The world has more billionaires than ever because of a system that’s broken for workers and rigged for the wealthy and CEOs who already make 285 times what workers do,” said the AFL-CIO in response to the report.

The union federation says that organized workers winning better collective bargaining is the first step needed to “level the playing field” for working people, while others see the surging fortunes of the ultra-wealthy as just more evidence that taxing the rich must remain at the top of the economic and political agenda both at the national level and internationally.

With the UBS report showing that 91 of the new billionaires created this year arrived at their financial status through inheritance, Hal Singer, economics professor at the University of Utah, said, “That’s 91 additional reasons for a wealth tax.”

Original article by Jon Queally republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes' concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country's economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.

Continue ReadingGlobal System ‘Rigged for the Wealthy’ Delivers World With ‘More Billionaires Than Ever’

Greens responds to Reform’s £9 million donation

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Green party leader Zack Polanski (Green Party of England and Wales). Image: Bristol Green Party Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.
Green party leader Zack Polanski (Green Party of England and Wales). Image: Bristol Green Party Creative Commons CC0 1.0 Universal Public Domain Dedication.

Responding to news that Nigel Farage’s Reform UK party has received a £9 million donation from a single donor, Green Party leader Zack Polanski said

“Reform hoovering up vast sums of private donations isn’t a sign of political strength, but a sign of a weakness in the foundations of our democracy. When a single party can be bankrolled by a handful of wealthy individuals, it drowns out the voices of ordinary people and tilts the entire system towards the interests of those elites. 

“This is exactly why we need a cap on political donations. Democracy should never be for sale. Every party should compete on ideas, not on the size of their donor spreadsheet.

“While Reform pockets eye-watering cheques, Greens are building a movement powered and funded by people through thousands of new members. 

“When we win elections, it will be because of the tens of thousands of people volunteered, not the people who donated tens of thousands. If we want a politics that serves the public, not billionaire backers, then capping donations is essential. Let’s end the influence of big money and put democracy back where it belongs: in the hands of voters.”

Nigel Farage reminds you that he's the man that brought you Brexit and asks what could possibly go wrong.
Nigel Farage reminds you that he’s the man that brought you Brexit and asks what could possibly go wrong.

Continue ReadingGreens responds to Reform’s £9 million donation

Resistance builds within the United States against Trump’s drive to war with Venezuela

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Original article by Devin B. Martinez republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Billboard up in New York City against the US threats against Venezuela. Photo: The People’s Forum

As Trump continues to lodge threats against the Bolivarian Republic, US Congress and grassroots movements mobilize to stop a new war.

The US government has continued to accelerate its drive to war with Venezuela. While rumors circulate about phone calls and possible talks between US President Donald Trump and Venezuelan President Nicolás Maduro, in tandem, the US head of state has continued to launch bizarre and illegal threats and accusations against the South American nation. On Saturday, November 29, Trump unilaterally declared that Venezuelan airspace was closed, despite international law stipulating that only Venezuela has authority over the airspace above its territory and that air traffic above Venezuela has since continued.

While Trump, his Secretary of State Marco Rubio, and the Secretary of War Pete Hegseth have claimed land strikes and “action” against Venezuela could begin imminently and that the country should be on alert, as of now, only the aerial attacks on vessels in the Caribbean have continued. To date, the US missile strikes on boats in the Caribbean have killed at least 83 people. Washington claims they were trafficking drugs, without providing evidence.

The unprecedented military buildup in the region now consists of aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), F-35 fighter jets, at least eight war ships, and 15,000 US troops, as well as coordinated US military activity in Puerto Rico, Trinidad and Tobago, and the Dominican Republic.

Despite Trump’s brazen appetite for war, it appears that public opinion in the United States is against Trump’s escalation against Venezuela. A recent poll conducted by CBS News/YouGOV found that 70% of people in the US would oppose the US taking military action in Venezuela. At the same time, some, albeit limited, bipartisan initiatives have been taken in Congress to attempt to use congressional authority to block Trump from taking military action. From the legislature down to the grassroots movements, opposition to a US war on the Caribbean nation is growing.

Pressure mounts in Congress against Trump’s threats of war

As the Trump cabinet prepares for fresh international law violations, they are already feeling the backlash of ones already committed. Committees in US Congress have reportedly launched investigations into US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth for crimes related to missile strikes on boats in the Caribbean, in which the order was reportedly to “kill everybody”.

“These are serious charges, and that’s the reason we’re going to have special oversight,” said Sen. Roger Wicker of Mississippi, the Republican chair of the Senate Armed Services Committee, as reported by PBS.

The mounting scrutiny follows a Washington Post report that details Hegseth’s direction to strike a bombed boat a second time, called a “double tap” strike, even as survivors clung to the edge of the burning vessel. In addition to the investigation, several congressional democrats are calling for Hegseth’s resignation.

When questioned about the targeting of boat strike survivors in an interview with The Hill on December 2, Trump distanced himself from the order and Hegseth blamed Admiral Mitch Bradley for the second strike.

“I moved on to my next meeting. A couple hours later I learned that that commander had made the … correct decision to ultimately sink the boat and eliminate the threat,” said Hegseth.

Adding to the pressure on Hegseth in particular, the Pentagon’s inspector general released a report on Thursday, December 4, concluding that the defense secretary violated department rules and put US forces at risk when he used a signal chat to share details of airstrikes on Yemen back in April.

The renewed scrutiny comes after a bipartisan coalition in both the Senate and the House attempted to check the US president’s ability to carry out deadly strikes in the Caribbean through the War Powers Act.

As opposition continues to build in the legislature, grassroots movements are also mobilizing against the US war drive on Venezuela.

As threat of war grows, so does the people’s resistance

In the same CBS/YouGov poll, 75% of people in the US said that the government needs to show evidence that the boats it is bombing are carrying drugs. Only 13% of Americans believe that Venezuela is a “major threat” to US national security.

“The Trump administration is wildly out of step with public opinion as he threatens to initiate a new forever war with the aim of looting Venezuela’s vast oil resources,” said Brian Becker, National Director of the ANSWER coalition.

After Trump declared Venezuelan airspace to be “closed”, claiming that land strikes would begin “very soon”, a coalition of organizations, including the ANSWER coalition, The Peoples Forum, the Palestinian Youth Movement, the Party for Socialism and Liberation, and others, announced a national day of action on December 6. According to a press release by the coalition, over 50 cities will host protest actions under the slogan “No war on Venezuela – Stop the war before it starts”.

“The Trump Administration’s repeated strikes in the Caribbean have shocked the world as brazen violations of international law,” the coalition asserts.

“Now, Trump is openly threatening to escalate his aggression to land strikes on Venezuelan territory – an unmistakable act of war. This could easily spiral into a ‘boots on the ground’ invasion, and lead to catastrophic death and destruction.”

Organizers expect the day of action to be a “powerful display of the mass opposition” to the US war drive against the Bolivarian nation.

In the wake of decades-long US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the growing resistance in Congress and the streets shows that the people of the United States refuse to be dragged into yet another imperialist disaster.

Original article by Devin B. Martinez republished from peoples dispatch under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 (CC BY-SA) license.

Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn't bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
Continue ReadingResistance builds within the United States against Trump’s drive to war with Venezuela

Tip the Scales: Take Back Power

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https://chuffed.org/project/take-back-power

Britain is broken.


Britain is broken because the super-rich are pocketing billions, whilst most of us struggle to get by. Hungry kids, freezing pensioners and unemployed youth is not what we voted for. The UK is the sixth richest nation on earth – if we can’t fix our crumbling hospitals, sky-high rents and shit filled rivers, then something has gone very wrong. 

We need to tax the rich.

The super-rich are not paying their fair share because the tax system is rigged. Since 2008, the wealth of the super-rich has increased four times faster than average household wealth, while more than a third of us now earn less than needed to make ends meet. The scales need balancing. We need to tax the rich.

Politics doesn’t work for us.

Everyone agrees we need to tax the rich. But when the rich have captured our democracy, we cannot vote our way out of this mess. For the 99% to get 99% of a say, we need to put ordinary people in charge through permanent citizen assemblies. People like us—your mum, your neighbour, nurses, teachers, posties—should set the agenda, not the leader of a political party in secret deals with powerful companies and the super-rich.

…

Take Back Power.


This week we launched, delivering an ultimatum letter to our Prime Minister. We demand that he instate a permanent House of the People with powers to tax the rich. And until we get more than just shit for Christmas we will keep engaging in non-violent action to take back our wealth and our democracy from the rich. 

We are demanding a House of the People with powers to decide how to tax the rich. The House of the People is a permanent, powerful chamber made up of ordinary people selected by a democratic lottery.

It’s simple. Everyone wants to tax the rich, but the politicians are not doing it. We will be mobilising people to take radical action and resist growing inequality in the UK. No one should have to put their kids to bed hungry while the super-rich are pocketing billions. Period.

…

https://chuffed.org/project/take-back-power

Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes' concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country's economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.
Orcas discuss Donald Trump and the killer apes’ concept of democracy. Front Orca warns that Trump is crashing his country’s economy and that everything he does he does for the fantastically wealthy.

Continue ReadingTip the Scales: Take Back Power

Hegseth ‘Responsible’ for ‘Murder’: Family Files Formal Complaint Over Killing of Colombian Fisherman

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Original article by Jon Queally republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth attends a cabinet meeting with President Donald Trump at the White House in Washington, DC on December 2, 2025.
 (Photo by Carolyn Van Houten/The Washington Post via Getty Images)

According to the official filing, Trump’s Defense Secretary “has admitted that he gave such orders despite the fact that he did not know the identity of those being targeted for these bombings and extra-judicial killings.”

The family of Colombian fisherman Alejandro Carranza Medina, believed killed by the US military in a boat bombing in the Caribbean Sea on Sept. 15, has filed a formal complaint with the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights accusing US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth of murder over the unlawful attack.

“From numerous news reports, we know that [Hegseth] was responsible for ordering the bombing of boats like those of Alejandro Carranza and the murder of all those on such boats,” reads the petition, filed Tuesday on behalf of Carranza’s family by Dan Kovalik, a human rights attorney based in Pittsburgh.

“Secretary Hegseth,” the petition continues, “has admitted that he gave such orders despite the fact that he did not know the identity of those being targeted for these bombings and extra-judicial killings.”

The complaint also notes that President Donald Trump, the commander in chief of the US military, “ratified the conduct of Secretary Hegseth described herein.”

First reported on by The Guardian, the filing of the petition with the IACHR—an autonomous body under the charter of Organization of American States (OAS) designed to uphold human rights in the Western Hemisphere—could result in the initiation of an investigation and the release of findings about the bombing that took the life of Carranza and two other individuals believed to be aboard the vessel.

The petition, the outlet noted, “marks the first formal complaint over the airstrikes by the Trump administration against suspected drug boats, attacks that the White House says are justified under a novel interpretation of law.” Experts in international human rights law have stated from the outset that the administration’s justifications lack legal basis and that the attacks constitute unlawful criminal acts.

According to The Guardian:

Carranza, 42, appears to have been killed in the second strike of the Trump administration’s bombing campaign, on 15 September. The administration has publicly disclosed 21 strikes on alleged drug boats. Carranza’s family says he was a fisher who would often set out in search of marlin and tuna.

On the day of the strike, Trump announced on his Truth Social platform that “This morning, on my Orders, US Military Forces conducted a SECOND Kinetic Strike against positively identified, extraordinarily violent drug trafficking cartels and narcoterrorists in the SOUTHCOM area of responsibility”. Trump attached video marked “unclassified” of a small boat floating in the water before it was struck.

Both Hegseth, the highest-ranked civilian at the Pentagon, and Trump have been under growing scrutiny for the series of boat bombings that have resulted in the extrajudicial killing of over 80 people since September. Experts have said the killings should be seen as “murder, plain and simple.”

New revelations about a strike on Sept. 2, in which two survivors of an initial bombing were later killed as they clung to the exploded boat on which they were traveling, has evelated that concern in Washington, DC this week with lawmakers seeking answers about the attack which, even if one accepted the legality of the initial strike under the construct the Trump administration has tried to claim, would constitute a clear human rights violation amounting to a war crime.

In an interview with Agence France-Presse in October, Katerine Hernandez, Carranza’s wife in Colombia, said her husband was “a good man” devoted to fishing and providing for his family. “Why did they just take his life like that?” she asked.

Hernandez denies that Carranza was involved in drug trafficking, as Trump and Hegseth have alleged without providing evidence, but also suggested that even if drug trafficking was taking place, it would not justify his murder. “The fishermen have the right to live,” she said. “Why didn’t they just detain them?”

In a Tuesday statement, the IACHR urged the US government to “ensure respect for human rights” during any and all extraterritorial military operations in the region, noting the deaths of a high number of persons both in the Caribbean and in the Pacific, where other strikes have taken place.

“While acknowledging the seriousness of organized crime and its impact on the enjoyment of human rights, the Commission recalls that States are obliged to respect and ensure the right to life of all persons under their jurisdiction,” the statement reads.

“According to the Inter-American jurisprudence, this duty extends to situations when State agents exercise authority or effective control, including extraterritorial actions at sea,” it continues. “When lethal force is used by security or military personnel outside national territory, States have the obligation to demonstrate that such actions were strictly lawful, necessary, and proportionate, and to investigate, ex officio, any resulting loss of life. These obligations persist irrespective of where the operations occur, or the status attributed to the individuals affected. Likewise, persons under State control must always enjoy full respect for due process and humane treatment.”

The commission called on the US to “refrain from employing lethal military force in the context of public security operations, ensuring that any counter-crime or security operation fully complies with international human rights standards; conduct prompt, impartial, and independent investigations into all deaths and detentions resulting from these actions; and adopt effective measures to prevent recurrence.”

Original article by Jon Queally republished from Common Dreams under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0).

Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
Orcas discuss how Trump was re-elected and him being an obviously insane, xenophobic Fascist.
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn't bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.
Donald Fuhrump says that Amerikkka doesn’t bother with crimes or charges anymore, not being 100% Amerikkkan and opposing his real estate intentions is enough.

Continue ReadingHegseth ‘Responsible’ for ‘Murder’: Family Files Formal Complaint Over Killing of Colombian Fisherman