To think that we should all boycott the businesses of billionaires until they sort the situation of kids starving to death due to famine and war?

I mean I completely agree from a personal standpoint as someone growing up in the UK it seems obvious to me as I suppose it does to most of us.

I suppose from a cultural perspective (and I know there was a poster before sharing their experience from Nigeria as well who may be able to comment in a better way than myself!) there’s a very different view around children and sex that it’s sort of the done thing to have large families, I think our standard calculation in Yemen for family size was 7.

At risk of sounding a bit “colonial” so apologies as that isn’t what I mean - there isn’t really the same thought process around sex and children, and being able to provide - there’s a huge lack of access to birth control, without taking into consideration cultural attitudes to using this. Sex is also a “right” to a lot of men in marriage - as you can imagine in countries like Yemen (also from what I know of colleagues who work in Sudan) there are large GBV issues so even if a woman, who is having to give birth and do the childcare does not want to have more children she doesn’t always have a choice in this - which is obviously a whole another issue.

Children often support the family later in life if they reach that stage as well, not to mention high levels of child labour.

Not sure if these are the actual reasons as this was never part of any data I’ve seen collected but I would guess these have some bearing on the decisions.

But having babies surely just adds to the problems. Any aid that gets through has to feed even more mouths. And the medical staff dealing with difficult pregnancies instead of diseases and malnutrition.

i just don’t get they would choose to add to the issues faced by their families and communities.

I mean for the sex can’t really comment as I understand that comment - it would definitely not be my personal priority in that situation! I suppose the only thing I could offer is that for a lot of places it’s been years in famine so for communities and families this is their “normal”.

But for the mortality rates these are quite high - we have a lot of women miscarry or die in childbirth and neonatal death - Yemen (sorry as I know the OP specifically mentioned Sudan but since I don’t work there I keep referring to Yemen) we have a reasonably high mortality in comparison to a more developed country, we have like 35 / 1000 deaths in 1st year and 41/1000 under 5 - Sudan is apparently very similar also at 3.9%

We have locations where we have a large majority of the community enrolled in malnutrition programmes.

And boycotting only affects the staff who work there it makes no odds to Bezos

I'm be more interested in why people still have the urge to have sex during a famine. And how do they go to full term with their pregnancies, and give birth with little or no problems? I find the whole situation baffling.

Billionaires shouldn't pay the same tax because the way they generate wealth is different. We want them investing!

I have some sympathy with your views and I would settle for billionaires paying the same rate of tax as the rest of us but that ain’t going to happen. Most of us rely on the big tech that these billionaires own and the Amazon model Jeff Bezos owns is pretty convenient. I tried boycotting them but honestly unless we all do a coordinated giving up on their companies it won’t even register with them. Third world nations need to sort out corruption before it gets better for their citizens.

@mumofoneAloneandwell, I am actually reading about the Great Purge of 1936-38 under Stalin. Let’s hope history doesn’t repeat itself, because as you allude to you will be on the side of the oppressors.

There are many factions in society that create, contribute to, turn a blind eye to, war,
crisis and famine and there are also thankfully many that work towards peace, provide much needed aid and work geopolitically to end war and famine.

And there is so much more in between, including billionaires.

OP is just annoying the shit out of me. So asinine.

You would be boycotting an awful lot of businesses.

Ok, so, yes billionnaires have a vast amount of money. Who's going to take it off then and send it to Sudan etc. How about the countries that have problems where some of the problems are caused by infighting against different factions or terrorist run governance who steal money for themselves (eg think Hamas taking millions and popping in Qatar for the leaders). Who's going to take it from the Kings, The Religious leaders, The Sheiks, the etc the etc the etc (insert various different type of people with huge wealth). Thinking of starting a war to cease it are you @mumofoneAloneandwell

Not pratical.

There are some very good billionnaires who give vast sums of money to various global issues (thin Bill Gates) he gets slated constantly by consipracy theorists for his efforts.

A dream but not workable.

Also, Billionaires don't just have piles of billions of dollars sitting around. Their "wealth" is mostly on paper only, i.e. the "worth" of their companies, their properties, their yachts, supercars, artworks, etc. Many (if not most) don't have much quickly realisable "cash" sat in bank accounts. They're only worth "billions" because there are other billionaires willing to buy their shares, yachts, properties, cars, artworks, etc. Take that "market" away and their wealth will plummet because there won't be other billionaires able and willing to buy from each other. It's all a ponzi scheme really. A Banksy is only worth a million because someone else is willing to pay a million for it. It's ALL relative. Shares in any of the huge international firms could crash overnight if something dreadful happens.

Under-five mortality rates have dropped drastically. For instance, in Sub-Saharan Africa, the under-five mortality rate dropped from 151 deaths per 1,000 live births in 2000 down to 73 deaths per 1,000 by 2020

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC9750046/

Mean years of schooling in low-income countries have more than doubled. Initiatives such as the Millennium Development Goals prioritised universal primary education, while the Sustainable Development Goals extended the focus to secondary and tertiary access, gender equality and learning equality. Globally, the average time a child spends in school rose from 7.2 years in 1990 to 9.3 years today.

https://www.visionofhumanity.org/human-development-in-low-income-countries/

Billionaires create company's worth billions...... How dare they be successful?

Global poverty has declined, and many regions have seen significant reductions. But the gains have been uneven, with Africa and low-income economies increasingly at the centre of the challenge. Rural communities, children, and young people remain disproportionately affected.

blogs.worldbank.org/en/opendata/how-has-the-profile-of-extreme-poverty-changed-over-the-last-dec

You sound very new to international affairs and politics, OP.

Think of the billions and billions that have already been given as international aid by countries across the world and charities. What has it achieved?

The crisis in Sudan is caused by war, state collapse, armed groups, disrupted supply chains, corruption, displacement and difficulty getting aid safely to civilians.

Politicians and war leaders are the ones to be held accountable.

If we boycott the businesses of billionaires jobs of low paid workers are lost. You can’t end one crisis by creating another one.

If only it was that simple.

@SomeGarlic Thank you so much for typing all that out, I did make an attempt but in the end I just couldn't be arsed! Of course you're right. Some people are awful but lots of people do lots of good stuff, including lots of rich people.

For all those going on about jealousy and envy, there is honestly nothing about Bezos or his life that I would want. I'm not sure extreme wealth is even very good for those who have it.

This is such a disgusting attitude.

No, if I were very fortunate and was able to amass more wealth than I could ever possibly need, I would not further rig the system to further enrich myself, to the detriment of others.

Yes, if I had more wealth than I could ever possibly need, I would put it towards charitable causes.

You're wrong, though. Most of them fund loads of charity work. Many have pledged to give 99% of their wealth away in their lifetimes.

Your assessment of human nature's way worse than the reality - I'm happy to say. And nobody thinks success shouldn't reap reward, you've made that up to suit yourself. We're saying it doesn't make sense to be THAT rich.

A hundred million? That's a lot of money. Five hundred million? Crazy amount of money. Six, seven hundred million? Buy anything you want, however absurd!

Nobody needs a billion, let alone several. Elon Musk is richer than Sweden, Belgium or Ireland (GDP 2026). For one person, what's the point?

Obviously you can't just take the money out and distribute it to the 4 billion poorest people, although that would be an interesting experiment! You're wrong about the nature of this argument, though.

PP mentioned Gabriel Zucman. Thomas Piketty and Robert Reich are other economists who focus on wealth inequality.

I heard that Elon Musk asked the World Food Programme to provide him with a fully costed plan to end world hunger- which they did, at a price he could well afford

How will that address factors such as countries ‘invading’ other countries, political factions overthrowing governments etc, and blockading Elon’s food, or 1001 other scenario’s where it’s not just a case of throwing good in?

I'm at this point too. I can't do everything of course, I can choose not to shop at Amazon etc.

Yes, I do know about AWS and Azure hosting before anyone jumps on that.

I heard that Elon Musk asked the World Food Programme to provide him with a fully costed plan to end world hunger- which they did, at a price he could well afford.

And then he just decided not to go ahead and didn't give them the money.

@mumofoneAloneandwell please answer my question about the ‘purge’.
Who is going to be purged?
Just a warning - revolutionaries can find themselves turned upon and purged.