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?

[mumofoneAloneandwell]

They can literally afford to fix this issue.

Enough is enough.

Prayers for Sudan 🇸🇩 and to all those suffering across the world.

I consider myself quite eco conscious but when the privileged muppets from Just Stop Oil were protesting it genuinely made me want to abandon all that.

The way to make things happen isn’t to force people to do things,

Like a PP example with Elon Musk. Say he was prepared to give enough money to the UK to sort out poverty, but then said the people who benefitted had to have ten children? Or none?

Because nothing comes truly free

Also, do you realise that Elon Musk - one of the richest of all the billionaires, couldn’t afford to fund the welfare bill in the UK for one year?

If all of the billionaires have all of their wealth to the UK government, it would last less than 15 years before it ran out.

So what, together they could maybe possibly stabilise one country similar in population to the UK, but only if they also sufficiently combated corruption and improved culture so that they could be self sufficient in say ten years (as there’d need to be a lot of upfront spend to get the country anywhere like the UK is now to start with).

They have an insane amount of money for one person, but it’s not that much at all on a global scale.

GCSE study leave, presumably…

Demanding that billionaires help humans who are suffering and can't affoed food isnt the same as asking for money from your in-laws!

Why are you on the thread? Find something else to do. You too @ShutUpJennie

Like, so what i like mumsnet and chat a lot - the rest of you are at it, only name changing 🙄

And even with that money, some people would lose it all within a few months and others would accrue much more.

Socialism is a nice theory but it relies on everyone being prepared to play their part. Spoiler alert - they won’t. You can’t put the capitalist genie back in the bottle any more than you can get people to boycott Amazon and all their AWS hosting etc.

If it’s a choice between using a shopping platform to buy decent goods and have them delivered very quickly or boycotting them at considerable inconvenience, let’s get real…

What do you expect them to do? How can you feed people with shares and intangible assets?

It’s quite naive to think that money would fix this. Corrupt political systems will always exist.

In Naples there is graffiti all over the place saying 'eat the rich'. It's taken me a while to truely understand it on the different levels, but I think I do now. It's a brilliant slogan.
It's makes the point and can be taken literally or figuratively and expresses distaste about the rich whilst also offering a distasteful solution to the issues which, of course, will never been a solution.
The rich aren't the solution to any of societal problems. They wouldn't be so rich if they actually cared about society.

It’s the principle of trying to get something because ‘it’s not fair’ that someone has more than you.

Life isn’t fair. The human race is warmongering and selfish. People make stupid choices in their lives.

No amount of money can cure that.

@user1471453601
How would you like to pay under 4% of your pay in income tax? this is how much Amazon pays on its UK profits in the UK.
does that sound reasonable to you?

What is your solution to make Amazon pay more tax?

Billionaires help create wealth and help employ lots of people who can feed their family.

MH relative is a SWE at Amazon.

Amazon actually do pay tax here. They pay plenty. Any they "avoid" is invested back in to improve the company.

It’s human nature though. If they have amassed a fortune then what’s the point if they are then made to give it away to help people who will be in exactly the same position in a few years?

If everyone on the planet all boycotted Amazon (including all the other services they provide), Bezos could close up shop, sit on his billions and the only ones who suffer are the people that rely on the company to make living (call centres, warehouses, third party sellers etc.

Boycotts for the reason suggested here don’t work.

How is it different?

Same tantrum.

The internet isn’t a human right

Sorry OP, you sound like me at thirteen before I had any clue about how the world works.

Bill gates is giving away most of his money to benefit the poorest in society (eg malaria vaccines) but famine is mostly political unrest related to be honest

We will all do what we always do - try to get through life as well as we can and understand that compassion fatigue is real and not lose sleep over things that will never change.

😬😬😬😬 Yes - I used to have all the answers too 🤣

I think we’re now at a stage where it is essentially impossible to boycott Amazon anyway. You might be able to avoid buying stuff from Amazon directly, but good luck functioning in society without using AWS. They run a significant portion of the internet.

I'm not saying I have the answers

But the belief that its absurd that we have billionaires when such poverty exists doesnt make me 12 years old.

Are you drinking

For this, read Gambling on Development and the Bottom Billion; both are great books. Aid only gets you so far in development; a huge part of it is down to the local elite not capturing the institutions and deciding they will do better by being the people who ensure that the institutions and the rule of law are working. The richest can do some good - see Bill Gates - but with all his money, they have only got so far.

Gabriel Zucman has interesting ideas around taxing wealth not work.
he proposes a 2% wealth tax with debate over starting level but he gives an example of 100 million dollars worth of wealth. Their wealth would continue to grow eg at 8% per annum rather than 10% and the tax yielded could fund civic society and health Service . He makes argument that they didn’t create the wealth from nothing - they’re a product of and benefit from society.