The poor and middle pay taxes, the rich pay accountants, the very rich pay lawyers – and the ultra-rich pay politicians. It’s not an original remark, but it bears repeating until everyone has heard it. The more money billionaires accumulate, the greater their control of the political system – which means they pay less tax, which means they accumulate more, which means their control intensifies.
They reshape the world to suit their demands. One of the symptoms of the pathology known as “billionaire brain” is an inability to see beyond their own short-term gain. They would sack the planet for a few more stones on the pointless mountain of wealth. And we can see it happening. Last week delivered the biggest news of the year so far, perhaps the biggest news of the century. But partly because billionaires own most of the media, most people never heard it. We might find ourselves committed to a civilisation-ending event before we even learn that such a thing is possible.
The news is that the state of a crucial oceanic circulation system has been reassessed by scientists. Some now believe that, as a result of climate breakdown changing the temperature and salinity of seawater, it is more likely than not to collapse. This system – known as the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation (Amoc) – delivers heat from the tropics to the North Atlantic. Recent research suggests that if it shuts down, it could cause both a massive drop in average winter temperatures in northern Europe and drastic changes in the Amazon’s water cycles. This could help tip the rainforest into cascading collapse and trigger further disaster.
Amoc’s shutdown is likely also to cause an acceleration of sea level rise on the east coast of the US, threatening cities. It could also raise Antarctic temperatures by roughly 6C and release a vast pulse of carbon currently stored in the Southern Ocean, accelerating climate catastrophe.
India on Thursday criticised as inappropriate a post by Donald Trump in which he shared comments that called the South Asian country a “hellhole”.
A White House photo celebrating a champion women’s sports team has drawn backlash due to the positioning of Donald Trump and a group of men, who overshadowed the female athletes by lining up in front of them.
As he attempts to wind down the regional war in the Middle East he kicked off in February by joining Israel in attacking Iran, Donald Trump just hosted the ambassadors of Lebanon and Israel in the Oval Office, and invited television cameras in to capture the foreign officials praising him.
A US soldier who played a role in the January capture of Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro is now in custody after allegedly cashing in over $400,000 on wagers about the politician’s removal from office, federal authorities announced on Thursday.
Iran flaunted its tightened grip over the Strait of Hormuz on Thursday with a video of commandos in a speedboat storming a huge cargo ship, after the collapse of peace talks that Washington had hoped would open one of the world’s most important shipping corridors.
The Justice Department’s Office of Inspector General says it will audit the department’s compliance with a law mandating the public release of the Epstein files.
The highest levels of the federal government are paying attention to a list of people who have gone missing or died, citing concerns about their connections to scientific research, some of it potentially classified.
Prominent Lebanese journalist Amal Khalil was killed on Wednesday in what appeared to be a targeted attack by the Israeli military in the town of Tyre in southern Lebanon. Her employer, Al-Akhbar, confirmed the death of their correspondent Wednesday evening.
