Notices by Pauline von Hellermann (pvonhellermannn@mastodon.green), page 9

#FollowTheMoney 🧵 6/n This is important: in contrast to most other Central Banks, which simply sit out losses, the Bank of England has an indemnity arrangement requiring the Treasury to cover its losses. This has resulted in £38-£40 billion going in effect from taxpayers to private banks in 2023, and same this year. Adding a second hashtag: #SEEtheOligarchy

FT article only for subscribers, I know (i get it through work). Here screenshots of key passages.

https://on.ft.com/4bUtp80

#FollowTheMoney 🧵 7/n Now something different - this really is a rag bag, really just adding things as they come along, occur to me, no careful crafting! Just things that enable you to trace and understand how money flows to the rich, how accumulation works. So here, a piece, with this fantastic map, of second homes in the UK, in #Cornwall in particular. Key arena of widening #WealthGap #Inequality

https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2024/mar/06/were-on-a-cliff-edge-cornish-village-where-52-of-houses-are-not-first-homes?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

#SEEtheOligarchy

#FollowTheMoney 🧵 8/n Adding here a (somewhat sweary, apologies) Politics Joe interview with Gary Stevenson (see 1/n), talking about the rapid increase in inequality in the UK and the world, and also about how we need to make people SEE THIS. They need to realise that the reason their lives are shit, that they can't get houses, is growing inequality. Because the system is set up to make money flow to the rich. Everyone needs to understand this. #SEETheOligarchy

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DVvoyRpxG-A

#FollowTheMoney 🧵 11/n Another key area money flows away from are local councils and social services and, therefore, the young and, again, community. In Birmingham, whose council declared bankruptcy in 2023, provisions for children will be cut by £52m in 2024-25 and £63m in 2025-26; youth services by £2.3m; and eleven community centres are being sold off. As John Harris says:

The state is abandoning its people

#UKPolitics #Birmingham #Austerity

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/mar/17/birmingham-britain-state-cuts-austerity-local-services

#ClimateDiary

“In a drastic attempt to protect their beachfront homes, residents in Salisbury, Massachusetts, invested $500,000 in a sand dune to defend against encroaching tides. After being completed last week, the barrier made from 14,000 tons of sand lasted just 72 hours before it was completely washed away”

#massachusetts #CoastalErosion

https://www.thedailybeast.com/dollar500k-dune-designed-to-protect-massachusetts-homes-last-just-3-days

@chargrille @aral It is straight out of #HungerGames

UK: Prime Minister's speech about peaceful protests is 'deeply worrying' | Amnesty International UK https://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/uk-prime-ministers-speech-about-peaceful-protests-deeply-worrying

RIP Aaron Bushnell. 25

“I will no longer be complicit in genocide” 💔

#AaronBushnell #Gaza

The #ICJ ruling followed so swiftly by 11 countries withdrawing funding from the #UNRWA (ie, cutting aid reaching Gaza) is despicable beyond words.

I have never ever felt so profoundly alienated. From those in power in my countries (UK and Germany) from the majority consensus, from my family. We are not the good ones.

👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏 👏
The president of Namibia, Hage Geingob, taking a strong, fantastic lead in speaking out against "Germany's inability to learn from its horrific history".

Full text of the Namibian statement below.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-africa-67974067

@fkamiah17 @latelesley

I am watching both full of gratitude that Institutions like the #ICJ exist, full of admiration for #SouthAfrica, but also full of fear, a lot of fear, that the case will not lead to any change in Gaza but to diminishing the power of the ICJ etc and the overall crisis of multilateralism. Let’s hope i am wrong

#ClimateDiary #Gaza

The planet-warming emissions generated during the first two months of the war in Gaza were greater than the annual carbon footprint of more than 20 of the world’s most climate-vulnerable nations, new research reveals.

Another reason why Greta is, of course, right. No #ClimateJustice without peace

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/jan/09/emissions-gaza-israel-hamas-war-climate-change?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

It is just unbelievably awful. All supported by the liberal world order. #Gaza

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/dec/09/civilian-toll-israeli-airstrikes-gaza-unprecedented-killing-study?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

@aral 😄 this little story really cheered me up just now! Perfect antidote to unpleasant messages

@aral thank you for sharing this. Really dispiriting to read, and quite something that you already went through all this in 2017. What are your thoughts now - it looks like even now Yanis and others in DiEM25 are still happy to use technofeudalist platforms?

Interesting piece by Carole #Cadwalladr on Yanis #Varoufakis’s latest book, “Technofeudalism: what killed capitalism”.

Maybe #Technofeudalism is its latest reincarnation rather than the end of #Capitalism, but a good term nonetheless to describe our age. Just a shame that neither Varoufakis nor Cadwalladr seem to have made it to #Mastodon yet (maybe not even left #X? I don’t know) - maybe soon

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/sep/24/yanis-varoufakis-technofeudalism-capitalism-ukraine-interview?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

I am sorry but i absolutely refuse to follow live updates or take any interest in what happens to three #Billionaire tourists or whatever on a luxury thrill-seeking, super-expensive, super-unnecessary fun thing, when over 500 people (including many children) are feared dead after #Tragedy in Mediterranean and we never had live coverage or frontpage news on it. (And yes of course this is sad too but the difference in concern is just so wrong)

#ClimateDiary

Leading barristers have defied bar rules by signing a declaration saying they will not prosecute peaceful climate protesters or act for companies pursuing fossil fuel projects.

They are among more than 120 mostly English lawyers who have signed a declaration vowing to “withhold [their] services in respect of supporting new fossil fuel projects and action against climate protesters exercising their right of peaceful protest”. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2023/mar/24/top-lawyers-defy-bar-declare-will-not-prosecute-peaceful-climate-protesters?CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other

@aral I am with you 💯 - it should be purposefully maintained and fostered as a #DigitalCommons. I would love to see far more discussion here about this, and of rules etc we might need to prevent/slowdown/minimise corporate takeover. Also because it opens possibilities for discussion of value of #Commons and #Commoning for other public goods too (eg transport, energy, education, etc). Very curious to hear that fefiverse a stop gap!