#richest country in europe

[banglakhobor]

কাঁড়ি কাঁড়ি টাকা..! গাড়ি-বাংলো-ব্যাঙ্ক ব্যালেন্স..! বিশ্বের সবচেয়ে ধনী 'এই' দেশ

বড়লোকি কী জিনিস এই দেশে এসে দেখুন! আমেরিকা, রাশিয়া, চিন, জার্মানি ও ফ্রান্স বিশ্বের বৃহৎ অর্থনীতি ও শক্তিশালী দেশ হলেও আয়ের দিক থেকে তারা ছোট দেশগুলির চেয়ে পিছিয়ে রয়েছে। বিশ্বাস না হলেও বাস্তবে কিন্তু বিশ্বের ধনী দেশের তালিকায় অনেক পিছিয়ে রয়েছে এই বড় দেশগুলি। চলুন দেখে নেওয়া যাক সেই তালিকা যাতে রয়েছে বিশ্বের সেই ধনী দেশগুলি যারা আয়ের দিক থেকে শক্তিশালী দেশগুলোকে পিছনে ফেলে…

[lgbtlunaverse]

I think a lot of people's perception of "US centrism" on this site is "americans assuming us-specific problems are universal" but i've found it just as often if not more often manifests as the opposite. Usamericans thinking a problem people deal with worldwide (food deserts, late stage capitalism, bigotry) or a problem that did start primarily in the US but has been exported worldwide via cultural imperialism (this particular example is not the us but canada, but I sure did looooove having trucker protests in my country after they got 'inspired' by those in north america /s) are things only they have to deal with. I regularly get tags on this post that say something like 'blame the puritans for ruining american society' or will straight up go '#usa #fuck this country #i bet the rest of the world doesn't have this problem' I am from the Netherlands and have never set foot on the american continent.

[klimanaturali]

Os Países Mais Ricos da Europa (€)

[mapsontheweb]

GDP per capita in Europe, April 2024.

Luxembourg, Ireland, and Switzerland are Europe's Richest Countries

[elbiotipo]

The US isn't a real country. There's 89 towns called Springfield, and another ten with the same name as each town in europe, the judges are allowed to make laws because their legal system is essentially the same as the one used by early medieval germanic chiefdoms, they insist on claiming to be a democracy even though they have an electoral college and only two parties (which are almost as old as the country itself), they're divided into a federation but are more regionally homogenous than Luxembourg, they make such an absurd incredible amount of drama and destruction worldwide over two singular office buildings getting attacked, it's ridiculous. We should ISOT them to the center of the sun so they leave us alone

Don't forget that they use driving licenses as IDs because they built their entire society around cars, they see guns as fashion and status items (though that might be in line with ancient and medieval cultures) and despite being one of the richest societies in history, almost all their cities are ugly and boring.

Also, Donald Trump is a real person instead of a cartoon of a capitalist that came to life.

Someone was very very drunk when they did the worldbuilding of the US.

[mariacallous]

Climate denial may be on the decline, but a phenomenon at least as injurious to the cause of climate protection has blossomed beside it: doomism, or the belief that there’s no way to halt the Earth’s ascendant temperatures. Burgeoning ranks of doomers throw up their hands, crying that it’s too late, too hard, too costly to save humanity from near-future extinction.

There are numerous strands of doomism. The followers of ecologist Guy McPherson, for example, gravitate to wild conspiracy theories that claim humanity won’t last another decade. Many young people, understandably overwhelmed by negative climate headlines and TikTok videos, are convinced that all engagement is for naught. Even the Guardian, which boasts superlative climate coverage, sometimes publishes alarmist articles and headlines that exaggerate grim climate projections.

This gloom-and-doomism robs people of the agency and incentive to participate in a solution to the climate crisis. As a writer on climate and energy, I am convinced that we have everything we require to go carbon neutral by 2050: the science, the technology, the policy proposals, and the money, as well as an international agreement in which nearly 200 countries have pledged to contain the crisis. We don’t need a miracle or exorbitantly expensive nuclear energy to stave off the worst. The Gordian knot before us is figuring out how to use the resources we already have in order to make that happen.

One particularly insidious form of doomism is exhibited in Kohei Saito’s Slow Down: The Degrowth Manifesto, originally published in 2020 and translated from Japanese into English this year. In his unlikely international bestseller, Saito, a Marxist philosopher, puts forth the familiar thesis that economic growth and decarbonization are inherently at odds. He goes further, though, and speculates that the climate crisis can only be curbed in a classless, commons-based society. Capitalism, he writes, seeks to “use all the world’s resources and labor power, opening new markets and never passing up even the slightest chance to make more money.”

Capitalism’s record is indeed damning. The United States and Europe are responsible for the lion’s share of the world’s emissions since the onset of the Industrial Revolution, yet the global south suffers most egregiously from climate breakdown. Today, the richest tenth of the world’s population—living overwhelmingly in the global north and China—is responsible for half of global emissions. If the super-rich alone cut their footprints down to the size of the average European, global emissions would fall by a third, Saito writes.

Saito’s self-stated goals aren’t that distinct from mine: a more egalitarian, sustainable, and just society. One doesn’t have to be an orthodox Marxist to find the gaping disparities in global income grotesque or to see the restructuring of the economy as a way to address both climate breakdown and social injustice. But his central argument—that climate justice can’t happen within a market economy of any kind—is flawed. In fact, it serves next to no purpose because more-radical-than-thou theories remove it from the nuts-and-bolts debate about the way forward.

We already possess a host of mechanisms and policies that can redistribute the burdens of climate breakdown and forge a path to climate neutrality. They include carbon pricing, wealth and global transaction taxes, debt cancellation, climate reparations, and disaster risk reduction, among others. Economies regulated by these policies are a distant cry from neoliberal capitalism—and some, particularly in Europe, have already chalked up marked accomplishments in reducing emissions.

Saito himself acknowledges that between 2000 and 2013, Britain’s GDP increased by 27 percent while emissions fell by 9 percent and that Germany and Denmark also logged decoupling. He writes off this trend as exclusively the upshot of economic stagnation following the Lehman Brothers bankruptcy in 2008. However, U.K. emissions have continued to fall, plummeting from 959 million to 582 million metric tons of carbon dioxide equivalent between 2007 and 2020. The secret to Britain’s success, which Saito doesn’t mention, was the creation of a booming wind power sector and trailblazing carbon pricing system that forced coal-fired plants out of the market practically overnight. Nor does Saito consider that from 1990 to 2022, the European Union reduced its emissions by 31 percent while its economy grew by 66 percent.

Climate protection has to make strides where it can, when it can, and experts acknowledge that it’s hard to change consumption patterns—let alone entire economic systems—rapidly. Progress means scaling back the most harmful types of consumption and energy production. It is possible to do this in stages, but it needs to be implemented much faster than the current plodding pace.

This is why Not the End of the World: How We Can Be the First Generation to Build a Sustainable Planet by Hannah Ritchie, a data scientist at the University of Oxford, is infinitely more pertinent to the public discourse on climate than Saito’s esoteric work. Ritchie’s book is a noble attempt to illustrate that environmental protection to date boasts impressive feats that can be built on, even as the world faces what she concedes is an epic battle to contain greenhouse gases.

Ritchie underscores two environmental afflictions that humankind solved through a mixture of science, smart policy, and international cooperation: acid rain and ozone depletion. I’m old enough to remember the mid-1980s, when factories and power plants spewed out sulfurous and nitric emissions and acid rain blighted forests from the northeastern United States to Eastern Europe. Acidic precipitation in the Adirondacks, my stomping grounds at the time, decimated pine forests and mountain lakes, leaving ghostly swaths of dead timber. Then, scientists pinpointed the industries responsible, and policymakers designed a cap-and-trade system that put a price on their emissions, which forced industry into action; for example, power plants had to fit scrubbers on their flue stacks. The harmful pollutants dropped by 80 percent by the end of the decade, and forests grew back.

The campaign to reverse the thinning of the ozone layer also bore fruit. An international team of scientists deduced that man-made chlorofluorocarbons (CFC) in fridges, freezers, air conditioners, and aerosol cans were to blame. Despite fierce industry pushback, more than 40 countries came together in Montreal in 1987 to introduce a staggered ban on CFCs. Since then, more countries joined the Montreal Protocol, and CFCs are now largely a relic of the past. As Ritchie points out, this was the first international pact of any kind to win the participation of every nation in the world.

While these cases instill inspiration, Ritchie’s assessment of our current crisis is a little too pat and can veer into the Panglossian. The climate crisis is many sizes larger in scope than the scourges of the 1980s, and its antidote—to Saito’s credit—entails revamping society and economy on a global scale, though not with the absolutist end goal of degrowth communism.

Ritchie doesn’t quite acknowledge that a thoroughgoing restructuring is necessary. Although she does not invoke the term, she is an acolyte of “green growth.” She maintains that tweaks to the world’s current economic system can improve the living standards of the world’s poorest, maintain the global north’s level of comfort, and achieve global net zero by 2050. “Economic growth is not incompatible with reducing our environmental impact,” she writes. For her, the big question is whether the world can decouple growth and emissions in time to stave off the darkest scenarios.

Ritchie approaches today’s environmental disasters—air pollution, deforestation, carbon-intensive food production, biodiversity loss, ocean plastics, and overfishing—as problems solvable in ways similar to the crises of the 1980s. Like CFCs and acid rain, so too can major pollutants such as black carbon and carbon monoxide be reined in. Ritchie writes that the “solution to air pollution … follows just one basic principle: stop burning stuff.” As she points out, smart policy has already enhanced air quality in cities such as Beijing (Warsaw, too, as a recent visit convinced me), and renewable energy is now the cheapest form of power globally. What we have to do, she argues, is roll renewables out en masse.

The devil is in making it happen. Ritchie admits that environmental reforms must be accelerated many times over, but she doesn’t address how to achieve this or how to counter growing pushback against green policies. Just consider the mass demonstrations across Europe in recent months as farmers have revolted against the very measures for which Ritchie (correctly) advocates, such as cutting subsidies to diesel gas, requiring crop rotation, eliminating toxic pesticides, and phasing down meat production. Already, the farmers’ vehemence has led the EU to dilute important legislation on agriculture, deforestation, and biodiversity.

Ritchie’s admonishes us to walk more, take public transit, and eat less beef. Undertaken individually, this won’t change anything. But she acknowledges that sound policy is key—chiefly, economic incentives to steer markets and consumer behavior. Getting the right parties into office, she writes, should be voters’ priority.

Yet the parties fully behind Ritchie’s agenda tend to be the Green parties, which are largely in Northern Europe and usually garner little more than 10 percent of the vote. Throughout Europe, environmentalism is badmouthed by center-right and far-right politicos, many of whom lead or participate in governments, as in Finland, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Serbia, Slovakia, and Sweden. And while she argues that all major economies must adopt carbon pricing like the EU’s cap-and-trade system, she doesn’t address how to get the United States, the world’s second-largest emitter, to introduce this nationwide or even expand its two carbon markets currently operating regionally—one encompassing 12 states on the East Coast, the other in California.

History shows that the best way to make progress in the battle to rescue our planet is to work with what we have and build on it. The EU has a record of exceeding and revising its emissions reduction targets. In the 1990s, the bloc had the modest goal of sinking greenhouse gases to 8 percent below 1990 levels by 2008-12; by 2012, it had slashed them by an estimated 18 percent. More recently, the 2021 European Climate Law adjusted the bloc’s target for reducing net greenhouse gas emissions from 40 percent to at least 55 percent by 2030, and the European Commission is considering setting the 2040 target to 90 percent below 1990 levels.

This process can’t be exclusively top down. By far the best way for everyday citizens to counter climate doomism is to become active beyond individual lifestyle choices—whether that’s by bettering neighborhood recycling programs, investing in clean tech equities, or becoming involved in innovative clean energy projects.

Take, for example, “community energy,” which Saito considers briefly and Ritchie misses entirely. In the 1980s, Northern Europeans started to cobble together do-it-yourself cooperatives, in which citizens pooled money to set up renewable energy generation facilities. Many of the now more than 9,000 collectives across the EU are relatively small—the idea is to stay local and decentralized—but larger co-ops illustrate that this kind of enterprise can function at scale. For example, Belgium’s Ecopower, which forgoes profit and reinvests in new energy efficiency and renewables projects, provides 65,000 members with zero-carbon energy at a reduced price.

Grassroots groups and municipalities are now investing in nonprofit clean energy generation in the United States, particularly in California and Minnesota. This takes many forms, including solar fields; small wind parks; electricity grids; and rooftop photovoltaic arrays bolted to schools, parking lots, and other public buildings. Just as important as co-ownership—in contrast to mega-companies’ domination of the fossil fuel market—is democratic decision-making. These start-ups, usually undertaken by ordinary citizens, pry the means of generation out of the hands of the big utilities, which only grudgingly alter their business models.

Around the world, the transition is in progress—and ideally, could involve all of us. The armchair prophets of doom should either join in or, at the least, sit on the sidelines quietly. The last thing we need is more people sowing desperation and angst. They play straight into the court of the fossil fuel industry.

[probablyasocialecologist]

Capping demand from the top fifth, even at a fairly high level, cut greenhouse gas pollution from energy consumption by 9.7%, while raising demand from people in the bottom fifth who also live in poverty to a fairly low level increases emissions by just 1.4%. “We have to start tackling luxury energy use to stay within an equitable carbon budget for the globe,” said Milena Buchs, a professor of sustainable welfare at the University of Leeds and the lead author of the study, published on Monday in the journal Nature Energy, “but also to actually have the energy resources to enable people in fuel poverty to slightly increase their energy use and meet their needs.”

[...]

“The study confirms that energy demand reductions can contribute significantly to climate change mitigation, even as poorer households are lifted out of energy poverty,” said Felix Creutzig, an IPCC author and professor of sustainability economics at the Technical University of Berlin, who was not involved in the study. “High-income, high-education households have more scope and also more capacity in reducing their greenhouse gas emissions – and also carry more responsibility.”

[...]

Studies have shown the global rich – which includes middle-class people in rich countries – play a disproportionate role in heating the planet. In 2015, the top 1% of earners emitted twice as much carbon dioxide as the bottom 50%, according to estimates from the Stockholm Environment Institute and Oxfam. Rich people have more agency to cut their emissions and those of others. A commentary in Nature Energy argued in 2021 that this covered not just how they shop, which the authors stressed was a powerful lever, but also how they act as citizens, investors, role models and workers.

[arrrmagedonnn]

Well i decided to translate my lore article into English soooo I hope you will enjoy it!! Also feel free to ask some questions about them or maybe art requests with them, I will be so happy to answer!

CW: legal slavery, slave whump, conditioned whumpee, self-harm, non-con, abuse (I dont know what to add but I hope you understand vibe)

1. A bit of world building 

The setting is an alternative Europe of the 70s-80s (historical events are different, this is just to understand the general atmosphere and the development of technology). The economy is based on a system of owning and selling slaves, and is under strict control –you can legally buy/sell a slave only through the Central Market, which is located in every city. Market belongs to the Formelle family, which takes a large percentage from each completed sale, and due to this is one of the richest in the country.

The market is divided into several sections, each sells slaves of different “quality". Every Friday there is a Big Auction where exclusive slaves are sold, which cannot be bought just like that. They are considered more elite because of their physical attractiveness, learning to write/read and other skills. On the rest of the week, in the evenings, Small Auctions are held, where slaves are exhibited that have not been sold for a fixed price during the day. The Big Auction and Small Auctions are held on Monday and Wednesday by Mark, on all other days by Fran.

2. Ethan

Ethan is a slave, he was born after his mother (also a slave) was raped by her master. She worked in a large estate, with many servants besides them, so for the first couple of years they did not pay much attention to Ethan, but the more he grew, the more he began to resemble his father in appearance. So, in order to avoid a scandal and the disclosure of the rape story, at the age of 11, Ethan was resold to the other side of the country, to a farm.

He lived and grew up there until he was 17. Everything was quite good – Ethan was not given too hard work and most of the time he was not noticed at all, so he often secretly went for walks in the woods, to the river, and other interesting places near the farm. On one of these walks, he accidentally went a little further than usual, got lost and for two days couldnt find the way back. When he returned, the owners thought he was trying to escape, so they beat him up and then resold him to work in a factory.

It was a textile factory and the conditions there were much worse – constant work for 15-17 hours a day, disgusting living conditions, lack of normal food, and in case of disobedience (which was just weariness), Ethan was punished by being locked in a small dark punishment cell (after that he had a phobia of enclosed dark spaces). At such moments, he began to have a strong derealization, and in order to somehow cope with this, Ethan did not come up with anything better than stealing and carrying sharp cutting objects (needles, blades, pins, scissors) and cutting/stabbing his hands, because the pain helped him return to reality and don't start going crazy.

Ethan worked at the factory for about a year until Mark took him away from there.

By nature, Ethan is modest and intimidated, he tries to be as obedient as possible, even to the detriment of his needs. He has low self–esteem and considers himself fundamentally bad, wrong and broken, and thinks that all violence in his direction is right and deserved.

And some facts:

- Ethan can't read or write, but he can count to 30 and tell the time by the clock.

- Ethan constantly hears voices accusing and insulting him, and he is generally prone to visual, auditory and tactile hallucinations, as well as bouts of derealization.

- Ethan considers ignoring and loneliness much worse than any physical punishment.

- His favorite dessert is sugar cubes

3. Mark

Mark is one of the children of the Formelle family. Thanks to his mother, who indulged his every whim, he grew up spoiled and selfish, used to having everything in the world revolve around him. Because of his character and behavior, his peers did not want to be friends with him, so he either bought the friendship of other children for money, or was surrounded by slaves of his own age (he accidentally killed one of them during a game by throwing a stone at his head, but the next day they just brought a new one to Mark).

After graduating from high school, Mark tried to study at a medical university, but barely mastered the first year. Instead of studying, he preferred going to loud parties, drinking expensive cocktails in bars, going to boutiques with branded clothes and finding other ways to spend his parents' money. After some time, he was forced to work as an auctioneer in order to bring at least some benefit to the family business, but even so he has a lot of time for endless parties and bars.

Since childhood, Mark had a noticeable craving for violence, so when he got older, Mark began to use slaves, originally intended for sale, for his “personal use”. Mark's main fetish is cutting, so that all his slaves either died from wounds and blood loss, or became mutilated to the point that they could not move normally, and their appearance made them unsuitable for resale. Such waste continued for a long time, but in the end, Mark was forbidden to take expensive elite slaves, and instead take cheaper and already used ones, such as Ethan. By the way, Mark chose Ethan for himself only because he saw fresh cuts on him, and he was very amused by how he was hurting himself.

By nature, Mark is very mannered, arrogant, likes to be the center of attention and is fueled by adoration for himself from other people. He has an antisocial personality disorder, so he does not feel empathy for others, except for feigned pity. He likes to control everything and hates it when things don't go the way he intended.

And some facts:

- Mark uses makeup – concealer, concealer, he draws himself small arrows and a mole under his eye, because he heard that it makes the face more symmetrical.

- Mark is a sadomasochist and have ASPD

- His favorite dessert is macaroons

3.1 Mark and Ethan

Ethan lived with Mark for two years, and Mark very quickly won Ethan's love and affection through emotional manipulation. Compared to life at the factory, life with Mark was easier and calmer for Ethan, even despite the constant violence in his direction. Mark convinced Ethan that the process of making cuts makes him “beautiful“ and ”full-fledged", all punishments are done “for the good". In addition, beatings, sex, cuts and forced self-harm always alternated with affection, care and words of love, which made Ethan want violence against himself, because after it there would be a pleasant, comfortable part.

Their "relationship" lasted until Mark thought it was a funny idea to fuck Ethan in the eye socket. Before that, Ethan was already physically weak due to the constant mutilation, and after that he finally broke down, constantly just lying, sleeping, crying, and did not show the same emotions as before. Mark tried to sell him, but he couldn't find anyone willing to buy the exhausted, half-dead one-eyed slave, so Mark gave Ethan to his friend, Rafe.

4. Raf (Rafael)

Rafael is a childhood friend of Mark, but unlike him, he does not come from a rich family. His father left the family, Francesca's mother worked a lot and almost did not raise her son, so from childhood Raf was more serious and independent than his peers.

Raf's mother and Mark's father communicated closely, so the children spent a lot of time with each other. Raf was the only one whose friendship Mark couldn't buy, and who didn't suck up to him because of his status. They often quarreled, fought, reconciled, fought again, but in the end they remained close friends for many years to come. Rafe was and remains the only one whom Mark considers his equal, and whose opinion and attitude he cares at least a little.

After graduating from school, Raf dreamed of going to medical school with Mark, but he failed to enroll in budget education, and there was not enough money for paid education. Instead, Raf graduated as an economist and got a job at a regular office position.

By nature, Raf is quite balanced, restrained and serious. He suffers from workaholism and insomnia. Long-term communication with people quickly exhausts him, it is difficult for him to make new friends and even acquaintances.

And some facts:

- In high school and before the first years of university, Rof dated Mark's cousin, Lillian. They parted on quite a good note, realizing that they were not suitable for each other.

- Raf is always haunted by the thought that he is not doing "enough" – not working hard enough, not trying hard enough, and in an attempt to feel satisfied with the completion of some project, he can work continuously for several days in a row.

- Raf has a british cat, Lala, which he picked up from the street (in fact, she went into the house herself and refused to leave). Lala is not very sociable and grumpy, often bites and scratches if you try to pet her.

- Rafe likes to watch true-edge shows on TV and read detective stories, in which the reader is invited to find the killer along with the main character.

- Collects stamps and smoking pipes. - He cooks well, but because of work, he has almost no time for it.

4.1 Raf and Mark

Raf and Mark still communicate well and often, despite the difference in characters. After Rafe broke up with Lillian, Mark suggested that he start dating, but after the recent breakup, Rafe agreed only to a "relationship without a relationship" – they have sex, romance, but they do not call an official relationship.

4.2 Raf and Ethan

As I said above, Mark decided to give Ethan to Raf. Rafe himself has been extremely negative about the slavery system since childhood and does not support it, so he agreed to take Ethan only because he would not have lived long in any other place because of his weakened condition. Ethan will need a long time to get used to the new conditions, especially in contrast after living with Mark. For example, Ethan is used to being punished for any oversight, and if he doesn't, then he needs to harm himself on his own, and Rafe won't understand the reasons for this behavior for a long time.

weeeeell thats all!! I know that the article is a bit crooked and my English is not so good, but I tried my best!!

[heavenlybackside]

THE FACE OF THE STATUE OF LIBERTY

How did the widow of the creator of the Singer sewing machines give her face to the Statue of Liberty?

Isabella Boyer's life is like a thrilling novel. She was born in Paris, in a family of an African pastry chef father and an English mother. Her name was Isabella, a beautiful name that should have been the basis of a beautiful destiny. It quickly became clear that nature gave Isabella a special beauty.

At 20, she marries sewing machine maker Isaac Singer, 50, and after his death becomes the richest woman in the country. And no wonder she was chosen as the model for the Statue of Liberty, because she embodies the American dream come true. After becoming a widow, Isabella began traveling the world, seeking new knowledge and exciting challenges, far too young to be buried under mourning clothes.

She remarried Dutch violinist Victor Robstett, who is a world celebrity and an earl, so Isabella also becomes a countess. Soon Isabella becomes the star of showrooms in America and Europe, and is invited to all world events. At one of them, she met the famous French sculptor Frederick Bartoldi. At the time, Bartoldi was strongly impressed by his trip to the United States, by the size of the country, by its natural resources, by the population there, and had already accepted the proposal to create a statue symbolizing the independence of the United States. The sculpture was supposed to be a gift from France in honor of the 100th anniversary of the country's independence. Thus the idea of a giant statue depicting a woman holding a torch in one hand and plates in the other was born, with the date of adoption of the Declaration of Independence of the United States.

Bartoldi was so impressed by Isabella's face that he decided to use it as a model for his sculpture. Therefore, on Bedlow Island in the Gulf of New York, the Statue of Liberty was erected with the figure of an ancient goddess, but with the face of Isabella Boyer.

Isabella marries for the third time, at the age of 50, to Paul Sohege, a famous collector of art.

She died in Paris in 1904 at age 62. She is buried in Passy Cemetery.

But the statue with her face continues to rise over Bedlow Island, symbolizing America's first pride, freedom.

[fancyfeathers]

Society of Protection, prologue (Yandere Bungo Stray Dogs x reader x original characters)

A/N-this is a series I’m gonna be starting here and on my ao3, this is an au of sorts where being a yandere is socially acceptable

The Society of Protection…

An organization in Europe made up of ability users, all members are prominent figures in the European social scene. A heiress of one of the richest families in Britain, a famous composer of the Paris Opera House, a genius doctor from the British countryside, a French architect behind the designs of palaces and churches, a young man from a rich family in the countryside of France who seeks out adventure and secrets in unknown corners of the world.

This may seem like some social club on the outside, for the elite and their close friends, but it was much more than that. That heiress, Jane Austen, is using her family’s fortune to help darlings sneak out of the country to other places to hide. That composer, Gaston Leroux, uses the catacombs of Paris to guide darlings to safe houses and out of the city if needed. That genius, Dr. R.L. Stevenson, is giving medical treatment to darlings so they can avoid a public place where they could easily be spotted. The architect, Victor Hugo, designs his buildings with secret rooms and tunnels for these runaway darlings to hide in and stay safe before either Gaston Leroux comes to lead them out of Paris or until that young man, Alexander Dumas comes along with fake documents to smuggle them somewhere safe and covering it up as one of his adventures.

They are able to see past their cultural blindness they were raised in to reach out a hand to help those who need a safe place. A group untied under a common purpose and message of kindness, because they don’t want to end up as a darling themselves.

Now they all sit in Miss Jane Austen’s summer home in the outskirts of Paris, in the drawing room. They sit and chat over a cup of tea that the maid pours, all seeming like a simple group of friends, but when the maid leaves the atmosphere changes. Now they are coworkers discussing business. Gaston sets his tea cup on the table and clears his throat. “Now we have business to attend to. I have received work that The Guild has set up base in Yokohama, Japan. Normally I wouldn’t care about such matters but with three power organizations, The Armed Detective Agency and Port Mafia, in one spot it is bound to become a war zone and who knows what would happen to the darlings there.”

There is a chuckle heard from across the table from Dr. Stevenson who shakes her head with a hum. “You say this like we are not darlings ourselves, but that is besides the point. I’m guessing you want us to deal with this? Who would be your choice? Alexander? Jane? Victor?”

Gaston only smirks in reply and says…

”All of us.”

(characters beneath the cut)

Jane Austen (she/her)

The head and founder of the Society of protection.

Age: 39

Sexuality: bisexual

Gaston Leroux (he/they)

Member of the Society of Protection

Age: 25

Sexuality: Pansexual

Dr. R.L Stevenson (she/they)

member of the Society of Protection

Age: 34

Sexuality: bisexual with a preference towards woman

Victor Hugo (he/him)

Member of the Society of Protection

Age: 21

Sexuality: straight (ally)

Alexander Dumas (he/him)

Member of the Society of Protection

Age: 19

Sexuality: bisexual with a preference towards men

picrew credit- https://picrew.me/en/image_maker/1564386

[leroibobo]

the portugese synagogue in amsterdam in the netherlands. it was founded in 1675.

while most expelled sephardic jews headed to the maghreb, ottoman territories in the middle east and eastern europe, or european colonies around the world, a minority went elsewhere in western europe, mainly to england or the netherlands. the sephardic community in the latter became the largest and richest in europe during the dutch golden age. despite the netherlands' proximity to germany, they predate the arrival of ashkenazi jews to the country by about three centuries.

[klimanaturali]

Os Países Mais Ricos da Europa (€)

[workersolidarity]

🌍 🏦💵 🚨

FIVE RICHEST BILLIONAIRES DOUBLE THEIR WEALTH SINCE 2020 WHILE 5 BILLION ARE MADE POORER

Oxfam International, a British-founded International Charitable organization based in Nairobi, Kenya, says the world's richest people have managed to double their wealth since 2020, as 5 billion people are made poorer as a result of a "decade of division."

Oxfam made the claims in a press release on its recently published report released Monday, January 15th on inequality and global corporate power called "Inequality Inc."

According to Oxfam, the world's richest people have more than doubled their wealth from $405 billion to $869 billion since 2020, a rate equivelent to $14 million per hour, while approximately 5 billion people have been made poorer in the same time period.

"If current trends continue," the statement says, "the world will have its first trillionaire within a decade but poverty won't be eradicated for another 229 years."

Oxfam looks to the Davos gathering of the world's largest corporations, pointing to the valuations of the top ten largest companies, together worth more than $10.2 trillion.

“We’re witnessing the beginnings of a decade of division, with billions of people shouldering the economic shockwaves of pandemic, inflation and war, while billionaires’ fortunes boom. This inequality is no accident; the billionaire class is ensuring corporations deliver more wealth to them at the expense of everyone else,” Oxfam's International interim Executive Director Amitabh Behar is quoted as saying.

“Runaway corporate and monopoly power is an inequality-generating machine: through squeezing workers, dodging tax, privatizing the state, and spurring climate breakdown, corporations are funneling endless wealth to their ultra-rich owners. But they’re also funneling power, undermining our democracies and our rights. No corporation or individual should have this much power over our economies and our lives —to be clear, nobody should have a billion dollars”.

According to Oxfam, Billionaires increased their wealth by $3.3 trillion since 2020, a growth rate three times faster than inflation.

Oxfam adds that, despite representing just 21% of the global population, the countries of the Global North own 69% of global wealth, with Global North countries home to 74% of global billionaire wealth.

Further, the top 1% own 43% of all global financial assets, with billionaires owning 48% of wealth in the Middle East, 50% in Asia, and 47% in Europe.

In addition to overall wealth, 148 of the world's largest corporations raked in $1.8 trillion in total net profits, a 52% increase over the period from 2018-2021.

Corporate windfalls increased to nearly $700 billion, with the report finding that for every $100 in profits made by the top 96 major corporations between July 2022 and June 2023, $82 was paid out to wealthy shareholders.

Oxfam International interim Executive Director Amitabh Behar says that “Monopolies harm innovation and crush workers and smaller businesses. The world hasn’t forgotten how pharma monopolies deprived millions of people of COVID-19 vaccines, creating a racist vaccine apartheid, while minting a new club of billionaires."

The Oxfam press release goes on to point our that people are working harder and for longer, often for poverty wages in unsafe jobs, adding that the wages of nearly 800 million people have not kept up with inflation, losing $1.5 trillion in value over the last two years, the equivalent of nearly a month's lost wages for each individual worker.

Oxfam also found that, of the 1'600 largest companies, less than 0.4% of them are publicly committed to paying employees a living wage.

Oxfam shows how a "war on taxation" by large corporations has pushed the effective tax rates on corporations to fall by a third in recent decades, while relentless privitization of public services like education and water services have expanded massively.

“We have the evidence. We know the history. Public power can rein in runaway corporate power and inequality —shaping the market to be fairer and free from billionaire control. Governments must intervene to break up monopolies, empower workers, tax these massive corporate profits and, crucially, invest in a new era of public goods and services,” said Behar.

“Every corporation has a responsibility to act but very few are. Governments must step up. There is action that lawmakers can learn from, from US anti-monopoly government enforcers suing Amazon in a landmark case, to the European Commission wanting Google to break up its online advertising business, and Africa’s historic fight to reshape international tax rules.”

Oxfam offers three notes on how governments can rectify the situation, including the following:

🔹 Revitalizing the state. A dynamic and effective state is the best bulwark against extreme corporate power. Governments should ensure universal provision of healthcare and education, and explore publicly-delivered goods and public options in sectors from energy to transportation.

🔹 Reining in corporate power, including by breaking up monopolies and democratizing patent rules. This also means legislating for living wages, capping CEO pay, and new taxes on the super-rich and corporations, including permanent wealth and excess profit taxes. Oxfam estimates that a wealth tax on the world’s millionaires and billionaires could generate $1.8 trillion a year.

🔹 Reinventing business. Competitive and profitable businesses don’t have to be shackled by shareholder greed. Democratically-owned businesses better equalize the proceeds of business. If just 10 percent of US businesses were employee-owned, this could double the wealth share of the poorest half of the US population, including doubling the average wealth of Black households.

#source

@WorkerSolidarityNews

[racefortheironthrone]

A Guildsman Goes Forth to War, Inciting Event and Main Characters

Inciting Event:

The city of Brugghe is one of the largest and richest in all of Europe. It is a center of vertically- and horizontally-integrated textile production in wool, cotton, linen, and silk, and the people wear their reputation on their richly-dyed, patterned, and embroidered backs. As the northernmost of the cloth fairs that stretch all the way from Gallia to the southernmost reaches of the ancient Kingdom of Lotharingia), and the confluence of the North Sea and the Rhine, Brugghe is a natural entrepôt between the merchants of the Hansa and the commercial republics of the Lega, and thus one of the leading financial centers on the Continent.

A bustling cosmopolis of two hundred thousand souls, with a lively Foreign Quarter representing merchants and bankers from Portugal and the Basques to a half-dozen Lega republics to representatives of the Sublime Porte. In Brugghe, even the poorest and least educated rural migrants are bilingual (even if they insist on speaking only Gallician or Imperial), a respectable burgher is expected to speak at least four, and a man is considered educated only if he speaks six. A center of the printing trade (and thanks to its dyeing industry, a lively art scene), it is an unusually literate city, only more so thanks to the recently-established University.

For the last thirty years, the city has been ruled by the tolerant but firm hand of Baron Froederick van Zonder Vrees, although for the last ten the day-to-day governance has been conducted in his name by his significantly younger wife due to a long and lingering illness that has forced the Baron to a sickbed and (accoridng to reports) to his deathbed. Although by all reports a loving and capable partnership, the Baron and Baronness are childless. If the Baron should pass, what shall become of Brugghe?

Main Characters:

Margrit van Zonder Vrees (née Marguerite de Corbenic), Baronness of Brugghe

The daughter of a noble family from Brittany (with extended ties to Cornwall and south Wales) with a strong Gentry heritage of elfkind, Margrit (or Marguerite, depending on whether she's speaking in Gallician or Imperial) was sent to the Burgundian court following a romantic indescretion in her youth, where she became one of the court beauties and a poetess beside, reknowned for the strength of her Glamour and wit alike.

At the age of twenty, she was married to the significantly older Froederick van Zonder Vrees as part of diplomatic efforts to maintain Gallician/Imperial harmony in the Low Countries. Despite the age gap between the two, Froederick came to respect his bride's surprisingly well-educated mind and supported her patronage of the newly-founded University and the city's cultural industries, while Margrit came to admire her husband's commitment to light-handed and tolerant governance that had seen Brugghe reach heights of prosperity that it had not seen since the collapse of the Flemish revolt.

When Froederick began to fall ill, Margrit smoothly gained influence within the Baronial Council of State that governed the city until she became the Regent in all but name. At the outset of A Guildsman Goes Forth to War, Marguerite's dilemma is that she has no child to pass the title to upon her husband's death - and due to the complicated mix of family intermarriages, there will be claimants from both the Kingdom of Gallia and the Sacrum Imperium.

[Need to find a good picture]

Ludovico "Malasangue," Captain-General of the Bonafortuna Mercenary and Insurance Company, graduate of the University of Padua, and guildsman of the Arte dei Giudici e Notai of Florentia.

The younger son of the Bilancia banking family, Ludovico was the subject of considerable scandal, for from birth it was quite clear that he was Gentry-born of some rare and unknown lineage, while neither his mother nor his father had any such connexions. A brawler of violent temper, Ludovico was packed off to Padua by his decidely chilly and aloof father to avoid embarrassment - and to ensure that he would have a career that would avoid any interference with his older (some would say "legitimate") brother's inheritance of the family business.

The curriculum at the great university of the hills seemed to calm the intemperate youth and Ludo proved to be quite adept at both the Old Learning of the trivium et quadrivium, the New Learning of the studia humanitatis, and his chosen degree in Law. It was widely expected that, upon his graduation and return to the city of his birth, he would take up a respectable and conventional career in the leading Arti Maggiori. Thus, it came as something of a surprise when instead Ludovico and some of his university friends announced the formation of a new kind of mercenary company.

The Bonafortuna Mercenary and Insurance Company would be made up not of impoverished noblemen and ambitious peasants, but entirely of urban guildsmen recruited from among the Lega. In times of peace, the Company would make its income from providing a comprehensive suite of services from messenger and parcel post to commercial and residential insurance to private security, to individual and municipal clients alike - with significant discounts for joint customers of the condottieri side of the business.

[communist-ojou-sama]

What's like the point of insisting that black people in the USA (&probably Europe but that's not what the discourse is about) don't benefit from imperialism other than feeling good? Like when they annoy bloggers for generalizing people of the USA the topic of discussion is most of the time either actions of the state itself or dominant culture. Demanding people to specify "white" is somewhat obnoxious to non-Americans, but it doesn't change the points in the slightest (sometimes it's even fair when it comes to say settler mentality, probably also when it comes to religion).

Black people constitute 13(?)% of USA population and are in fact mostly poor, so even if we completely ignore their participation in imperialism it doesn't change things, so it's not even meaningful sabotage.

I am not American so I probably don't know how it affects movements inside, but it really feels pointless.

(In fact the only people whom I saw be really offended by it are black people not from USA, so like. Also by obnoxious I meant that I saw them accuse of racism for not specifying "white Americans" people who are not white in the first place, because it feels like "you have to know the internal complexities of my country while I can not know anything about your")

I understand the well-meaning nature of this ask, so I'm going to try my best to reply in kind in the spirit of good faith. First and foremost the thing that people need to get updated on is that most black USians are not poor. Less than 20% of black people in the US live below the federal poverty line, a little over 17%. That is in fact about twice the poverty rate of White USians, and the federal poverty line certainly does not represent the increasing hardships brought upon Especially black people by the de-industrialization and precaritization of the US economy, but even adjusting for that, the fact of the matter is, most of us Are Not Poor. Poverty is widespread enough in our communities that there's almost no one among us that doesn't know someone in our family or social circle that does live in crushing poverty, but that is not the reality of Most of our day-to-day lives. And that's the thing that makes me mad, instead its the laundering of the suffering of people we See in our lives that is being used to win internet arguments and be petty bullies. Perhaps excluding the very richest Black USians, blackness is absolutely something that leaves us potentially marked for execution at any time and within the US we face constant institutional abuse and deprivation, most notably in medical settings; there's no denying we're at the rock bottom of the US's vicious and brutal racial caste system.

However, where is this reality any different for black people? If you compare the PPP-adjusted GDP per capita of Black USians to, for example, Black Ayitians, Black Jamaicans, Black Brazilians, Afro-Latinos, and indeed Black Africans, the reality is that while we're still black, we're by far the richest black community in the world, and how did we get so much richer than other Black communities? It's through our bitchass "community leaders" who have done nothing for decades but push class collaborationism and "black capitalism" in the community, collaborationism with global white-supremacist fascism, in the wake of the systematic destruction of the radical Black liberation movements of the 1960s and 1970s.

[scotianostra]

September *1st 1720 saw the official marriage ceremony of Prince James Francis Edward Stuart and the Polish Princess Maria Clementina Sobieska.

*dates differ a wee bit

The marriage took place at the Italian Cathedral of Monte Fiascone, and the union led to the birth of Charles Stewart in Rome in 1720. Maria Clementina Sobieska was one of Europe’s richest heiresses and brought the Stuarts a cash injection.

The Polish Princess had been kidnapped on her way to the original wedding the preceding year to “The Old Pretender”. She escaped, and had married James by proxy when he was away trying to raise support for the 1719 Rising. After the Uprising was quashed, Jacobite hopes were raised in the form of the infant (Bonnie) Prince Charles.

After his marriage James took up residence in Rome at the Palazzo Muti, also known as Palazzo Stuart He also maintained a country residence at Palazzo Savelli in Albano, about 25 kilometres south of Rome. He was well received by the Italian nobility who were very happy to give him hospitality in their homes. James regularly travelled to Bogna and other towns where he was received with full royal honours. He maintained a court worthy of his rank thanks to pensions paid by the Holy See and by France, as well as thanks to many legacies which he received from cardinals and Italian nobles.

Maria died on 18th January 1735 aged just 32, James never remarried.

On December 23rd, 1743, James appointed his elder son Charles, Prince Regent, two years later Charles made his attempt to restore the Stuarts to their rightful position.

James died in the Palazzo Muti (now Palazzo Balestra) in Rome, January 1st, 1766, when he was succeeded in all his British rights by his elder son Charles.

James and Maria are interred at St Peters Basilica in Vatican City, later their sons Charles and Henry were also “buried” in the Monument to the Stuarts.