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The One Percent | A documentary created by the heir of Johnson & Johnson, who is able to extract candid admissions of the rich's obsession with wealth and power, and how they justify exploitation. (www.youtube.com)

submitted 7 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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[–] Anticorp 22 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago) (1 children)

What's crazy is that this was made in 2011 and the issue is probably 4x more extreme now than it was then. They were already painting the doom scene then. The richest men in the world doubled their wealth after covid, and the poor have become poorer. Each tragedy, each disaster, each economic downturn is a boon for the wealthy, and they use it to extract even more wealth from the societies they leech off of. They steal government funds that were targeted for people, they raise prices, they buy back all of their own stock with our tax money that was meant to prevent layoffs, and a million other unscrupulous actions. And then as you hear in the video, they pat themselves on the back for being exceptionally talented in the most moral system imaginable. Nobody will stop them because the people with the power to stop them benefit from them, and would be crushed by them if they betrayed them. The wealthy have so much power now that they operate under the same "silver or lead" principles that Pablo Escobar did. Take our bribes and let us do what we want, or we'll destroy you. It will get much, much worse before it gets better.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 7 months ago (1 children)

It was made a little earlier, in 2006.

But I agree fully, it's unconscionable how bad things have gotten.

[–] Anticorp 7 points 7 months ago* (last edited 7 months ago)

Ah, okay. It definitely looks like it was made earlier. It was uploaded in 2011, so that's what I was going off of. I just finished watching the whole video, which I didn't expect to do. His father refuses to speak, or even think honestly about the problem. Even at the end when he finally agreed to answer questions, as soon as he started to say something about the pay inequality, he just clammed up and shut down. He seems like a man with a conscience, who has made a choice to never honestly evaluate his position in life, lest he be forced to face enormous guilt. It's great that his son was able to do a lot more than face it.

I have always had a lot of respect for Warren Buffett. He's a self made man, and he pledged most of his wealth to charity. His work with Bill Gates to provide low cost electricity to low income areas is well documented, and I thought was coming from a desire to actually help people and the world. But seeing his reaction to his granddaughter has completely changed my opinion of him. What a vicious and terrible person he must be to disown his own granddaughter simply for speaking honestly about who she is. She didn't even really say anything negative about him. She just did something he didn't want her to do and he lashed out at her in the most destructive way he could envision. What a complete asshole.