Eric Roux-Fontaine (French, b. 1966, Savoy, France, based Lyon, France) - 1: Cosmogonie 2: The Stars 3: La Belle Saison, 2018 4: Stellar 5: Cosmologie 6: Gold Fish, 2010 7: Light Song 8: Horizon Line 9: Chant Magnètique, 2014 from Lunar Park Paintings: Mixed Media on Canvas MoreMore
So you are saying 0% of the world should be billionaires?
Yes.
Why shouldn’t their be billionaires? That makes no sense.
Because the existence of billionaires is predicated on the exploitation of human labor and unsustainable environmental harm. That level of wealth hoarding is harmful to economies, as it reduces the amount of money in circulation. No one person, no family, could ever conceivably even SPEND a billion dollars anyway, and it is inherently immoral to accumulate wealth so narrowly while so much of the world lives in abject poverty.
Better then to create a wealth ceiling, a point at which all wealth over a certain point is taxed at or very near 100% to incentivize people to actually spend their money rather than hoard it, stimulating the economy and bettering the lives of far more people. Better even still to create and regulate economic systems that protect workers and the environment in a way that such extreme levels of wealth accumulation aren’t even feasible.
The problem with this is that it reduces the incentive to actually do fiscally well. What’s the point of starting a business if you can’t become wealthy?
There is a very real difference between “reasonably wealthy” and A BILLIONAIRE
No one is saying you shouldn’t have a nice house, we are saying that having multiple really, really ridiculously nice houses while your employees are either homeless or at serious risk of becoming homeless is immoral.
I’ll never understand why this concept is hard for people. I think it’s because they can’t actually fathom how much $1 Billion is.
Seriously.
Let’s say you have a badass job. A great job. You make $100 AN HOUR. You work 10 hours a day ($1000 A DAY), 5 days a week ($5000 a week!!!), every week ($20,000 A MONTH), thats $240,000 Every Year.
It would take you 4,167 years to make a billion dollars.
Keep in mind then, that if you got paid $1000 an hour, 10 hours a day, five days a week, every week, all year, it would still take over 400 years to make a billion.
You want to make one billion in a human lifetime? If you made $10,000 an HOUR, 10 hours a day, 5 days a week, every week, all year, it would take you 41 years to hit a billion.
(And that’s not counting, ya know, money you spend to stay alive on food or rent or anything. )
Guy Billout (French, b. 1941, Decize, France) - 1: Panic 2: Couple in the Maze 3: No Diving 4:
Oil Forever 5:
Flexibility 6:
Future 7: Continuity Ink and Airbrush on Paper
“Where you come from is gone, where you thought you were going to was never there, and where you are is no good unless you can get away from it. Where is there a place for you to be? No place […] Nothing outside you can give you any place […] In yourself right now is all the place you’ve got.”
Flannery O'Connor, from Wise Blood (Harcourt, Brace, & Co., 1952)
A black, female, lgbt city counselor was shot dead in Rio last night.
A black, female, lgbt city counselor that came from a poor neighborhood and used her position to defend all those causes was shot dead in Rio last night.
They fired 9 times towards her car. They hit her in the head more than once.
A city counselor was shot dead in Rio last night, with more than one gunshot to her head. Her driver, too, shot in the back.
A city counselor that had just created a way to investigate on the military intervention in Rio last week - a city counselor that had just unveiled yet more cases of police violence - was assassinated in Rio last night.
If you’re not scared for Brazilians right now you’re not paying enough attention.
Her name is Marielle Franco.
She was the 5th most voted city counselor in Rio’s 2016 elections.
She fought hard and deeply for all human rights, for her own people.
She was calling attention to every despicable thing the military and police were doing in poor neighborhoods, to all the young poor black people being murdered.
She was was an important voice. She was an activist.
She was executed in cold blood after leaving an event called “Young black women moving the structures”.
Her voice is echoing through all of our voices now.
Geoffrey Johnson (American, b. 1965, Greensboro, NC, USA) - 1: Interior Charleston 2: Untitled, 2017 3:
View From Tudor City Place, 2017 4:
Red with Gold, 2018 5:
Evening Central Park, 2018 Paintings: Oil on Canvas/Panel
