Billionaire Space Race Fight

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They need to pay their share of taxes.
Oddly enough it was being arrested for tax fraud that forced a young Branson to learn how to run a business. Having been busted the what was then the UK Customs & Excise department (the old joke being thatif you owe money to the Inland Revenue all they’d do is have you jailed, if you owed it to the C&E they’d be just as likely to kill you and take your soul in partial replayment), he was left in a predicament of either paying back the equivilent of around £750,000, or going to jail for an extended period.

Given the former was going to keep him on the streets he had to learn the hard way how to run his London record store the right way, and used the legal profits to back back HM Government.

Of course, that was then. Now he’s probably jumping through tax hoops most of us can only dream of.
 

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Oddly enough it was being arrested for tax fraud that forced a young Branson to learn how to run a business. Having been busted the what was then the UK Customs & Excise department (the old joke being thatif you owe money to the Inland Revenue all they’d do is have you jailed, if you owed it to the C&E they’d be just as likely to kill you and take your soul in partial replayment), he was left in a predicament of either paying back the equivilent of around £750,000, or going to jail for an extended period.

Given the former was going to keep him on the streets he had to learn the hard way how to run his London record store the right way, and used the legal profits to back back HM Government.

Of course, that was then. Now he’s probably jumping through tax hoops most of us can only dream of.

And then Mummy Thatcher’s government opened the neoliberal floodgates over which he floated his way to an obscenity of wealth — spring-fed by the labour surplus of countless labourers (so many of whom were artists).

Ain’t the culture of overconsumption grand?

“She’s pissed on us a set of petrol, flipped a spark into the breeze,
See her in her middle-aged heels, see her feet on the blood-red ground,
Starts the kindling in the poorest fields and… left us to burn.”
 

DT

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As we watch the filthy richest of the rich play who can fly to space first, it's a good time to remind everyone of one of Whitey on the Moon.



I love this, and my first exposure to this brilliant music was Lovecraft Country on HBO.

BTW, no 2nd season, I guess they kind of told the story, it was all of the book material, and most of the talent is involved in over projects.
 

B S Magnet

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I love this, and my first exposure to this brilliant music was Lovecraft Country on HBO.

BTW, no 2nd season, I guess they kind of told the story, it was all of the book material, and most of the talent is involved in over projects.

I first heard Gil Scott-Heron when I was 17 and working in a music store, and that experience was one of several watershed musical moments during my life. Given where I was raised, “Whitey on the Moon” carried especial impact.
 

DT

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I first heard Gil Scott-Heron when I was 17 and working in a music store, and that experience was one of several watershed musical moments during my life. Given where I was raised, “Whitey on the Moon” carried especial impact.

I'm pretty musical diverse and not exactly a "spring chicken", but this still wasn't on my radar, just happy I was exposed to it, just amazing.

I feel like I need to hear this on vinyl (with a big tube amp) to properly experience it :D
 

SuperMatt

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Sorry guys too busy to go to space
I should save this article for every time I heard the “bootstraps” argument as a reason not to help the poor.

I’m pretty sure the replacement passenger, an 18-year old, didn’t earn enough money on his own to have a spare $28 million lying around for a flight to space.
 
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I'm a huge fan of space travel, and technology and all the amazing things that came from the investments in the space race of my youth.

...but I'm totally 110% turned off by the billionaire c**k measuring contest here.

There are so many incredibly serious and heartbreaking issues impacting us all here on Earth that any mega billionaire with any sense of gratitude and empathy should be trying to solve.

I'm sorry. I know many like Tesla's as cars and probably conflate that love with Elon himself.

But I find Elon, Richard and Jeff to be sociopathic egomaniacs with zero redeeming qualities at all.
We wouldn't spend one moment of air time on guys like this if they hadn't tax avoided and hoarded their way to mega wealth.

It's disgusting.

Just the few media clips I saw and heard re: Branson the other day made me want to vomit.
The "script" they wrote and gave to Colbert was the most laughably out of touch and self centered bunch of BS.

It was like the Onion wrote it to be satirical.
 

Runs For Fun

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I'm a huge fan of space travel, and technology and all the amazing things that came from the investments in the space race of my youth.

...but I'm totally 110% turned off by the billionaire c**k measuring contest here.

There are so many incredibly serious and heartbreaking issues impacting us all here on Earth that any mega billionaire with any sense of gratitude and empathy should be trying to solve.

I'm sorry. I know many like Tesla's as cars and probably conflate that love with Elon himself.

But I find Elon, Richard and Jeff to be sociopathic egomaniacs with zero redeeming qualities at all.
We wouldn't spend one moment of air time on guys like this if they hadn't tax avoided and hoarded their way to mega wealth.

It's disgusting.

Just the few media clips I saw and heard re: Branson the other day made me want to vomit.
The "script" they wrote and gave to Colbert was the most laughably out of touch and self centered bunch of BS.

It was like the Onion wrote it to be satirical.
 

GermanSuplex

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This is beyond boring and a further descent into hell. People are trying to pay rent, take care of their health in a complicated, overpriced system and not get shot by police for having the wrong skin pigmentation. I’m not excited, at all, to see which billionaire can become even richer by monetizing low-orbit space. Some of them - who pay no federal taxes - are instead receiving tax money for this garbage. I’m sure some of them are good folks with good intentions, but they’re putting the cart before the horse.

I get excited about NASA projects and all that, and people who dedicate their lives to science and discovery, but this? Meh.
 
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