cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/35971063
Pope Leo said “we’re in big trouble” when it comes to the ever-widening pay gap between the rich and poor, citing Elon Musk, who may be on course to become the world’s first trillionaire.
Leo made the remarks while criticising executive pay packages during his first interview with the media.
Reflecting on why the world was so polarised, he said one significant factor was the “continuously wider gap between the income levels of the working class and the money that the wealthiest receive”.
“CEOs that 60 years ago might have been making four to six times more than what the workers are receiving … 600 times more [now],” the pontiff said in excerpts of the interview conducted by Elise Ann Allen, a senior correspondent with the Catholic newspaper Crux as part of a forthcoming biography.
Earlier this month, the board of the electric car maker Tesla said it had proposed a new trillion-dollar pay package for Musk, its chief executive and largest shareholder, if he hit targets set by the company.
Outlining the incentive package, which is unprecedented in corporate history, in a stock market update, the company said: “Yes, you read that correctly.”
The pope, who turned 70 on Sunday, has so far shown to be much more low-key than his predecessor, even if they shared similar progressive political views.
Francis often clashed with the US president, Donald Trump, over his hardline immigration policies, while Leo, formerly Cardinal Robert Prevost, also criticised Trump’s policies on his X account before becoming pope.
The good news is that the payout depends on milestones, and Elon Musk has never once met an investor’s or government contract’s milestone.
Nobody needs a trillion dollars. Especially not that fuckwit.
“CEOs that 60 years ago might have been making four to six times more than what the workers are receiving … 600 times more [now],” the pontiff [said]
I hate to match check the Pope here, but this isn’t 600 times anymore. We’re talking 6 MILLION times more.
Humans have a hard enough time comprehending a billion. A trillion is even harder.
There are no ethical billionaires
Millionaires, sure, to a point, but billionaires, absolutely not
Sheeeeiiiiiit… In this garbage country, millionaires are pretty much the living wage peoples
You pretty much have to be a millionaire to afford all of the things our parents and grandparents got on Modest wages. Doctors and dentists and optometrists, house repairs and or skyrocketing rent.
Of course a million dollars is nowhere near enough to pay for medical treatment that used to cost a modest amount of your wealth. $1 million would be nowhere near enough to pay for cancer treatment. But now that private equity and hedge funds are involved they extract the life savings of people for medical treatment.
pretty much, upper middle class. its when you get past 10million+ in spending power is where it sets it apart from millionaires.
I did a lot of thinking about this over the years (not the youngest one anymore) and I will say that I think my personal limit would be at ~10 mil. Beyond that, I fail to comprehend what amount of money I have. I can comprehend 1 mil, which means I can use in excess of that in some capacity, even pointlessly.
But 10 mil? That stops being an amount of cash, it’s just “Me rich nao”.
Yeah, that’s the number I came to also. At that point, you don’t have to work anymore and can mostly just live very comfortably off of the interest. There’s no way you’d catch me still working if I had that much saved.
10s millionaires, hundred millionaires are up there with billionaires. the low-millionaires not so much.
Yep
I have been reasonably wealthy before, and it was through a lot of luck with plenty of shitty, long hours
But the only way I could have gotten more was by shitting on people, and that’s not something I’m willing to do
What about Eron Wolf, the founder of the FUTO foundation?
What about Brian Acton, the CEO of signal?
What about Notch, the creator of minecraft?
Eh, Notch hasn’t really shown to be that positive a force in the world.
Did he do something bad or just haven’t done enough good? I don’t really keep up with him.
Google “Notch, the creator of Minecraft”
?
The far right guy?
I don’t really keep up with random people’s politics, and I suppose anything short of a communist is considered far right in these circles, but putting aside the idea that anyone who doesn’t support collectivism is a devil incarnate, what’s unethical about making a game and pawning it off to M$ for a billion $?
I mean, if you aren’t keeping up with their social stances and politics, you probably shouldn’t be putting them on the “good millionaires” list.
I’m not, I’m just asking what’s unethical about having money. If he made it fair and square what’s wrong with that? Notch is a good example because he’s self made and didn’t have a big corpo behind him, anything beyond that is irrelevant to the argument I’m making.
There is nothing unethical about having money. Ethics are what you do with the money once you have it. Ethics are how you got the money in the first place. It’s not unethical to have a car. If I stole the car, that is unethical. If I use it for a hit and run, that is unethical. Notch has money. He also used his fame and reach that came with that money to spout hate speech.
Musk thinks he’s king of the world
Can you blame him? Look at his fanclub.
I have a feeling people treat him like a king in hopes that it will win his favor.
The only thing bigger than his wealth is his ego
He is the king of the shit posters somehow.
Pope vs. Pepe
Once you have enough to invest in assets you basically have a infinite money machine
Y’all - if you looked at the original “Trillion dollar offer” it’s effectively somewhere between impossible and a hallucination. It requires increasing Tesla sales by a factor of 11 and selling 1 million Optimus robots which aren’t even commercially available for sale. Even Yale called it stupid.
Unless Musk already knows that the Trumpistanian Christian fascist kleptocracy is already planning on buying all cyber trucks for a premium, and contracting 1 million Optimus kill bots to conduct their mass murder.
Nah, they’re tapped out already. If they didn’t buy cybertrucks 4 or 5 months ago, they’re not up for it now. They should be donating 10% of their income to the church, and 20% to El Jeffe anyway.
I will never endorse catholicism (or christianity), but this seems to be one cool pope. Actually preaching what Jesus tought.
Also Fuck Elon. He just wants to make headlines with superlatives, but he & his companies are already on the long way down. Prove me wrong.
The last Pope was good as well. I wonder what the last time in history there was a pope that can be considered good before francis?
Francis by the way is the name the previous Pope took on being elected Pope, named after sanctified religious guy from Italy that is the patron saint of animals and nature. Actually a pretty cool guy. I’m not Catholic either though.
Guy sitting on a golden throne bought with blood money and stolen wealth is worried about rich people?
I would hope the pope might also be somewhat concerned about the whole Nazi thing. Not very Catholic those Nazis. I understand he cannot say that though because Nazis are so popular right now.
