A single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife. We don’t know if he necessarily deserve one, though!
If it is a man who has that €250 million up in Shandon, he is still staying quiet on both the winning and the wife front, while yet another winner in Blarney has yet to come forward for their €194,616.
Whoever said money doesn’t bring happiness, clearly hasn’t tried it, but it does bring us neatly to the matter of money and dignity as one of the world’s wealthiest people, in monetary firms, is a distraction from global destruction.
Jeff Bezos is the man at the head of Amazon, a company where workers report 55-hour working days, and a 2016 undercover report found drivers working more than 11 hours, delivering 200 parcels a day, and ultimately coming home with less than the minimum wage. Mr Bezos reportedly pays a ‘true tax’ of 1.1% on his massive wealth, all while dominating an online space to the detriment of businesses and livelihoods almost globally, contributing to countless tonnes of plastic waste, not to mention the pollution caused by its shipping containers, planes of goods, and delivery vans and trucks.
What a man.
Mr Bezos has rented the city of Venice for a big party to celebrate his second wedding, and Venetians and residents of the city have launched the ‘No Space for Bezos’ campaign. These activists are decrying that their city, their home, is being treated like an ‘asset’, nothing more than a thing to be rented for the weekend. Meanwhile, the Venice Mayor is eager to appease the billionaire instead of the people he represents, saying they would have to ‘apologise’ to Jeff, in the watery way of a sycophant. This obsequiousness to wealth is vile, and never more so today, literally today, where a man who bought his way into the White House through money and reputation is funding the Israeli army in their starvation and murder of Palestinians, in between sessions of Middle East War Games.
There is a huge chasm of difference between the rich and poor, between a dinghy of refugees and a superyacht on a Venetian canal. One hardly needs to be a Marxist to see through the myth and propaganda, that any of our everyday woes are created by immigrants. There is a shortfall of houses because of land hoarding, and because of the inability of successive governments to have any degree of foresight for an obviously growing population.
There aren’t waiting lists to see GPs because people have emigrated into the country; in fact, particularly in the medical profession, these same immigrants are keeping the show on the
road. Far-right and racist violence and protests have taken place in Limerick city and Cork city in recent weeks, spouting a very basic and false idea of how the world works. There is a strong argument to be made that the previous government’s silence in the face of a growing maelstrom of online rumours about immigration centres left a dangerous vacuum, one that was filled with rigorous hate and stupidity and is now spilling over, constantly, out and into the real world. They had a chance to act, and they didn’t.
What we can be proud of, however, is a Head of State like President Higgins. There are few who could or would criticise his ways, a man who has always been compassionate, intelligent, and outspoken.
This week The Southern Star has to break the news that at least one Cork person has ruled herself out of the running; as the election date draws nearer, the candidates will be known and we can have our pick of the next dignitary to represent us on a world stage. And whether they’re rich or poor, please god let them be decent. They have enormous shoes to fill.
