Andreas Cebulla

sociologist, pretending economist, and vice versa. mainly RT. endorsement not necessarily implied, could be curiosity, astonishment, sometimes despair.

[Gabriel Zucman @gabriel_zucman]

ICE is hunting down immigrants with the help of Palantir.

In six months, Palantir’s founder, @PeterThiel, will be able to start spending unimaginable sums of money —completely tax-free — to bankroll the political causes dear to his heart.

He'll be able to do it thanks to a tax-avoidance scheme he’s been building for more than 20 years, at a staggering cost to the American taxpayer.

Let me explain. 🧵

[Gabriel Zucman @gabriel_zucman]

Voting NO on Prop 40 means siding with Peter Thiel.

Voting YES on Props 41 and 42 means siding with MAGA billionaires.

Please share this thread and help spread the word.

[BladeoftheSun @BladeoftheS]

30 years ago Spitting Image dared to broadcast the truth about Israel.

Now no one dares.

[Yanis Varoufakis @yanisvaroufakis]

Europe’s centrists are finally paying the price of their extremism | Politics | Al Jazeera https://t.co/ebKheckDsY

[Andreas Cebulla @socialenquiry]

Someone broke into my local bank overnight. Stolen everyone's life savings. I am just going to call the culprit to express my dislike. https://t.co/CW9AoKYbBD

[Dirtyleftie @CraigSarg73]

Australians need to stop blaming small groups of people for every problem this country faces.

Muslims make up about 3.2% of Australians.

Trans and gender-diverse Australians make up about 0.9% of Australians aged 16 and over.

Temporary visa holders are roughly 10% of the population and that includes New Zealand citizens, international students, tourists, skilled workers, working holiday makers and others.

And you can’t simply add those percentages together because the groups overlap.

Yet apparently these relatively small parts of our population are responsible for everything housing prices, rents, hospitals, wages, crime, traffic, government debt and whatever else happens to be trending on social media this week.

They’re not.

Australia’s problems are far more complicated than finding a minority group to blame. Housing supply, infrastructure investment, productivity, taxation, planning, skills shortages and decades of decisions by governments and businesses all play a part.

You can debate immigration levels. You can debate government policy. You can debate how quickly Australia should grow.

But blaming entire groups of people for virtually every problem in the country isn’t serious policy.

It’s finding a convenient scapegoat instead of dealing with the actual problems.

[Stan Collymore @StanCollymore]

Why is anyone surprised about Ed Sheeran? Gen Z music is all about either cosplaying music that's decades old or supermarket music with lyrics.

The fact a generation thinks it's some sort of genius rather than the unimaginative, toe the line corporate dirge that it is, tells you everything you need to know.

In the 70's and 80's there was Rock against racism, bands refused to play in anti apartheid South Africa Sun City, etc etc. Real bands made up of men and women who's music inherently had a message beyond " I love you, you're great, innit". The reason why Sheeran can have his huge success today is because the contract between artist and promoter/label is "be as bland as you can be, cause no trouble, you'll be rich ". Same in almost every media industry now.

So why would a bland, smiley moron with bland supermarket music for the musically semi literate have an opinion on anything? Seriously?

The music industry couldn't make money with bands who refused to toe the line 40 years ago, they were too unpredictable, too many songs banned on radio, too close to the truth, so they gave out deals based on compliance, mass market averageness and understanding of the rules, "say nothing, just play your fucking guitar".

That so many are looking at an industry talking head for some sort of political guidance is about as tragic as it fucking gets.

Vote! Join a party! March! Protest!

Ed Sheeran nor any other musician that's raking it in isn't coming to give you a voice.

[Sen. Bernie Sanders @SenSanders]

Oligarchy is not just an American issue. It is global. The billionaires are not just buying American politicians, they are funding right-wing parties all over the world — including the UK Reform Party. Democracy means one person, one vote. The ultra-rich must not be allowed to buy governments ANYWHERE.

[Branko Milanovic @BrankoMilan]

I do not think that having a fifth of working age adults having no paid activity but depending on handouts by the state or by Silicon Valley bosses is a recipe for a healthy society. In today's society, most people dislike or hate their jobs, so permanent leisure seems attractive, but try having a permanent leisure (24x365 & then continued & open-ended) and see whether you would not become an underclass willing to become technolord's private army, just for fun.

[Brendan May @bmay]

A French film explaining what would happen if non whites did what angry white racists want them to do by going back to where they came from. Absolutely sublime. We need this sort of creativity here.

[Anonymous @YourAnonNews]

This is a rare photo of Donald Trump from 1934, helping Albert Einstein finish the theory of relativity. According to Trump, Einstein had been stuck for weeks.
“Very smart guy. Terrible with numbers. I looked at the board and said, Albert, put a little 2 up there. He loved it."

[Andreas Cebulla @socialenquiry]

Link to fake ABC website and story @InsidersABC

[Andreas Cebulla @socialenquiry]

Nonsense from Brookings. Disappointing.

[Robin Brooks @robin_j_brooks]

You can't really talked about migration and deportations in Germany. That gets you cancelled. So people don't talk about it and vote AfD instead. That's the basic issue and goes far beyond Sachsen-Anhalt, which is why yesterday's AfD win is so important...
https://t.co/XzIR23Ls9a

[Mohamad Safa @mhdksafa]

Remember when the Panama Papers came out, revealed that all rich people in the world are part of enormous criminal network to dodge taxes and hoard stolen wealth in offshore accounts, and the journalist who reported was murdered by a car bomb, and no one was held accountable, and literally nothing happened.

Remember that there are 3 million files of documented evidence about powerful men and women who raped, cannibalized, trafficked, filmed, terrorized, tortured, hunted, and murdered 13, 14, 15 year children, and no one was held accountable, and literally nothing happened.

Remember that the United States literally kidnapped a sitting president of a foreign country and his wife and they’ve just been sitting in jail for the past 6 months, and no one was held accountable, and literally nothing happened.

Remember that there are two genocides—one in Gaza and the other in Lebanon—and that there are arrest warrants for war crimes and crimes against humanity, and no one was held accountable, and literally nothing happened.

Remember that the US military bombed a school in Iran, killed 168 schoolgirls, and no one was held accountable, and literally nothing happened.

Remember that there are hundreds of terrorist settlers terrorizing the West Bank and burning people's homes while families and children are asleep inside, and no one was held accountable, and literally nothing happened.

Remember that the US is starving and killing babies in Cuba, blocking 7,000 containers of medicine, food, and power from reaching Cuba, and no one was held accountable, and literally nothing happened.

This is what will happen—and continue to happen—if we do not unite to enforce international law.

[WohlstandsWal @WohlstandsWal]

Meine Nachbarin ist 81. Sie wollte Strom, Wasser und Internet anmelden. Sie hat es nicht geschafft.

Der Stromanbieter: nur noch online, mit E-Mail-Adresse. Hat sie nicht.
Der Wasserversorger: ein QR-Code auf dem Brief. Sie hat ihn ans Fenster gehalten – sie dachte, er muss ins Licht.
Der Internetanbieter: 40 Minuten Warteschleife, dann die Ansage, es doch bitte übers Kundenportal zu machen.
Ich hab drei Abende gebraucht. Sie saß daneben und hat sich zehnmal entschuldigt. Für Dinge, die nicht ihre Schuld waren.
Sie hat keine Familie mehr. Kein Enkel, der mal eben vorbeikommt.

Ohne einen Nachbarn, der zufällig Zeit hat, hätte sie diese Verträge nicht abschließen können. Punkt.

Jahrzehntelang hat sie alles selbst geregelt. Heute scheitert sie an einem Muster auf Papier.

Wann haben wir eigentlich entschieden, dass Grundversorgung nur noch für die gilt, die ein Smartphone bedienen können?

[Branko Milanovic @BrankoMilan]

Serbia joins historical revisionism.
Mladic, murderer of 16-year old boys, gets a national funeral.
Zelensky greets with state honors the bodies of Ukrainian Nazi organizers of pogroms against the Jews.
Finland, a Nazi ally until the end, becomes a freedom-fighter & dispenses lessons of history.
Riga celebrates Nazi SS divisions fighting on the Eastern front.
What next?

[Barbara Pocock @BarbaraPocock]

Whistleblowers need protection. Australia needs a whistleblower protection authority. Otherwise, they - & their loved ones - pay & swindlers & thieves prosper.

[Leon @TrpstrLeonOG]

CAN SOMEONE EXPLAIN THIS TO ME.

My friend pays $487 a month for health insurance.

That’s $5,844 a year.

He needed an MRI after hurting his shoulder.

Insurance-approved facility.

Insurance-approved doctor.

Everything “in network.”

The bill was $2,940.

Insurance negotiated it down to $1,860.

His deductible?

$2,500.

So he paid the $1,860.

Meaning he’ll spend at least $7,704 this year between premiums and that one scan before insurance meaningfully does anything.

He asked the billing office what the uninsured cash price was.

$1,100.

So somehow having insurance made the MRI $760 more expensive for him.

Very cool.

What exactly are we insuring against again?

[Prof. Steve Keen @ProfSteveKeen]

This is a beautiful sendup of the US claim to be a democracy.

[ian bremmer @ianbremmer]

all it takes is the stroke of a pen