UK’s richest family on trial in Switzerland for human trafficking, confiscating staff passports, paying as little as £7/day
The charges all relate to the Hinduja family's practice of importing servants from India.
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Nobody becomes filthy rich by being honest. You can only become this rich by exploiting people and having absolutely no fucking empathy whatsoever.
The biggest lotto win in the USA was $2.04 BN, in California. Subtract taxes and there is no way that comes close to the account of money other billionaires have ammassed, even assuming there was no outstanding debt to pay and the money was invested in high-yield investments (green or not). I believe you're right.
In theory a modern artist, writer, musician, etc could become a billionaire from direct to customer sales, but I'll believe it when it happens.
Isn't Taylor Swift a billionaire? That is about the extent of my knowledge of her though.
Wasn't Taylor Swift born into a wealthy family? That's why she could take the time and chances to become a pop star. Not that I'm saying she isn't talented, she obviously is, but a lot of talented poor kids don't get that opportunity.
Yeah. But I wonder if she’s the first billionaire off actual performance and content sales.
Kanye supposedly was before he lost all his endorsements for openly being a Nazi. Artists dont actually own any means of production so they can very quickly lose everything.
Some do. Some, like Shaq or Ryan Reynolds (or Kanye) use their money to invest in other companies. Ryan Reynolds coming out and saying Nazi shit would probably be bad for Mint, just like Ye's controversy was bad for Yeezy, just like Elon's controversy is bad for Tesla.
Kanye lost about 2/3rds of his net worth over night because Nike dropped the Yeezy brand. Being a partial owner of a niche brand is in no way comparable to someone like Musk who has controling interest in multiple market leading companies. Celebrity status can be leveraged to get a minority stake in a company, but minority owners can be forced out just as easily.
Reynolds sold Mint. They are now owned by one of the big 2
I think Paul McCartney was
Even them are profitting off the work of hundreds of people. Or rather, a publisher is profitting off of their work along with the work of a lot more people.
Direct to customer meaning they sell direct to a customer. Presumably through digital copies and owning a server rack.
You can certainly argue that even that kind of hypothetical billionaire shouldn't exist, and you'd be right.
As much as I dislike her and her views, J.K. Rowling would be an example wouldn't she?
Nah. Tons of merchandising, films, publishing etc.
Those Quidditch brooms and plastic wands don't assemble themselves in a sweatshop.
Think more like if some self hosted webnovel had the same success somehow, or if she'd been as involved with checking the conditions of the merchandise empire as thoroughly as she was apparently involved in making sure the child actors were treated well. Not particularly likely, but hypothetically.
Why do the merchandise sales not count? Are they not a product of her creative writing? Many webnovelists sell merch. One of my favourite webnovelists semi-recently hired an editor, would that disqualify them?
I'm a little confused on how you are defining the conditions. If the artist can only count their personal contributions than I don't think it is possible in any sense. No person no matter how hard working or talented can personally generate a billion in profit.
because made by "slaves" (low-paid workers), so the income becomes "dirty", the entire point of this post.
Add single use garbage like party favors too, which pollute the earth to the list.
"by being honest"
That's why it's called filthy rich
Absolutely agree. Happy mutual cake day!
Oh I didn't even notice! Nice! You too! 😁
