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Chances are you aren’t going to space — but you’re paying for other people to go, said Russell Brand.
In a new video, Brand slammed the mainstream media for glamorizing billionaires whose endeavors have negative impacts on ordinary people.
Space programs privately financed by billionaires like Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos and Richard Branson are made possible, at least in part, said Brand, through the evasion of corporate tax and government lobbying.
Vast cache of IRS info obtained by @propublica reveals how billionaires like Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk + Warren Buffett pay little in income tax compared to their massive wealth — sometimes, even nothing.
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Branson, whose Virgin Galactic is selling tickets to space for $250,000 apiece, lobbied last year for a $500 million government COVID bailout for his company, Virgin Atlantic. And in 2018, Branson’s healthcare company, Virgin Care, made $8 million in profit but paid no corporate tax in the UK.
Musk is set to charge $55 million for a ticket to space, while Bezos will charge $28 million and sit next to the “lucky” passenger.
Brand said:
“The commercial space business is booming. All it took was for the companies involved not to have to pay any corporate tax; for governments to create policies that advance them and for space programs that were once a matter of national pride to be abandoned and lost.”
Brand said corporations are controlling government policy through lobbying.
“Don’t have lobbying anymore,” Brand said. “Don’t have the people that are working in healthcare make profits from it.”
Imagine how things would change if drug companies couldn’t make a profit, Brand said.
Watch the video:
