Original Source Web Address (URL):
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Description Of Claim To Be Checked
Posts on social media and other media sources have highlighted that a result of policies set by governments around the world in response to COVID19 was a huge wealth transfer away from the poorest and towards the richest in society. Other sources have claimed that many new millionaires were created as as result of COVID19. Are both claims true? Or neither?
This article from October 2020, published by the World Economic Forum (WEF) states that:
More than 16 million cases of COVID-19 were confirmed between April and July of this year, there were nearly 630,000 related deaths, and the world’s richest people got about $2 trillion richer.
and that:
News of the windfall for this elite club of roughly 2,000 members comes alongside indications of trillions of dollars in lost wages, and warnings that hundreds of millions of people will be pushed into extreme poverty this year as a result of the pandemic.
The International Labour Organization (ILO) stated in September 2020 that:
Global labour income is estimated to have declined by 10.7 per cent, or US$ 3.5 trillion, in the first three quarters of 2020, compared with the same period in 2019. This figure excludes income support provided through government measures.
This topic seems to have gained attention in 2020 and then not been discussed much publicly after that - could the topic have been shut down?
Crowd Facts community, please help us understand the economic effects of COVID19, any wealth transfer that has been taking place and who might be motivated to manipulate the public conversation surrounding COVID19, it's treatments and the policies that governments have been making.
Claims Made By Source
The original tweet that highlighted the wealth transfer (linked above) has received 1924 likes and around 850 retweets at the time of making this post. Two main claims are made:
- That workers around the world lost $3.7 trillion due to COVID policies, while billionaires gained a similar amount or more (suggesting a direct wealth transfer from workers to billionaires).
- That this is the fastest and largest wealth transfer in history.
The tweet also points out that 'nobody wants to talk about it' - so bonus points for showing whether discussion of this topic has been receiving continual coverage in the media or whether it has been buried.
Relevant Sources
- The super-wealthy won big as COVID-19 spread - here's how they can help alleviate the economic peril faced by most
- COVID-19 leads to massive labour income losses worldwide
- Billionaires' wealth rises to $10.2 trillion amid Covid crisis
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I like the participatory energy you are generating here. It's great to see something like this on Hive regardless of the constant attempts at soft censorship.
I also like how you did not assume the statements to be correct and asked for the crowd to verify it for you.
It would also be good to see some naysayers on here to say why this statement is wrong.
A debate would be healthy.
Thanks! Yes, reaching truth means being neutral and not making any conclusions until the evidence presents patterns that stand up to a high level of scrutiny. There are so many people on the web who spend their days debating arguing and even doing real research, that once the wider world knows about this project and it develops, we imagine it will become popular. More to come soon!
In Austria this might be definately the tendency. Even though I can't back it up with numbers.
The middle class seems to be disappearing.
Whenever there was money to spend on C19 (and there was a lot), it went through/in the pockets of the elite close to the gov.
e.g. Austria introduced mandatory FFP2 masks. Insiders had been informed prior to the mandate and got them selves in a good position to make some huge profits.
Also the money to help people and business over the lockdowns mostly went into pockets of H&M, Benko, Austrian Airlines and other big business. Before distributing this money, gov created a 'private company', which acted like a blackbox: The money went in on one side, and came out the other, but nobody could really know where it all went...
Thankyou for sharing this information. It is likely that each country has it's own story of money being 'misused' or simply vanishing in large amounts. Any sources you can provide for these claims will be helpful.
Here are two articles about ffp2 mask scandals in austria. If you look closely, you can get an idea of the amount of corruption and transfer of taxmoney/wealth.
The source is Der Standard, a mainstream newspaper with strong financial backing from the government.
The articles are in german; if you need more translation after trying autotranslate, drop me a line.
from march 2021
https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000125011151/hygiene-austria-wie-aus-einem-zufallsfund-ein-maskenskandal-wurde
from january 2022
https://www.derstandard.at/story/2000132830807/brisante-telefonate-in-causa-rund-um-ffp2-masken-deal-abgehoert
It’s very true. Most of us here made a Fortune with Splinterlands and Bitcoin. Never before have I made a million dollars so fast.
The particular context of the fact check here relates to the statistics that show that 'working people' have lost around the same amount of money that the wealthiest have gained - showing that it is likely that the money which was 'made' by the wealthiest was actually taken from the poorest during a time of crisis. This probably led to untold suffering, hardship and death for many people. If you have any data on the involvement of cryptocurrency in this process, it would be great if you would share it here to allow everyone to consider it in their appraisal of the topic.
Well … many young people, maybe not even working yet, have made millions, from investing in Cryptocurrencies . So it’s not all doom and gloom.
Data relating to that aspect of the transfer of wealth during the period could be an interesting additional view to the topic, yes.
Specifically, this fact check request is seeking to identify details relating to those who were already the wealthiest in society before COVID19 which reveal whether massive increases in their wealth during COVID19 can be connected to losses made by almost everyone else and to what extent government policies (which the wealthiest could have influenced) allowed this to take place.
Ok. I am definitely not one of the wealthiest. I’m not even a Billionaire yet…. But thanks to crypto like Bitcoin, Dogecoin, Shiba, Splinterlands and Blurt I am much richer than I was 2 years ago.
The pandemic really took over the headlines for a while and seeing this beneficial to the billionaires during the pandemic really need to look into as it is only profitable to them as majority lost their jobs because of the same scenario.
It's clear that the rules in some countries which forced many businesses to close but allowed Amazon and other such giant corporations to continue to trade has played a large part in the likely wealth transfer here, yes.
Impressive work, @crowdfacts. Great to see channels emerging with such quality material, on this platform.
Thankyou!
Isn't that the truth. But still most people don't want to listen, they prefer to stick their head in the cement and watch the mainstream indoctrination programming.
Thank you for sharing the facts. 👌
I do not see any original information here that requires a $90 vote. I will disagree with the rewards.
I don't see any value in this comment, I'm disagreeing with the rewards.
Feel free to do that :)
Crowd Facts is a new project that aims to generate high levels of engagement over time and to generate threads which are highly shareable on Web 2.0 networks. The upvotes reflect community support for the project and that people want others to know about it.
Incorrect. Half these votes are bots
Also I do not see any engagement.
Also the same 'community' can and WILL disagree with the rewards
As far as we are aware, these accounts are manually curating. In what way are they bots?
Define “we”. You must do your own investigation
Traf is a bot. Everyone in hive is well aware of that.
Also it is irrelevant whether the vote is manual or bot.
My point is these posts doesn’t have any value. It is just farming the reward pool.
This post has value and engagement.
The design of this project is intended to result in the community creating their own posts which will then be curated, creating opportunities for the community to add valuable information to a group task and to earn rewards for doing so. The content will have good SEO value and will be highly shareable on Web 2.0 platforms (once the project matures) - offering an excellent way for Hive to be promoted organically on Web 2.0 platforms. We are using proof of brain to 'mine the truth' using the wisdom of the crowd - it is an idea that is very well suited to Hive.
Since this is a new project, we are creating the first posts in order to demonstrate how the project works and so our own posts have been upvoted. This is in no way an attempt to 'farm' the reward pool, it is simply a new project that is gaining promotion and visibility through upvotes (which is how DPOS and POB were designed to operate since the beginning).
By 'We', we mean the Crowd Facts team.
Please list the members of the “team”
The only other account I see that is always hidden like yours is someone who is an open spam bot. I guess your case is just being rude, which makes sense since your profile seems to brag about it! :) That, and you seem to have plenty of content that is not mainstream. I watched one of the videos you posted and honestly was unable to finish it even on high speed playback, and I couldn't see anything verifiable in the interview with some Russian guy who was very upset and repeating his outrage. Another post you had that showed pictures of shrapnel with Ukrainian markings alleged to be from the train station that was hit - I was considering putting up for a fact check here. I can't easily file through your posts because now every one is requiring me click to show the hidden preview, and again to show the hidden content - they were all videos. Maybe you could find some stories that have claims with evidence that we can evaluate here.
Sorry, I don't recall completely. This was a few months ago when someone who was Russian was being interviewed by someone in Australia. It was all a reaction of the Russian saying how horrible it was that the Ukrainians were doing horrible stuff. There was nothing I could evaluate for truthfulness. Not to discount someone's pain, but my rational mind won't do without evidence before taking a side on issues. If you could illuminate the claims in any of your content - in videos you could point to a timestamp in the video - then people would have a fair chance of coming closer to the truth.
I appreciate the fact checking here. Though this story doesn't hit as close to home for me. Good to have some model fact check requests so that the rest of us can author them. There is a lot of conflicting information coming in regarding Ukraine/Russia that I'd like some balanced analysis on, but I don't know where to start! I guess true fact checks depend on enough information being available to check with.
Yes, the more information, the better the analysis. Hive allows anyone to have their say internationally, so it is possible/likely that new information might be added to the subject as it is discussed here. If you pick a specific claim that you have found made publicly, then people can look into the evidence that is available for/against it and provide it in the comments. We can all then make up our own minds. The 'professional' fact checkers are generally only journalists who ask questions, source information and then often just reach a conclusion that may or may not reflect the true evidence that is available. We can all help to do better than that.
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We have a reknowned petition on the matter since day one.
Highly suppressed.
Latest legal and medical breakthroughs in the comment 😀
Pks see if u can support:- The A to Z of the COVID 19 Scam
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Thanks, do you have a source for this quote?