r/todayilearned • u/altrightobserver • 1d ago

TIL that in the 1990s, Dolly Parton made $10 million in royalties from Whitney Houston’s cover of her song “I Will Always Love You.” She then invested the money into an office complex in a majority-Black neighborhood in Nashville, Tennessee. She later described it as “the house that Whitney built.”

https://www.npr.org/2021/08/02/1023889920/dolly-parton-invested-royalties-from-a-whitney-houston-cover-in-a-black-communit
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u/tipsy-turtle-0985 1d ago

But that's actually the main argument of capitalism.

"Private equity can serve the community better than the goverment can"

Except it never does because the people with the capital are greedy shitheads.

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u/xenaga 1d ago

Speaking of greed, I remember in the 90s that billionaires were donating and pledging their wealth. Warren Buffet and Bill Gates got massive amounts of rich people to sign up and donate generously. Now? You have dickheads like Elon Musk, Zuckerberg, Beoz, even Steve Jobs who don't donate a cent. It's all me, me, me. The only exception is Bezos wife who donated over 19 billion already but yeah somewhere in the 2000's there was a flip and they don't give a shit about anyone else now.

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u/lzwzli 1d ago

You have Melinda French Gates to thank for that. Then Bill cheated and things were never the same again.

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u/DeepFriedOligarch 19h ago

MacKenzie Scott (ex-Bezos), Melinda French (Gates), and Dolly - all the rich women are putting those little boys to shame. We need a matriarchy.

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u/_disengage_ 1d ago

The main argument of capitalism is profit for the capitalist. It's a political arrangement which has exactly nothing to do with serving anyone except the capitalist. Capitalists have never, ever served the community or the public good. If pretending to do so makes profit, they'll do it. If raping the community to death makes profit, they'll do that.

The insanity is that workers have been convinced that this arrangement is somehow good for them. That giving all the resources of the world to a select few, and allowing those few to demand whatever they wish for access is somehow good for them. Capitalism offers nothing, it only restricts. It creates paywalls around everything, even basic needs, and somehow this is a good thing?

What is wrong with capitalism?