Volodymyr Zelenskiy declared his personal income for the first time since the outbreak of war with Russia, as part of his effort to increase transparency in his government.

In 2021, the year before Russia invaded Ukraine, Zelenskiy and his family reported income of 10.8 million hryvnia ($285,000), down 12 million hryvnia from the previous year, even as his income was boosted by the sale of $142,000 of government bonds, according to a statement on his website.

In 2022, the first year of the Russian invasion, the Zelenskiy family’s income fell further to 3.7 million hryvnia as he earned less income from renting real estate he owned because of the hostilities.

Even as the war allowed Ukrainian officials to withhold revealing sensitive personal information, Zelenskiy pushed to make them publicly declare assets. Increasing transparency and tackling graft are necessary for his country to ensure continued financial aid from its western allies, even as more than $100 billion of funds are held up due to political maneuvering inside US and EU.

  • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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    11 months ago

    Reagan and Trump. The former was a b-list actor before becoming governor and then president and the latter played a successful businessman in the fictional series “The Apprentice”.

    • madcaesar@lemmy.world
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      11 months ago

      It’s so ironic that California and New York, two beacons of progressivism have us those two turds.

      • namingthingsiseasy@programming.dev
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        11 months ago

        There are terrible people everywhere. California and New York have 10s of millions of residents - there are bound to be some that are shitstains. The problem is that money = power and when it’s possible for one individual to have too much money, it inevitably means that terrible people will be able to amass this kind of power.

        This is why wealth (in)equality is important - it’s what determines how much powerful individuals are able to become. If it’s too easy for a single person to amass too much power, inevitably, the wrong person will be able to gain it.

      • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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        11 months ago

        Liberalism, not progressivism. There are big and important differences.

        You’re right about the rest though, of course.

          • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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            11 months ago

            Modern liberalism aka neoliberalism isn’t really that much about progress, though. It’s more about preserving the status quo and maybe a little Incrementalism if the owner donors allow it.

            The liberties that liberals originally fought for hundreds of years ago are the floor of expected liberty now and neoliberalism is a center-right to right wing ideology.

            • Zoboomafoo@slrpnk.net
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              11 months ago

              According to one study of 148 scholarly articles, neoliberalism is almost never defined but used in several senses to describe ideology, economic theory, development theory, or economic reform policy. It has become used largely as a term of abuse and/or to imply a laissez-faire market fundamentalism virtually identical to that of classical liberalism – rather than the ideas of those who attended the 1938 colloquium.

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neoliberalism

              Neoliberalism = liberalism I don’t like

              • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                according to one study

                🙄

                Neoliberalism is the ideology of Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, both Clintons, and Biden, to name a few obvious examples.

                • Zoboomafoo@slrpnk.net
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                  11 months ago

                  According to one study 🙄

                  A study that samples 148 different articles, I’m sure you reviewed a good selection of them before you came to a different conclusion than the study did, right?

                  It’s not like you just named 6 very different politicians and claimed they’re all the same because “neoliberal”, that would be exactly my point.

                  • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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                    11 months ago

                    A study that samples 148 different articles

                    Out of probably thousands if not tens of thousands available. Who did the study anyway? CAP?

                    I’m sure you reviewed a good selection of them before you came to a different conclusion than the study did, right?

                    No, I didn’t waste my time studying a study that says neoliberalism is never described. Partially because I myself DID provide a nom-exhaustive but definitely not non-existent description of it earlier in this very thread.

                    It’s not like you just named 6 very different politicians

                    Bernie, The Squad and Katie Porter are also very different. Still all adherents to progressivism

                    claimed they’re all the same

                    Nope. That’s not what mentioning examples of different adherents of the same overall ideology is.

                    that would be exactly my point.

                    That I’m claiming that all neoliberals are identical? Congratulations on being even more wrong than your original false assumptions 🤦

              • Croquette@sh.itjust.works
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                11 months ago

                Neoliberalism is still center-right. The political spectrum in the US is so skewed to the right that center-right feels like a progressive position.

            • ghostdoggtv@lemmy.world
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              11 months ago

              Liberalism is a precursor to progressivism though. You can’t make progress without it. You can’t expect to be taken seriously this way.

              • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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                11 months ago

                Liberalism is a precursor to progressivism though

                In the same way as coal is a precursor to diamonds, sure. Doesn’t mean that coal is useful for making jewelry today.

                  • Viking_Hippie@lemmy.world
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                    11 months ago

                    Does that line ever convince anyone that you know the first thing about anything?

                    Because it sure isn’t doing anything except making you look both ignorant and arrogant in this case 🤷