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.
This is what still blows me away.
A fucking actor is doing a better job running a country specifically during wartime than a typical politician.
It’s fuckin embarrassing to every single person on this planet who’s dealing with stupid/corrupt/inept politicians who would sell their constituents for fuckin toilet paper.
Calling him just an actor is sort of unfair to him though. He was basically Ukraine’s Jon Stewart. He does a great job as a politician because he spent years satirizing them, so he knows how the sausage is made and he knows how they totally fuck up and how to avoid it. That’s why he’s so successful at his job.
And, I imagine, if Jon Stewart ever ran for office, he would do similarly well.
Please, I can only get so erect. I’d tune in 24/7. With popcorn.
Stewart/Colbert would be the ticket to the greatest America.
Tbf, the US tried the actor president twice, and they turned out to be the two worst presidents in modern US history, so it might not always be the best idea to elect the “outsider”.
Which two?
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”.
It’s so ironic that California and New York, two beacons of progressivism have us those two turds.
Liberalism, not progressivism. There are big and important differences.
You’re right about the rest though, of course.
It’s both, can’t have progress without liberty
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.
Liberalism is a precursor to progressivism though. You can’t make progress without it. You can’t expect to be taken seriously this way.
Neoliberalism = liberalism I don’t like
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.
Ah ok, I suspected Trump would be one of them but TIL about Reagan.
Trump and Reagan
I think the Ukrainian public decided to throw a curveball that Putin and the KGB could never predict - electing an absolute outsider who the KGB didn’t have time to corrupt
Zelensky’s campaign was supported by a Ukrainian oligarch. Not exactly an “absolute outsider”. In fact, during the campaign the supporters of Poroshenko (who tend to be more nationalists) used this as ground to accuse him of being associated with Russia (among other things).
What people need to understand about the Ukrainian oligarchs are that they’re actually oligarchs. It’s not US-style “we should get around to regulating campaign financing some time so that Google doesn’t run candidates”, it’s not Russia-style “Actually you’re a minor noble there to exploit your dedicated region for the Tsar, by appointment of the Tsar”:
In Ukraine it’s “businesspeople with not completely clean records running for office because that’s a neat way to get legal immunity and corruption opportunities”, aka actual oligarchy, with the fat cats themselves in office. They’re absolutely not a unified front, often hate each other’s guts both in a business and political sense, and while (at least for the longest time) the Ukrainian people had practically no say in who would run, they could choose which Oligarch they liked best, putting their thumb on the scales.
So why did Kolomoyskyi support Zelensky? There’s a very simple explanation: Zelensky ran against Poroshenko, who Kolomoyskyi had quite a fallout over stuff much more important than politics, that being funnelling oil into to Kolomoyskyi’s refineries:
Enemy of my enemy and all that.
I can’t really tell just how important access to Kolomoyskyi’s TV channel was for Zelensky’s campaign, the man was a folk hero way before meaning that vanishing on TV might’ve just boosted his youtube channel in equal amount.
I mean, don’t you member doctor house? An actor could earn more than a doctor by pretending to be a doctor. Why can’t an actor lead a country better than a politician?
Politicians are actors of politics in a way. Reagan is the oft-cited example of a total himbo politician who acted a cultural identity people associated with.