Heiress Marlene Engelhorn has long campaigned for a fairer distribution of wealth in Austria. Now she distributes her own assets. To this end, she founded the ‘Good Advice for Redistribution’ initiative. A citizens’ council made up of randomly selected people must decide what to do with the 25 million euros she inherited from her grandmother.
Engelhorn emphasized at a press conference on Tuesday that she had nothing to say about this. Unconstitutional, anti-life, inhumane and profit-oriented purposes are excluded. “I’ve always said I want to redistribute at least 90 percent, and now it’s finally about this redistribution,” the 29-year-old publicist explained, appearing “incredibly excited.”
Wealth is clearly distributed unequally in Austria, and that is unfair. The richest percentage of the population owns almost 50 percent of all assets, with all the negative consequences this entails for the social structure, the political system and the media landscape. “This puts democracy at risk through the disproportionate influence of a few wealthy people.”
50 people must decide representatively for Austria
10,000 invitation letters will be sent these days. From those randomly selected, 50 people and 15 replacement members will be selected in a two-stage process to represent people over the age of 16 in Austria, said Christoph Hofinger of the Foresight Institute (formerly Sora), which provides scientific support to citizens . ‘ Edit. From March to June, this “Good Council” (http://guterrat.info/) will develop ideas for dealing with the distribution of assets and decide on the redistribution of the 25 million euros. The meeting will take place over six weekends in Salzburg and there will be an expense allowance of 1,200 euros per person per weekend.
Chairman of the Chamber of Labor has “great respect”
She wants to use the money she has left to finance the transition period until she can get started herself, says Engelhorn. Renate Anderl, chairman of the Chamber of Labor, showed Engelhorn “great respect” for her decision in a broadcast. “The media, parliament and the federal government must take this strong signal seriously and see it as an opportunity to objectively discuss and implement millionaire taxes,” she demanded. Support also came from the Greens, who spoke in favor of a millionaires’ tax for heirs of millions
Source: Krone
I’m Ben Stock, a journalist and author at Today Times Live. I specialize in economic news and have been working in the news industry for over five years. My experience spans from local journalism to international business reporting. In my career I’ve had the opportunity to interview some of the world’s leading economists and financial experts, giving me an insight into global trends that is unique among journalists.
