World News

22058 readers

16 users here now

Breaking news from around the world.

News that is American but has an international facet may also be posted here.

Guidelines for submissions:

Where possible, post the original source of information.
- If there is a paywall, you can use alternative sources or provide an archive.today, 12ft.io, etc. link in the body.
Do not editorialize titles. Preserve the original title when possible; edits for clarity are fine.
Do not post ragebait or shock stories. These will be removed.
Do not post tabloid or blogspam stories. These will be removed.
Social media should be a source of last resort.

These guidelines will be enforced on a know-it-when-I-see-it basis.

For US News, see the US News community.

This community's icon was made by Aaron Schneider, under the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 license.

founded 2 years ago

MODERATORS

[email protected]

King Charles III diagnosed with cancer, Buckingham Palace says (www.bbc.com)

submitted 9 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

16 comments fedilink hide all child comments

Another chance for the Brits to get rid of this weird institution.

you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago (1 children)

I don't know how much power the British royalty actually have, but probably more than other royal families since the British monarch is also the head of the Anglican church. That not only has them enmeshed with the state, but also breaks church-state separation. 🤷

The pageantry, is what drives the souvenir market: for every birth, coming of age, marriage, coronation, random events, then death... and rinse and repeat, there is a ton of souvenirs getting sold, commemorative coins, random mementos, etc.

Like, right now, Sotheby's is auctioning... the set props from the series The Royals. Not even the actual things, just the props, and they start "cheap" at only 800-1000£ the cheapest. Sure they're supposed to donate any benefits to charity, but then the series itself was only so successful because of the pageantry.

Turns out the state collects taxes on all of that, so the money spent on monarchs, is more like an actor's salary. They also get other sources of income, like donations from businesses to act as international representatives, profits from the businesses they own themselves, or ~~bribes~~ presents from foreign representatives for their mediation in trade negotiations.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 9 months ago

Pretty sure the British don't have a separation of chuch and state like the Americans do, especially since there is a new bill about that