Billionaire, morally defensible?

[Notch7]

I'd assert it is related to the job market which in turn has suffered due to some of the points you've listed along with a change in direction that some (many?) individuals simply aren't geared up to adapt to.

Again yes it's a simplistic way to look at things, however I think of the multiple scenarios where towns had a main employer that essentially sustained that area. When that industry declined and the employer closed, the required backfill of other employers didn't happen.

I know there are other factors e.g. those who simply can't be ar5ed to work or educate themselves, however it's a multi-faceted issue for sure.

I'm sure I watched a tv doc that featured Gary Stevenson. He made some good points about the structure of society and how said structure essentially ensures the poor will (generally) always be poor and the rich will keep on getting richer. Can we ever break that model? I doubt it ...

the digital age has made it easier for more and more money to accrue to the top

lets take Uber: 20 years ago it would be possible to cream off profit margin from millions of taxi drivers all over the world and make millions for a handful of business owners -the taxi drivers have to work really hard, working all hours, while the directors of Uber just sit by their poolside watching the money roll in

the same applies to booking.com, amazon, etsy, ebay etc etc

and yes I do realise those businesses create lots of opportunities for people, but they they operate to cream off as much as they can, so they cna make millions, maybe billions

 

[ajohn]

Trickle down economics, I think it's quite widely accepted it didn't work.

Where it trickles to figures.

 

[motorbiking]

I don't know what an Uber driver makes vs a normal non-black cab taxi, but Uber replaces the need for someone to sit in an office take and schedule the bookings and coordinate the drivers. The Uber cream off probably matched the cost/overhead of the office and dispatch controller.

Taxi driver corruption varies hugely across Europe. When I travel to the Nordics, everything is electronic and payment/fares are regulated, Central Europe and you have the usual cash only/meter off boll@x in Spain and France. You even get fare refusals if you aren't going where they want. Uber does give you piece of mind on price etc.

 

[Odds]

Two years ago... A group of 30 UK millionaires have called on the chancellor to tax them and other rich people more because they can afford to pay it and “the cost of recovery cannot fall on the young or on those with lower incomes”. The millionaire signatories, who cover multiple industries and backgrounds from across the UK, said they want Sunak to “address the economic imbalance of the current tax system which places a deeply unequal burden on working people”.

A wealth tax on the top 1% of UK households – those with fortunes of more than £3.6m – could generate at least £70bn a year, according to research by Greenwich University. That would be equivalent to 8% of the current total tax take but affect only about 250,000 households. Such taxes are beginning to be introduced in Argentina, Bolivia and Morocco to help pay for the recovery. In Norway, about 500,000 people pay an 0.85% charge on their assets above the value of about £125,000.

 

[Notch7]

Two years ago... A group of 30 UK millionaires have called on the chancellor to tax them and other rich people more because they can afford to pay it and “the cost of recovery cannot fall on the young or on those with lower incomes”. The millionaire signatories, who cover multiple industries and backgrounds from across the UK, said they want Sunak to “address the economic imbalance of the current tax system which places a deeply unequal burden on working people”.

A wealth tax on the top 1% of UK households – those with fortunes of more than £3.6m – could generate at least £70bn a year, according to research by Greenwich University. That would be equivalent to 8% of the current total tax take but affect only about 250,000 households. Such taxes are beginning to be introduced in Argentina, Bolivia and Morocco to help pay for the recovery. In Norway, about 500,000 people pay an 0.85% charge on their assets above the value of about £125,000.

Unless something is done about it, the wealthy will continue to accumulate more and more wealth and the people and the govt will have less and less.

That is not part of the social contract.

 

[motorbiking]

Nothing stops those wealthy millionaires donating to charity, rather than virtue signalling. I don't have much time for those who benefit from the rules and then campaign to change them.

 

[Notch7]

Nothing stops those wealthy millionaires donating to charity, rather than virtue signalling. I don't have much time for those who benefit from the rules and then campaign to change them.

Donating to charity is not the solution

Reversing the ever increasing shift from the poor to the rich requires government intervention.

The last 30+ years has seen wealth decline in the lower and middle earners and a huge rise in the top earners.

4.8m people suffering food poverty is not right in the world's 6th richest country

 

[Odds]

Unless something is done about it, the wealthy will continue to accumulate more and more wealth and the people and the govt will have less and less.

That is not part of the social contract.

Ha! The Tories ripped up the Social Contract years ago when Maggie stated 'there's no such thing as society'.

 

[Murdochcat]

In U.K.:
Child poverty has gone up
Pensioner poverty has gone up
Food poverty has gone up
Fuel poverty has gone up

Berty says: “that’s magic”

The poverty you refer to is relative poverty. So you can’t eradicate poverty

Just saying

 

[Notch7]

The poverty you refer to is relative poverty. So you can’t eradicate poverty

Just saying

No, that is NOT relative poverty.

Where did I mention relative poverty?

People are suffering food poverty…that means they don’t have enough to eat

People are suffering fuel poverty….that means they don’t have enough money to heat their homes.


You may be living comfortably in a mortgage free property and plenty of money in the bank…..don’t assume others are the same.

 

[Brigadier]

. I don't have much time for those who benefit from the rules and then campaign to change them

Unless they wrote them in the first place, they're perfectly entitled to campaign to change them without any hint of irony or hypocrisy.

So what you posted doesn't make any sense.

 

[Murdochcat]

No, that is NOT relative poverty.

Where did I mention relative poverty?

People are suffering food poverty…that means they don’t have enough to eat

People are suffering fuel poverty….that means they don’t have enough money to heat their homes.


You may be living comfortably in a mortgage free property and plenty of money in the bank…..don’t assume others are the same.

You stated groups are in poverty but as far as I remember the UK uses relative poverty

If you want to experience real poverty, go for a trip to the 3rd world

 

[Justin Passing]

Y'all had better get used to all sorts of people having a lot of money. It's getting much easier.
I've been bangin on for a while about how you can use a computer and some money to amake ,well, as much as you want really. You just keep going until you have enough.
Some days I've doubled my invested money - I've explained how. It's by finding something which goes up (by say 20%) and trading it using leveraging x5, or x10. (Professional investors/traders(same thing) can go up to 500x)
Things which go up a lot in a day have been bitcoin related stocs, oil, gas, even gold & silver recently . Ordinary shares jump abaut all the time. If Musk gets good news, Tesla shares go up a huge amount. Recently Dunkin' Donuts got a contract with McDonalds. Bang! All sorts. Cocoa has been shooting up for a while, now coffee. There are info agencies you can pay to tell you about these things, (eg Benzinga pro I use indirectly, free) and there are lots of free sources too.

Amateurs like me do things that way, pro's use computers to do everything. The stock price jumps within milliseconds care of the computers, but they carry on up for the rest of the day - or a few minutes anyway. Algo's (Algorithmic traders). Many use AI, have done for years. The programs are getting more accessible though and soon you'll have one on your smartphone.

I'm not trading millions, I sayed under the FSCS 85k limit on the trading platform, so when it goes over I transfer to ETFs. I've got anough cash to see me out so it's for fun now. There is always a chance of some blowup, so you could lose most of the money you're using. That's why I just use the same amount more or less, so if I lost it one day that wouldn't be a disaster.

Consider - start with a shiny new stocks and shares ISA , with £20k in it. You can trade just about anything. Not quite like non ISA'd stocks but there are 3x "instruments"" (= shares, or funds of any type) for things like cocoa, coffee, Tesla, Nvidia, Oil, Semiconductors, gas, Bitcoin, Lloyds bank, Rolls Royce, many things. There are many "-3x" as well you can use for when the price is falling.

Cocoa has been going up since new year. Iirc it went up 3% yesterday. So with a 3x thing you'd make 8%+ ish. (life...).
There are about 200 trading days in a year.
Get your cally out. 1.08 ^ 200 = 5mill ish.
5mill x 20k = 1 bill. Sorted.
It's all in an ISA so it's tax free.

Obviously, each of the numbers I've used, like 3%, is deliberately low

 

[Justin Passing]

The last 30+ years has seen wealth decline in the lower and middle earners and a huge rise in the top earners.

Correct

4.8m people suffering food poverty is not right in the world's 6th richest country

Correct.

Something should be done about it.
Sure.

It's very easy to criticise, but that doesn't produce leadership or governance.
Just as, for further example, there are a few persistent trolls on this and most other forums who only post to have a go at someone else or try to find fault, even if it's a childishly stupid comment.

The situation is going to get worse, as it becomes easier for those "rich" with more mental and physical resources to use tech and AI to find ways to get richer.

What do we do about it? I don't know.
Lots wrong with a "wealth tax", it wouldn't work imo.

 

[Notch7]

You stated groups are in poverty but as far as I remember the UK uses relative poverty

I said:

There are people suffering food poverty.

What that means is that people run out of money completely sometimes and have to go without food......sometimes it means families will feed their children but make no meal for themselves in the evening.


Somw people are suffering fuel poverty, that means they can't afford to heat their home.

Let me give you an example: I sometimes see a lady who walks her dog, last winter shetold me she couldn't afford to heat her flat, her universal credit money wasn't enough to afford heating. Her washing took so long to dry that it went mouldy.

Maybe you think she is a benefit scrounger....the lady is around retirement age, she suffers mental health issues due to domestic violence that left her suffering PTSD.


Please try to see beyond your cognitive bias and political tribalism, there millions of people out there like that .

I have to say your comment regarding "go to a 3rd world country if you want to see real poverty" is pretty disappointing. We have real poverty here.

Why are you so keen to deny the existence of poverty in the UK? -plrase could you provide an emanation, I'm interested in understanding where it comes from