The rich - poor gap
Discussion
TopOnePercent said:
Fittster said:
You do spout a load of old nonsense. Let me guess, you think this is because the poor can't be bothered to better themselves.
"Britain has some of the lowest social mobility in the developed world - the OECD figures show our earnings in the UK are more likely to reflect our fathers' than any other country".
And yet I pay more in taxes than both my parents peak gross income."Britain has some of the lowest social mobility in the developed world - the OECD figures show our earnings in the UK are more likely to reflect our fathers' than any other country".
Dr Jekyll said:
The fact that some people can't afford to eat it is a problem, the fact that other people are rich isn't. Put it this way, if nobody could afford to eat there wouldn't be a gap but everyone would starve. So it isn't the gap that's the problem.
But on the presumption that there's a finite amount of money in the world; if there's £1,000,000 available and 1,000 people in the world, is it a good system that allows 10 of those people to have £999,999, and everyone else shares the remaining £1,000?Saying there is no problem seems naive. Surely there's a point where there's too much weight at one end and the system collapses.
durbster said:
Dr Jekyll said:
The fact that some people can't afford to eat it is a problem, the fact that other people are rich isn't. Put it this way, if nobody could afford to eat there wouldn't be a gap but everyone would starve. So it isn't the gap that's the problem.
But on the presumption that there's a finite amount of money in the world; if there's £1,000,000 available and 1,000 people in the world, is it a good system that allows 10 of those people to have £999,999, and everyone else shares the remaining £1,000?Saying there is no problem seems naive. Surely there's a point where there's too much weight at one end and the system collapses.
durbster said:
Dr Jekyll said:
The fact that some people can't afford to eat it is a problem, the fact that other people are rich isn't. Put it this way, if nobody could afford to eat there wouldn't be a gap but everyone would starve. So it isn't the gap that's the problem.
But on the presumption that there's a finite amount of money in the world; if there's £1,000,000 available and 1,000 people in the world, is it a good system that allows 10 of those people to have £999,999, and everyone else shares the remaining £1,000?Saying there is no problem seems naive. Surely there's a point where there's too much weight at one end and the system collapses.
durbster said:
But on the presumption that there's a finite amount of money in the world; if there's £1,000,000 available and 1,000 people in the world, is it a good system that allows 10 of those people to have £999,999, and everyone else shares the remaining £1,000?
Saying there is no problem seems naive. Surely there's a point where there's too much weight at one end and the system collapses.
But it's that presumption that's wrong. Centuries ago there were far fewer people on the world than now, and most were close to starvation. It's creating wealth that matters, not distributing poverty.Saying there is no problem seems naive. Surely there's a point where there's too much weight at one end and the system collapses.
Zoobeef said:
Thankfully you're not in charge of the books.
I agree 
Siscar said:
There isn't a finite amount of money in the world in that way. There is massively more in circulation today than there was 10/20/30/40/50/whatever years ago.
I realise that but there's a finite amount of money in the world today.I take the point about generating wealth though.
Edited by durbster on Thursday 24th April 20:30
TopOnePercent said:
16 pages... 16 pages of the usual swivel eyed, envious, and fiscally illiterate clap trap.
I forget the names, but those posters proposing 75% tax rates, that investment causes deflation, or that you can tax your way into equality, please, for the love of god, stop posting on economic threads. You don't get it, and you won't, no matter how hard others try to educate you. You may as well be trying to fly to the moon - its beyond your reach, and wailing will not bring it closer.
Life isn't fair. There, I said it. Some people live long healthy lives, others die young. Some are pretty, others munt. Some are intelligent, others vote labour. And some are lucky, others aren't.
Rather than tax wealth, you'd create a more equal society by taxing beauty. Sound ridiculous? It is, but no more so than trying to tax your way into ought but poverty.
Stop paying for the creation of benefits babies and you'll reduce the number in relative poverty faster than any other means.
If we divided the nations wealth equally among us tomorrow, by 2015 we would again have "the rich" and we'd still have the poor. It may not be the same people that are rich, but it would be mostly the same people that are poor.
Get over the envy of others lives and make the best of your own.
I didn't do well at school, and my family are firmly blue collar, but in about 15 years time, I should have hit my first million. Mostly down to my parents making me stick in at school when I hated it, and partly due to me being lucky.
I pay more than enough for the state, but all I see is wholesale waste on unaffordable pensions that cost lottery win size pools of cash to fund, non-jobs, inefficiency, and laziness. Will I pay more for that? No, thanks, I can put my money to better use.
Stop coming here and talking sense! Let people wallow in the unfairness of it all. I forget the names, but those posters proposing 75% tax rates, that investment causes deflation, or that you can tax your way into equality, please, for the love of god, stop posting on economic threads. You don't get it, and you won't, no matter how hard others try to educate you. You may as well be trying to fly to the moon - its beyond your reach, and wailing will not bring it closer.
Life isn't fair. There, I said it. Some people live long healthy lives, others die young. Some are pretty, others munt. Some are intelligent, others vote labour. And some are lucky, others aren't.
Rather than tax wealth, you'd create a more equal society by taxing beauty. Sound ridiculous? It is, but no more so than trying to tax your way into ought but poverty.
Stop paying for the creation of benefits babies and you'll reduce the number in relative poverty faster than any other means.
If we divided the nations wealth equally among us tomorrow, by 2015 we would again have "the rich" and we'd still have the poor. It may not be the same people that are rich, but it would be mostly the same people that are poor.
Get over the envy of others lives and make the best of your own.
I didn't do well at school, and my family are firmly blue collar, but in about 15 years time, I should have hit my first million. Mostly down to my parents making me stick in at school when I hated it, and partly due to me being lucky.
I pay more than enough for the state, but all I see is wholesale waste on unaffordable pensions that cost lottery win size pools of cash to fund, non-jobs, inefficiency, and laziness. Will I pay more for that? No, thanks, I can put my money to better use.
durbster said:
Siscar said:
There isn't a finite amount of money in the world in that way. There is massively more in circulation today than there was 10/20/30/40/50/whatever years ago.
I realise that but there's a finite amount of money in the world today.durbster said:
I take the point about generating wealth though.
At 2030 hrs that's for tomorrow 
Reading some comments on this Topic that say the system is not broken ,leave is as it is.
Well with that attitude we would still be in the Dark Ages.
The system of renumeration in SOME industries is broken e.g. Investment banking and the reward terms of some CEO's.
When huge salaries and bonuses are contractually awarded when that company has suffered huge losses and mismanagement that cannot be good business practice.
I have a suspicion that the same posters that shrug there shoulders regarding the above disorder are the ones that say the widening gulf between the shop floor and top directors is not damaging our society,nothing to see here ,move along.
I do not understand why you think that this disparity does not need to be addressed.
Only 20 years ago there was not this gulf between employees and management,certainly you may have had the odd case, and that system of reward and bonus worked very well.
I am sympathetic to entrepreneurs like Siscar and I do think that job and wealth creators like him should be well rewarded,these are not the people I refer to.
Well with that attitude we would still be in the Dark Ages.
The system of renumeration in SOME industries is broken e.g. Investment banking and the reward terms of some CEO's.
When huge salaries and bonuses are contractually awarded when that company has suffered huge losses and mismanagement that cannot be good business practice.
I have a suspicion that the same posters that shrug there shoulders regarding the above disorder are the ones that say the widening gulf between the shop floor and top directors is not damaging our society,nothing to see here ,move along.
I do not understand why you think that this disparity does not need to be addressed.
Only 20 years ago there was not this gulf between employees and management,certainly you may have had the odd case, and that system of reward and bonus worked very well.
I am sympathetic to entrepreneurs like Siscar and I do think that job and wealth creators like him should be well rewarded,these are not the people I refer to.
avinalarf said:
Reading some comments on this Topic that say the system is not broken ,leave is as it is.
Well with that attitude we would still be in the Dark Ages.
The system of renumeration in SOME industries is broken e.g. Investment banking and the reward terms of some CEO's.
When huge salaries and bonuses are contractually awarded when that company has suffered huge losses and mismanagement that cannot be good business practice.
I have a suspicion that the same posters that shrug there shoulders regarding the above disorder are the ones that say the widening gulf between the shop floor and top directors is not damaging our society,nothing to see here ,move along.
I do not understand why you think that this disparity does not need to be addressed.
Only 20 years ago there was not this gulf between employees and management,certainly you may have had the odd case, and that system of reward and bonus worked very well.
I am sympathetic to entrepreneurs like Siscar and I do think that job and wealth creators like him should be well rewarded,these are not the people I refer to.
A piece here apropos of your point: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-04-24/bank-engl...Well with that attitude we would still be in the Dark Ages.
The system of renumeration in SOME industries is broken e.g. Investment banking and the reward terms of some CEO's.
When huge salaries and bonuses are contractually awarded when that company has suffered huge losses and mismanagement that cannot be good business practice.
I have a suspicion that the same posters that shrug there shoulders regarding the above disorder are the ones that say the widening gulf between the shop floor and top directors is not damaging our society,nothing to see here ,move along.
I do not understand why you think that this disparity does not need to be addressed.
Only 20 years ago there was not this gulf between employees and management,certainly you may have had the odd case, and that system of reward and bonus worked very well.
I am sympathetic to entrepreneurs like Siscar and I do think that job and wealth creators like him should be well rewarded,these are not the people I refer to.
BoE Cheif-economist-to-be Andrew Haldane makes some interesting points on the subject.
durbster said:
I realise that but there's a finite amount of money in the world today.
If we substitute the word wealth for money, every time someone makes a product on this planet the wealth of the world increases. Every nail hammered, every seed planted, every lump of coal mined increases wealth, so no- it's not finite today.Digga said:
piece here apropos of your point: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-04-24/bank-engl...
BoE Cheif-economist-to-be Andrew Haldane makes some interesting points on the subject.
Thanks for that Digga.BoE Cheif-economist-to-be Andrew Haldane makes some interesting points on the subject.
turbobloke said:
And then there's tomorrow...
I think the point he may be getting at is that even tomorrow the top end rich will soak that up too, to leave little remaining for the rest to divide out.Taking a snap shot in time to simplify things can be one way to look at it. But obviously the entire complexity of nation's/world economies from day to day may be impossible to explain within the space allowed on our PH forum
I also think that we need a system that allows individuals to become 'rich' (that is capitalism) and that this system depends on the majority to be 'poor'.
But like one poster mentioned above, is the balance too heavily weighted in favour of the rich, meaning that the majority poor are not left with enough 'available wealth' (at any given moment in time) to create a prosperous UK ?
avinalarf said:
Digga said:
piece here apropos of your point: http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2014-04-24/bank-engl...
BoE Cheif-economist-to-be Andrew Haldane makes some interesting points on the subject.
Thanks for that Digga.BoE Cheif-economist-to-be Andrew Haldane makes some interesting points on the subject.
From my reading of it, there are a couple of points not answered because they can't be answered, but they're still relevant, and after an attempt at narrative I suspect that I can best approach them via a string of bullet points:
- the past developed as it did, within the context that applied at the time, with the mistakes that were made
- there was growth followed by losses followed by recovery
- at this point, how can we say that if the changes alluded to by the extracts at the link, if implemented earlier, would have led to a better or worse current position that left society even poorer, and come to that, a better or worse future position
- if the changes alluded to are made, given that the recent losses were not planned for (the models and paradigm are suggested after-the-fact to be inadequate) how can we know that these changes will not prove to have made things even worse at some future date, since the same human limitations remain in place
This is not to say that everything is fine and nothing could or should be done, but the 'society' and 'cooperative' feel to the comments at the link are likely to induce a rosy glow that things couldn't possibly go wrong in that future brave new world of inevitably successful mutuality when in reality it might be worse.
It can't possibly be suggesting that abolishing boom and bust is possible and desirable no matter what, Gordon Brown claimed something similar had been achieved not long before the roof blew off.
durbster said:
Do you not think there may be a problem when the system we have allows an indivicual to accumulate vastly more wealth than it is possible to spend, when there are still people in the world who can't afford to eat?
No. People can't afford to eat; that's a problem. Rich folk aren't.It's really simple.
In no particular order:
Expressing a position in terms of rich and poor will inevitably make it sound bad for the poor but most of the country and indeed the world are poor compared to Gates, Buffett and Abramovich but even mere millionaires can get by. If the poor are able to sustain a pleasurable quality of life what does it matter if there's a gap to people with greater wealth? As a previous poster pointed out, no gap because everyone is in poverty confirms that a gap per se isn't the problem.
Those that can come up with a credible idea and a convincing business model with associated financial planning can get a start-up loan and, if the marketplace gives them permission, become prosperous.
It may well be that nothing much would change, as also suggested in previous posts, there are traits in people that need to change to enable better life decisions otherwise even more money extracted from the effors of others won't help.
AA999 said:
But obviously the entire complexity of nation's/world economies from day to day may be impossible to explain within the space allowed on our PH forum
Indeed AA999 said:
I think the point he may be getting at is that even tomorrow the top end rich will soak that up too, to leave little remaining for the rest to divide out. Taking a snap shot in time to simplify things can be one way to look at it.
I also think that we need a system that allows individuals to become 'rich' (that is capitalism) and that this system depends on the majority to be 'poor'.
It's not a zero sum game though, a snapshot signifying the position at any one time may give a false impression.I also think that we need a system that allows individuals to become 'rich' (that is capitalism) and that this system depends on the majority to be 'poor'.
Expressing a position in terms of rich and poor will inevitably make it sound bad for the poor but most of the country and indeed the world are poor compared to Gates, Buffett and Abramovich but even mere millionaires can get by. If the poor are able to sustain a pleasurable quality of life what does it matter if there's a gap to people with greater wealth? As a previous poster pointed out, no gap because everyone is in poverty confirms that a gap per se isn't the problem.
AA999 said:
But like one poster mentioned above, is the balance too heavily weighted in favour of the rich, meaning that the majority poor are not left with enough 'available wealth' (at any given moment in time) to create a prosperous UK ?
Does this not also argue against a more uniform forced distribution of wealth, due to the fact that diluted wealth has less leverage - and does it not also suggest that given sufficient handouts, everyone receiving something somehow would use their windfall well and become prosperous? Those that can come up with a credible idea and a convincing business model with associated financial planning can get a start-up loan and, if the marketplace gives them permission, become prosperous.
It may well be that nothing much would change, as also suggested in previous posts, there are traits in people that need to change to enable better life decisions otherwise even more money extracted from the effors of others won't help.
durbster said:
iphonedyou said:
Zoobeef said:
But its not a problem to be solved.
That was my understanding, too. I don't think the gap itself is a problem as such, and even if it were, not one that requires solving.The average person on this planet would view the average uk resident as having vastly more wealth than they could possibly need. Even the poorest uk residents have a lifestyle others could only dream about.
The fact that some have more zero's in their bank account is not the problem, and removing those zero's is not a solution.
The system that alows people to better themselves is why we have a decent economy, jobs, industry etc. You need people to take the risk and create that economy.
turbobloke said:
It's thought-provoking for sure.
From my reading of it, there are a couple of points not answered because they can't be answered...
As I see it - with reference, for example, of students walking out of a Harvard economics lecture because of the narrow subject matter - the text is a fairly direct attack on the Harvard-Keynsian ideal (and thereby MMT) and establishment. It is fairly clear, from this topic, that zero interest rate policy (ZIRP) has benefited only the elite and has not helped private individuals or firms in any material way, whilst at the same time fueling inflation, from whose effects they most certainly do suffer.From my reading of it, there are a couple of points not answered because they can't be answered...
What he does not say, but is an equal part of the problem (because they form the herds and also the elite who benefit from their own actions) is that those who have been in power have been lining the pockets of their own crowd.
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