Wealth inequality grows.
Discussion
crankedup said:
I simply cannot agree that Murdoch was not without power derived from his wealth. I maintain that both are interlinked to various degrees. Why do you dismiss Murdock as a extremely wealthy man who has not used his wealth to exercise power, I simply cannot agree with you that you're case is that he is not a man with power through wealth.
Wealth != power, but they are also not mutually exclusive.I've never suggested Murdoch hasn't exercised his power, only that this stems more from connections, scandals, and planning than it does from wealth. Most people with 10x the wealth are not half as powerful as Murdoch.
You don't need money to have power and you don't get gifted money because you have power. You have to choose to use one in pursuit of the other. Either can be acquired in isolation.
Given that, wealth equalisation will not achieve the equalisation of power. Bankrupt Murdoch and he'll still know what he knows about people and he'll still be acquainted with those who hold the powers through which he acts.
Power is an irrelevant sideshow to the wealth or incomes equality discussion. Wealth is wealth, power is power, either can beget the other, just as hard work, good luck, or intelligence can.
crankedup said:
For example, years ago the extremely wealthy would spend some of the wealth by provision of housing for workers. Cadbury being a good example of that, how often do we hear or see the uber wealthy contribute to Society, they seem more interested in amassing more wealth for themselves.
- sigh*
Everyone is someone else's uber rich. A man on a dollar a day would have to work for many lifetimes to have what you have, just as you would to have what Brandson has, and he to have what Gates has. So it goes.
fblm said:
You know what, perhaps that's a little unfair. Let's throw out all the silly little countries under 1m population and those at war...
Oh dear. I guess that's not supposed to happen.
Lol! There's a definite genius in the simplicity of your approach. Puts that particular gini right back in the bottle.Oh dear. I guess that's not supposed to happen.
turbobloke said:
crankedup said:
As a Lib-Dem I am of course in favour of a higher degree of financial equilibration, that is not to say taking from the wealthy bring them to the financial level of the poor. For example, years ago the extremely wealthy would spend some of the wealth by provision of housing for workers. Cadbury being a good example of that, how often do we hear or see the uber wealthy contribute to Society, they seem more interested in amassing more wealth for themselves.
Not sure if serious.crankedup said:
That is of course entirely their prerogative, but they shouldn't be surprised to witness the growing disdain from those in much less fortunate financial situations (Greece).
When it went titsup I thought straight away, damn all those billionaires in Greece no doubt they also slowed the velocity of money out of spite.
crankedup said:
Personally, some of my pals are very wealthy individuals, by that I mean many times multi-millionaires, they own assets without debt.
Do they let you look at their wad?LucreLout said:
crankedup said:
I simply cannot agree that Murdoch was not without power derived from his wealth. I maintain that both are interlinked to various degrees. Why do you dismiss Murdock as a extremely wealthy man who has not used his wealth to exercise power, I simply cannot agree with you that you're case is that he is not a man with power through wealth.
Wealth != power, but they are also not mutually exclusive.I've never suggested Murdoch hasn't exercised his power, only that this stems more from connections, scandals, and planning than it does from wealth. Most people with 10x the wealth are not half as powerful as Murdoch.
You don't need money to have power and you don't get gifted money because you have power. You have to choose to use one in pursuit of the other. Either can be acquired in isolation.
Given that, wealth equalisation will not achieve the equalisation of power. Bankrupt Murdoch and he'll still know what he knows about people and he'll still be acquainted with those who hold the powers through which he acts.
Power is an irrelevant sideshow to the wealth or incomes equality discussion. Wealth is wealth, power is power, either can beget the other, just as hard work, good luck, or intelligence can.
crankedup said:
No I cannot accept the premise of you're POV, just as you cannot accept my POV. Wealth will always bring power which can be used or abused or ignored imo. Clearly we hold opposite POV neither of us are likely to change each others it seems. Such is life, shall we move on!
In which case we won't agree either, as in my viewpoint wealth brings more options in life and it can buy access to those with power - if this is what people regard as power itself, then I disagree for reasons already stated. The genuinely powerful sell access branded as influence or power, but it's just more snake oil and another revenue stream boosting cashflow.Martin4x4 said:
...rational evidence would over coming irrational greed...
Then again, the rational evidence in this thread doesn't coincide with your viewpoint.As to greed - defined as an 'inordinate' desire to possess (etc), where inordinate means disproportionate, unwarranted - there's nothing irrational, disproportionate or unwarranted within the implications and ramifications following from the compelling evidence countering as-yet unsubstantiated assertions from what may broadly be termed the left field.
It's entirely rational and reasonable.
turbobloke said:
crankedup said:
No I cannot accept the premise of you're POV, just as you cannot accept my POV. Wealth will always bring power which can be used or abused or ignored imo. Clearly we hold opposite POV neither of us are likely to change each others it seems. Such is life, shall we move on!
In which case we won't agree either, as in my viewpoint wealth brings more options in life and it can buy access to those with power - if this is what people regard as power itself, then I disagree for reasons already stated. The genuinely powerful sell access branded as influence or power, but it's just more snake oil and another revenue stream boosting cashflow.' " " " " " We would seem to agree that wealth does bring with it power then.
turbobloke said:
Martin4x4 said:
...rational evidence would over coming irrational greed...
Then again, the rational evidence in this thread doesn't coincide with your viewpoint.As to greed - defined as an 'inordinate' desire to possess (etc), where inordinate means disproportionate, unwarranted - there's nothing irrational, disproportionate or unwarranted within the implications and ramifications following from the compelling evidence countering as-yet unsubstantiated assertions from what may broadly be termed the left field.
It's entirely rational and reasonable.
It is wholly inappropriate to define assertions 'broadly leftfield' simply because it is not fitting into you're own assertions.
To veer off course a little, I choked when I read this headline:
Prescribing statins to more people could have the unintended effect of “widening social inequalities”, a new study has claimed.
have the mad scientists discovered a way to discriminate, I wondered?
reading on:
The cholesterol-lowering drugs, which are set to be prescribed to millions more in the UK, have saved 50 per cent more lives among the richest people in the country than among the poorest, researchers from the University of Liverpool found.
Why this might be is not known for certain, but previous studies have shown poorer people are less likely to adhere to drug regimes, the authors of the paper said.
so, it seems the poor are in this case, at least, the authors of their own misfortune.
I cannot hope this won't be used to deny the rest of us a life saving treatment.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and...
Prescribing statins to more people could have the unintended effect of “widening social inequalities”, a new study has claimed.
have the mad scientists discovered a way to discriminate, I wondered?
reading on:
The cholesterol-lowering drugs, which are set to be prescribed to millions more in the UK, have saved 50 per cent more lives among the richest people in the country than among the poorest, researchers from the University of Liverpool found.
Why this might be is not known for certain, but previous studies have shown poorer people are less likely to adhere to drug regimes, the authors of the paper said.
so, it seems the poor are in this case, at least, the authors of their own misfortune.
I cannot hope this won't be used to deny the rest of us a life saving treatment.
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and...
crankedup said:
No I cannot accept the premise of you're POV, just as you cannot accept my POV. Wealth will always bring power which can be used or abused or ignored imo. Clearly we hold opposite POV neither of us are likely to change each others it seems. Such is life, shall we move on!
Were that correct we'd not have people allowed to win £100m on a rollover, as any power they gain from that money must be taken from someone who currently has that power. Your position isn't logical.Martin4x4 said:
Looks like I did make a mistake, assuming rational evidence would over coming irrational greed.
t. Your mistake was assuming you could pass off your opinion and the wild extrapolation of a related but largely irrelevant TED lecture as fact. C- try harder next time.Edited by anonymous-user on Saturday 24th January 22:42
crankedup said:
don4l said:
crankedup said:
LucreLout said:
crankedup said:
Nobody has convinced me that extreme wealth in just a few hands is a good thing, and that extreme wealth is growing within those same few hands. Nobody can see a problem with that, except a couple of other posters. 
We don't have to convince you, as we're happy with the way the system works. You want to change how it works for, frankly, bizarre and seemingly unclear reasons, so you need to make the case for change.Did I say I wanted to change the current system, no I did not!
If you think that we could have a better system, then please feel free to share your views.
Mali and Chad have a much smaller "wealth gap" than the UK. Even the poorest people in the UK have unimaginable wealth compared to the poor in those parts of Africa.
I get the impression that you would be much happier if we didn't have a few hundred wealthy people even if it meant that 10's of thousands would die of starvation.
I am not saying that the current system is perfect. I don't know how to improve it, so I don't complain about it.
You seem to think that it is bad if some people have more wealth than other people and at the same time you are part of the globally wealthiest 1%.
don4l said:
crankedup said:
don4l said:
crankedup said:
LucreLout said:
crankedup said:
Nobody has convinced me that extreme wealth in just a few hands is a good thing, and that extreme wealth is growing within those same few hands. Nobody can see a problem with that, except a couple of other posters.
We don't have to convince you, as we're happy with the way the system works. You want to change how it works for, frankly, bizarre and seemingly unclear reasons, so you need to make the case for change.Did I say I wanted to change the current system, no I did not!
If you think that we could have a better system, then please feel free to share your views.
Mali and Chad have a much smaller "wealth gap" than the UK. Even the poorest people in the UK have unimaginable wealth compared to the poor in those parts of Africa.
I get the impression that you would be much happier if we didn't have a few hundred wealthy people even if it meant that 10's of thousands would die of starvation.
I am not saying that the current system is perfect. I don't know how to improve it, so I don't complain about it.
You seem to think that it is bad if some people have more wealth than other people and at the same time you are part of the globally wealthiest 1%.
You don't complain about a system that you wouldn't know how to change, OK that's a statement of fact concerning you as an individual. However, that is not a precursor for you to implant you're own thought methodology onto other's, such as me. The freedom to complain is a further bedrock of democracy, is this something that you wish to see defeated and those that do not have an answer to suit critics should not speak out?
You're last para' is a wild assumption on you're part, it's meaningless and spiteful in it's nature.
crankedup said:
If you took the time and trouble to read my posts in this thread you will have seen that I have proposed that a system of taxation and policy changes within competition authorities changed, this could form a bedrock of change.
Earlier in this thread I showed that just to maintain the ratio of wealth between the top 10 with 50% of global wealth and everyone else due to population change alone would require an annual fiscal transfer of over $200bn from rich to poor. To reiterate that is simply to maintain the current level of inequality where it is for one year due to population growth. The solution you propose above is utterly delusional and unworkable not to mention would fail. Google a list of countries by gdp per capita and look at the bottom 20. You want to improve the lot of the worlds poor improve their health (plenty of evidence this alone decreases birthrate) and security. It's what the UN is supposed to be for. Get that useless organisation to do its job or replace it with one with teeth.crankedup said:
McWigglebum4th said:
crankedup said:
The study was under the auspices of Oxfam, when the President of USA and other World leaders begin to publicly discuss their concerns regarding the issue you can be sure its not an imaginary situation. Unfortunately the World leaders are only talking, likely fearful of backlash from the wealthy hitting their politics. We can forget the references to those earning 42k + this report concerns the Global wealth inequality.
It will be interesting to hear what comes out from the Leaders chin-wag this week.
Do you earn over £42K?It will be interesting to hear what comes out from the Leaders chin-wag this week.
I really hope you don't
fblm said:
crankedup said:
If you took the time and trouble to read my posts in this thread you will have seen that I have proposed that a system of taxation and policy changes within competition authorities changed, this could form a bedrock of change.
Earlier in this thread I showed that just to maintain the ratio of wealth between the top 10 with 50% of global wealth and everyone else due to population change alone would require an annual fiscal transfer of over $200bn from rich to poor. To reiterate that is simply to maintain the current level of inequality where it is for one year due to population growth. The solution you propose above is utterly delusional and unworkable not to mention would fail. Google a list of countries by gdp per capita and look at the bottom 20. You want to improve the lot of the worlds poor improve their health (plenty of evidence this alone decreases birthrate) and security. It's what the UN is supposed to be for. Get that useless organisation to do its job or replace it with one with teeth.Why is taxation not workable? And why can't it work alongside changes within Competition authorities. You're solution is to ignore all and let matters continue unchecked I assume, a certain recipe for Social discontent and upheaval. It is not simply a matter of bringing prosperity to the under-privileged, it is the continuing and growing problem arising from the multi=billionaires wealth and the consequences that has on Society.
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