[Politics] Wealth Inequality

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

The problem of excess wealth, and the problems created by inequality are not really about assets or money. It's about inequality of power. As we are seeing, inequality is destroying democracy. And the planet.

Thing, is there has always been inequality of power. The Normans in particular formalized the aristocracy rubric that meant a tiny number of noblemen gorged themselves on the peasantry for hundreds of years.

Arguably the average Joe has more power now than he ever had, with a legal framework that protects our rights.

The threat is the erosion of rights and protections in the name of 'freedom' by the new rich.

Musk wants to give me the freedom to lie about you and campaign against you with no restrictions.
Provided my lies suit him.

 

[Ⓩ-Ⓐ-Ⓜ-Ⓞ-Ⓡ-Ⓐ]

And because Labour has not instantly fixed the hospital waiting lists and made us all richer while cutting taxes, millions are already clamouring to do so again.

I demand change NOW!

 

[Is it PotG?]

 

[Han Solo]

usefully also shows the misunderstanding of wealth. most wealth isn't piles of money, it's assets and investments, those things that grow.

If you are to believe Milton Friedman, that is.

 

[Peteinblack]

Sadly, I'm not sure how it can ever change, or if most people care:

a) the wealthy tend to own the newspapers which tell ordinary struggling people that their crap wages and exorbitant rents are due to immigrants, or other 'greedy' workers. These wealthy press owners also promote divide-and-rule by turning groups of workers against each other, and so divert their attention from the greed of the corporate elites and shareholders regularly paid £ millions - just look at the (Tory) media vitriol and spite directed recently against 'greedy' train drivers for securing a pay deal worth up to £65,000. Yet the people who denounce the train drivers are silent when the CEO of Tesco has his salary doubled from £5 million to £10 million, and the CEO of Sainsbury's had his salary increased from £1.3 million to £3.9 million - no accusations against these CEOs of being greedy, over-paid, or causing inflation.

b) the poor are widely viewed (again, partly because of the media) as lazy and feckless -"They don't deserve any more money, they'll only waste it on booze, fags, lottery tickets, designer trainers and a new smartphone."

c) The rich and successful entrepreneurs are hailed as 'wealth-creators' who we should admire, because without them, we wouldn't have the jobs they provide - but they would not have their wealth if it was not for the work done by their employees; their staff actually make and sell the products and services which make a company successful, and generate the profits. So the working-class are the true 'wealth-creators'.

d) The demands of the wealthy are portrayed very differently and favourably compared to the demands of ordinary people. If workers go on strike for a small pay rise, they are accused of holding the country to ransom, economic blackmail, bully-boys tactics, selfishness, etc. Yet when the rich say, "pay us more or cut our taxes, or else we'll emigrate" the response is "Oooh, I don't blame them, they're simply looking after their economic interests. That's natural."

e) Anyone who proposes any policies (however mild) to reduce extreme inequality and obscene disparities of wealth, is automatically denounced and portrayed as a crazy Communist who wants everyone to be paid exactly the same, or accused of promoting 'the politics of envy'. Also, the cry always goes up that the State should never interfere in the affairs of private companies - it is their business and no-one else's if they want to pay their CEO £ millions, and their front-line or shop-floor staff the minimum wage only.

f) If the rich are ever asked to pay a bit more, they are easily mobilised to protest, and given plenty of sympathetic coverage in the press; just look at the current protests by farmers over inheritance tax (when environmentalists block roads, they go to prison), and the tears being shed for parents who send their kids to public (private!) schools and are now being asked to pay VAT on the fees for Tarquin and Jocasta.

It would never happen - the wealthy, big business and the Tories would never allow it - but I've always been in favour of a 'pay ratio', whereby the highest-paid person in a public sector organisation can only earn x 10 more the the lowest paid employee, and in the private sector, x 30. Then, the bosses can still be paid more, but only if they increase the pay of their staff similarly.

If anyone thinks that is 'Communist', I'd point out that one of Margaret Thatcher's former Advisers, Ferdinand Mount, has advocated a 20:1 pay ratio in the public sector, and 40:1 in the private sector.

In the meantime, I'll again plug one of the most important books ever written about how/why the working class passively accept inequality, and how readily they are persuaded that their poverty wages are solely the fault of 'forriners', and nothing whatsoever to do with the selfishness and greed of their employers. Written 110 years ago, this brilliant book could easily have been written today - exactly the same arguments, and the same scapegoating of others to divert workers' attention from those who are the real cause of their poverty wages and awful working conditions.

 

[Peteinblack]

View attachment 194881

 

[Dorset Seagull]

They’d do what companies do and sell their unused quota to companies that want more. So net carbon doesn’t lessen, it just gets redistributed.

Surely this depends on the amount the total quota is set at. It doesn't matter if they sell their quota if the total quota is set at a sustainable level

 

[Is it PotG?]

RR has used a sizeable chunk of her allowance up by running off to China, no doubt aided by several assistants.

 

[BBassic]

2024: Culture War
2025: Class War
2026: World War (?)

 

[BadFish]

usefully also shows the misunderstanding of wealth. most wealth isn't piles of money, it's assets and investments, those things that grow.

And there was me thinking they all sat on top of piles of gold coins like Scrooge mcduck!

 

[Nobby Cybergoat]

Whether on a local or a global scale, when you boil down every problem we face, doesn't it come down to inequality?

 

[el punal]

It really makes you sick, those billions could have done a lot good elsewhere.

Unfortunately, same as it ever was.

 

[BLOCK F]

And because Labour has not instantly fixed the hospital waiting lists and made us all richer while cutting taxes, millions are already clamouring to do so again.

Trouble is, they haven’t exactly filled, the country with confidence in their ability to govern successfully…….yet. For the sake of us all, this centre right citizen hopes they succeed, but I’m not holding my breath. There is a dreadful dearth of political talent and leadership in the country at the moment, right across the spectrum. Badenoch, Starmer, Davey, Farage, and I reckon Reeves will be out of a job before too long, to be replaced by Darren Jones, who, at least, is articulate and a competent communicator.

 

[Is it PotG?]

Trouble is, they haven’t exactly filled, the country with confidence in their ability to govern successfully…….yet. For the sake of us all, this centre right citizen hopes they succeed, but I’m not holding my breath. There is a dreadful dearth of political talent and leadership in the country at the moment, right across the spectrum. Badenoch, Starmer, Davey, Farage, and I reckon Reeves will be out of a job before too long, to be replaced by Darren Jones, who, at least, is articulate and a competent communicator.

Recent excellent orators, such as the Benns or Hague, still need viable policies to communicate.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Trouble is, they haven’t exactly filled, the country with confidence in their ability to govern successfully…….yet. For the sake of us all, this centre right citizen hopes they succeed, but I’m not holding my breath. There is a dreadful dearth of political talent and leadership in the country at the moment, right across the spectrum. Badenoch, Starmer, Davey, Farage, and I reckon Reeves will be out of a job before too long, to be replaced by Darren Jones, who, at least, is articulate and a competent communicator.

It all depends how one defines success.

The reality is there is a limit to what a UK government can do and, provided it doesn't suddenly do some random bollox and tank the economy (Truss) all it can do is steer the massive ship 'UK' towards calmer waters.

Unfortunately the narrative has changed over the last 10 years, with Johnson and Trump blowing smoke up people's arses from behind a mirror, while the 'social media' tycoons, Zuckerberg and now Musk, pipe their muzak direclty into the cerebral cortex of their billions of followers.

Whether Labour do a good job or not will be a matter of opinion, and every opinion is apparently valid now.
If you expect them to fail, they will fail. There will be data you can select to prove your point.

Personally I am content to have a PM with a silly voice and apparently no ability to spin bollocks, false promises and hubris.
Others, sadly still hanker for Johnson, and find Trump exciting and different.

 

[Harry Wilson's tackle]

Trouble is, they haven’t exactly filled, the country with confidence in their ability to govern successfully…….yet. For the sake of us all, this centre right citizen hopes they succeed, but I’m not holding my breath. There is a dreadful dearth of political talent and leadership in the country at the moment, right across the spectrum. Badenoch, Starmer, Davey, Farage, and I reckon Reeves will be out of a job before too long, to be replaced by Darren Jones, who, at least, is articulate and a competent communicator.

I agree about Reeves. Deeply uninspiring.
She sounds very working class, and nobody wants that in a chancellor.

 

[Dorset Seagull]

Yet the people who denounce the train drivers are silent when the CEO of Tesco has his salary doubled from £5 million to £10 million, and the CEO of Sainsbury's had his salary increased from £1.3 million to £3.9 million - no accusations against these CEOs of being greedy, over-paid, or causing inflation.

c) The rich and successful entrepreneurs are hailed as 'wealth-creators' who we should admire, because without them, we wouldn't have the jobs they provide - but they would not have their wealth if it was not for the work done by their employees; their staff actually make and sell the products and services which make a company successful, and generate the profits. So the working-class are the true 'wealth-creators'.

The difference is that the train drivers work is measured in a different way to the CEO. The CEO will generally earn bonuses based on the profits of the company. Assuming he is not generating more profit by cutting the overhead of wages then this is fine. Any owner of a company would happily pay a CEO another £1m a year if he created an extra £2m profit by growing market share. That's the whole point of the exercise and doesn't make the CEO greedy just him doing the job he is paid to do.

In terms of wealth creators it is a bit of both. However you do need to factor in that the initial driver for this is that entrepreneurs are normally the ones that have taken a risk in their lives and get rewarded for that if the risk they take is successful. Without the risk takers you would not have any wealth but of course you do need the non risk takers to participate. The biggest problem is when the risk taker earns far too much from a business and the workers don't get a fairer share of the reward.

 

[Dave the OAP]

Sadly, I'm not sure how it can ever change, or if most people care:

a) the wealthy tend to own the newspapers which tell ordinary struggling people that their crap wages and exorbitant rents are due to immigrants, or other 'greedy' workers. These wealthy press owners also promote divide-and-rule by turning groups of workers against each other, and so divert their attention from the greed of the corporate elites and shareholders regularly paid £ millions - just look at the (Tory) media vitriol and spite directed recently against 'greedy' train drivers for securing a pay deal worth up to £65,000. Yet the people who denounce the train drivers are silent when the CEO of Tesco has his salary doubled from £5 million to £10 million, and the CEO of Sainsbury's had his salary increased from £1.3 million to £3.9 million - no accusations against these CEOs of being greedy, over-paid, or causing inflation.

b) the poor are widely viewed (again, partly because of the media) as lazy and feckless -"They don't deserve any more money, they'll only waste it on booze, fags, lottery tickets, designer trainers and a new smartphone."

c) The rich and successful entrepreneurs are hailed as 'wealth-creators' who we should admire, because without them, we wouldn't have the jobs they provide - but they would not have their wealth if it was not for the work done by their employees; their staff actually make and sell the products and services which make a company successful, and generate the profits. So the working-class are the true 'wealth-creators'.

d) The demands of the wealthy are portrayed very differently and favourably compared to the demands of ordinary people. If workers go on strike for a small pay rise, they are accused of holding the country to ransom, economic blackmail, bully-boys tactics, selfishness, etc. Yet when the rich say, "pay us more or cut our taxes, or else we'll emigrate" the response is "Oooh, I don't blame them, they're simply looking after their economic interests. That's natural."

e) Anyone who proposes any policies (however mild) to reduce extreme inequality and obscene disparities of wealth, is automatically denounced and portrayed as a crazy Communist who wants everyone to be paid exactly the same, or accused of promoting 'the politics of envy'. Also, the cry always goes up that the State should never interfere in the affairs of private companies - it is their business and no-one else's if they want to pay their CEO £ millions, and their front-line or shop-floor staff the minimum wage only.

f) If the rich are ever asked to pay a bit more, they are easily mobilised to protest, and given plenty of sympathetic coverage in the press; just look at the current protests by farmers over inheritance tax (when environmentalists block roads, they go to prison), and the tears being shed for parents who send their kids to public (private!) schools and are now being asked to pay VAT on the fees for Tarquin and Jocasta.

It would never happen - the wealthy, big business and the Tories would never allow it - but I've always been in favour of a 'pay ratio', whereby the highest-paid person in a public sector organisation can only earn x 10 more the the lowest paid employee, and in the private sector, x 30. Then, the bosses can still be paid more, but only if they increase the pay of their staff similarly.

If anyone thinks that is 'Communist', I'd point out that one of Margaret Thatcher's former Advisers, Ferdinand Mount, has advocated a 20:1 pay ratio in the public sector, and 40:1 in the private sector.

In the meantime, I'll again plug one of the most important books ever written about how/why the working class passively accept inequality, and how readily they are persuaded that their poverty wages are solely the fault of 'forriners', and nothing whatsoever to do with the selfishness and greed of their employers. Written 110 years ago, this brilliant book could easily have been written today - exactly the same arguments, and the same scapegoating of others to divert workers' attention from those who are the real cause of their poverty wages and awful working conditions.
View attachment 194882

You are the reincarnated Karl Marx and I for one will vote for you!

 

[BLOCK F]

It all depends how one defines success.

The reality is there is a limit to what a UK government can do and, provided it doesn't suddenly do some random bollox and tank the economy (Truss) all it can do is steer the massive ship 'UK' towards calmer waters.

Unfortunately the narrative has changed over the last 10 years, with Johnson and Trump blowing smoke up people's arses from behind a mirror, while the 'social media' tycoons, Zuckerberg and now Musk, pipe their muzak direclty into the cerebral cortex of their billions of followers.

Whether Labour do a good job or not will be a matter of opinion, and every opinion is apparently valid now.
If you expect them to fail, they will fail. There will be data you can select to prove your point.

Personally I am content to have a PM with a silly voice and apparently no ability to spin bollocks, false promises and hubris.
Others, sadly still hanker for Johnson, and find Trump exciting and different.

I’m not sure the success or otherwise of Labour or any party in power will just be a matter of opinion, there will be measurable targets, both economic and other by which their time in office can be gauged.
As I have said, despite not being a Labour voter, I hope they succeed for all our sakes as I want the country to prosper.
As for those hankering for Johnson, they can go to the same place as those who wish for a reincarnation of Corbyn! Musk, I consider to be a potential danger to society who needs careful monitoring by the spooks!

 

[happypig]

I demand change NOW!

Sadly, I'm not sure how it can ever change, or if most people care:

a) the wealthy tend to own the newspapers which tell ordinary struggling people that their crap wages and exorbitant rents are due to immigrants, or other 'greedy' workers. These wealthy press owners also promote divide-and-rule by turning groups of workers against each other, and so divert their attention from the greed of the corporate elites and shareholders regularly paid £ millions - just look at the (Tory) media vitriol and spite directed recently against 'greedy' train drivers for securing a pay deal worth up to £65,000. Yet the people who denounce the train drivers are silent when the CEO of Tesco has his salary doubled from £5 million to £10 million, and the CEO of Sainsbury's had his salary increased from £1.3 million to £3.9 million - no accusations against these CEOs of being greedy, over-paid, or causing inflation.

b) the poor are widely viewed (again, partly because of the media) as lazy and feckless -"They don't deserve any more money, they'll only waste it on booze, fags, lottery tickets, designer trainers and a new smartphone."

c) The rich and successful entrepreneurs are hailed as 'wealth-creators' who we should admire, because without them, we wouldn't have the jobs they provide - but they would not have their wealth if it was not for the work done by their employees; their staff actually make and sell the products and services which make a company successful, and generate the profits. So the working-class are the true 'wealth-creators'.

d) The demands of the wealthy are portrayed very differently and favourably compared to the demands of ordinary people. If workers go on strike for a small pay rise, they are accused of holding the country to ransom, economic blackmail, bully-boys tactics, selfishness, etc. Yet when the rich say, "pay us more or cut our taxes, or else we'll emigrate" the response is "Oooh, I don't blame them, they're simply looking after their economic interests. That's natural."

e) Anyone who proposes any policies (however mild) to reduce extreme inequality and obscene disparities of wealth, is automatically denounced and portrayed as a crazy Communist who wants everyone to be paid exactly the same, or accused of promoting 'the politics of envy'. Also, the cry always goes up that the State should never interfere in the affairs of private companies - it is their business and no-one else's if they want to pay their CEO £ millions, and their front-line or shop-floor staff the minimum wage only.

f) If the rich are ever asked to pay a bit more, they are easily mobilised to protest, and given plenty of sympathetic coverage in the press; just look at the current protests by farmers over inheritance tax (when environmentalists block roads, they go to prison), and the tears being shed for parents who send their kids to public (private!) schools and are now being asked to pay VAT on the fees for Tarquin and Jocasta.

It would never happen - the wealthy, big business and the Tories would never allow it - but I've always been in favour of a 'pay ratio', whereby the highest-paid person in a public sector organisation can only earn x 10 more the the lowest paid employee, and in the private sector, x 30. Then, the bosses can still be paid more, but only if they increase the pay of their staff similarly.

If anyone thinks that is 'Communist', I'd point out that one of Margaret Thatcher's former Advisers, Ferdinand Mount, has advocated a 20:1 pay ratio in the public sector, and 40:1 in the private sector.

In the meantime, I'll again plug one of the most important books ever written about how/why the working class passively accept inequality, and how readily they are persuaded that their poverty wages are solely the fault of 'forriners', and nothing whatsoever to do with the selfishness and greed of their employers. Written 110 years ago, this brilliant book could easily have been written today - exactly the same arguments, and the same scapegoating of others to divert workers' attention from those who are the real cause of their poverty wages and awful working conditions.
View attachment 194882

Great post and sums up my take on it too.

Personally I am content to have a PM with a silly voice and apparently no ability to spin bollocks, false promises and hubris.
Others, sadly still hanker for Johnson, and find Trump exciting and different.

Agreed, it's like having a dull but competent supply teacher come in after a couple of f***ing idiots.
Incredibly some people want the Chuckle Brothers back running things.