The poorest half of the Uk own 3% of the wealth

[ThinkAboutItTomorrow]

Am I being unreasonable to think we should be taking steps to change this as a country.

And in case you wonder if your household income is less than around £33k you are in the bottom 50%

It didn't use to be this bad. So it CAN be better, we don't have to shrug and accept it.

[StarGazeyPond]

Sounds a bit like a Party Political Broadcast

[ThinkAboutItTomorrow]

And the 5 richest families own more than the poorest 20%.

That's 5 families with more than 12,600,000 families.

[ThinkAboutItTomorrow]

Maybe. But I'm not affiliated. Though I am a labour donor.

[TucsonGirl]

What do we do about it though? Tax and redistribute it in the form of benefits? I honestly don't think that works, not to any great extent anyway. You need to change peoples habits. And that takes a long time, generations even. If you took all the money in the UK now and distributed it all evenly, then came back in 10 years, my guess is that you'd find a very similar disparity in how wealth was distributed. Probably even more so in fact.

[ThinkAboutItTomorrow]

Yes it would take a while but it has taken 50 years for it to get this bad.

In 1906 it was this bad. In 1950 it was up to 6% and it has taken 60 years to grind it back down.

Time the pendulum swung back a bit.

[specialsubject]

and your proposed steps, OP, are....

dictatorship?
violent revolution?

or just stand for parliament in our democracy, with a practical proposal?

(sits back...)

[ClockWatchingLady]

It is totally fucked up.

The banking system itself (debt-based money system) is largely to blame.

I can never quite believe it when programs like Benefit Street encourage outrage about the financing of people who are (for whatever reason) living down-trodden lives, when the amount of money we all give to finance the super-rich is so very, very much more.

[ClockWatchingLady]

(YANBU)

[specialsubject]

alternative suggestions welcome!

[ThinkAboutItTomorrow]

Close all loopholes on inheritance tax so the richest actually pay it.

Only 5% pay inheritance tax and then only on anything over £650k (couple). Let's make them pay up.

And that would include me by the way.

[ClockWatchingLady]

www.positivemoney.org/

Have a read.

(I promise I'm a sensible human being).

[WooWooOwl]

So basically dictate what people can and can't do with their own money that they they have already paid tax on?

Yes, that sounds like the sort of country I'd like to live in

[TucsonGirl]

How do you suggest we "make them" pay up, ThinkAboutIt? Saying close loopholes is easy in theory, much harder in practice.

[ThinkAboutItTomorrow]

Ok make it taxed as per income taxes. Link payment to citizenship (as the us do)

[ThinkAboutItTomorrow]

Just out of interest are the 'oh but there's nothing we can do' crowd saying it's ok?

[ThinkAboutItTomorrow]

No, not dictating what people do with their money. Dictating what proportion the state takes for social good.

You know, like we've done for centuries....

[TucsonGirl]

It's not ok. But taking money from the people that earn it and giving it to people who didn't earn it can only go so far. Give some people £10000 and they'll think "great I can go on holiday, buy a car, go out drinking every weekend for a year, etc etc". And some other people will think "what can I do with this money that will turn it into more money in a years time". You need to educate people to think the latter instead of the former. But that is hard to do when people have been raised in an environment where you take enjoyment when you can get it and don't think about the future too much.

[ThinkAboutItTomorrow]

Actually studies have shown that giving people a big chunk of cash is usually a good idea. Most people are very sensible when given a wedge of cash. More so than drop feeding the cash.

[TucsonGirl]

Say you give every adult in the country £10,000 tomorrow, and next week some people are pleading poverty because they blew it all. What do you do with those people? Give them more money?

[ClockWatchingLady]

I accept that I'm going to be a lone voice shouting in the wilderness here... but if the current state of affairs worries you, please look into the basics of how the money system works (see the link above). I don't think any of this can get truly resolved unless we have a bit of an overhaul.

[Ponkypink]

That's really not just capitalism, that's oligarchic monopoly with hereditary influences.

Taking money from people who earned it and giving it to people who didn't earn it- sounds more or less like the inheritance system really. Most poor people work harder than most heirs/heiresses. That's not even debatable, it's a pure obvious fact.

[PoundingTheStreets]

I don't want communism. I am happy to have a meritocracy in which hardwork, decency and talent are rewarded.

What we actually have is a system in which the majority of wealth is inherited - either directly or through networking which creates opportunities.

I want social mobility.

With that end in mind, all I'd like to see is a greater proportion of fair taxation that ensures schools, the NHS, community outreach and support, public services, etc are all properly funded, and a situation in which essential utilities (e.g. water, gas, electricity) are maybe still privately run but on a limited profit basis only, whereby after a certain amount of bonuses all profits have to be put back into the business to reduce costs to consumers.

[nancy75]

What about rich people that did work to earn everything they have? Not everyone with money was given it.

[PoundingTheStreets]

No one works so hard and is so indispensable that their right to sit on millions is more important than 10 people's right to live free from the spectre of hunger and fuel poverty in what is one of the world's richest countries.