to be utterly incensed that the gap between the very richest people and everyone else in society is getting wider and wider?

[Mintyy]

They are rich. Why can't it stop there?

Why do they have to go from being multi millionaires to billionaires to multi billionaires?

I wouldn't find it so hard to swallow if the opportunity to earn more was open to everyone, but it most definitely is not.

The fact that the gap between the richest and the poorest in our country is widening enormously really sickens me to the back teeth.

[GarlicJulyKit]

Pomme, if the guys on the top floor weren't such greedy fuckers, their packer in the yard wouldn't have to work four jobs and still worry about shoes.

I've been a waitress and board director of a media company. I can tell you without doubt which job is harder.

[edamsavestheday]

Oops sorry thought first post hadn't made it.

The thing is it is a hell of lot easier for execs to cope with their stress at work because their pay allows them to surround themselves with comforts. There is strong research evidence that execs are less stressed than their employees - middle and junior management is more stressful, in health terms, because you have responsibility without power. It isn't the chief exec who has to face the people he (and it is usually a he) he is making redundant.

And it's very stressful to be a cleaner. The job is hard work and you often get treated badly by customers and employers alike. Chief executives generally don't get beaten up at work, or attached by angry customers.

When my sister gets beaten up because vulnerable confused and angry patients lose it, her chief exec isn't suffering, even he is ultimately responsible for short staffing. When my trains are disastrously delayed, it isn't the chief exec who has to soak up all the abuse from angry passengers at the end of their tether - it's the poor station staff.

[pommedeterre]

That stress is outside work. You are missing what I am trying to say.

Yes the money makes your life outside he work place much easier.

You are not paid for the life outside the work place.

In the work place running a company means a lot more stress during work hours than cleaning.

Pay is based on work hours.

[edamsavestheday]

Yup, I'm a manager myself, but I don't kid myself that even the most senior management is harder than doing four different cleaning jobs and still worrying desperately about whether you'll have enough money for the gas meter, and to put enough food on the table, and buy the kids new shoes.

If you are a chief exec or board director, you get looked after. You can afford cleaners, and get your clothes laundered, and you travel first class. You don't have to do much of the dreary time-consuming stuff that wears people down. And if you really fuck up, you get a fat pay-off. If people further down the ladder fuck up, they are in real trouble.

[pommedeterre]

The worrying about money and life outside the workplace is different though. I am talking solely about stress at work. That is what pay is rewarding.

[edamsavestheday]

Yes pomme, I'm a manager myself, but it's not actually as hard as working three or four cleaning jobs and still constantly worrying about how to put enough food on the table or whether you can afford new shoes for your kids.

[pommedeterre]

'Actually do the work'

Running companies will always be harder than being an employee as you have to manage the employees, which, if you are doing it right is damned hard work.

[edamsavestheday]

Greedy fuckers is accurate.

Running companies is fine, but it does not justify massively spiralling pay out of all proportion to the earnings of the people who actually do the work AND company performance. People who run companies are not inventing anything or being entrepreneurs risking their own money. They deserve fair pay, not ludicrously exaggerated pay set by a cabal of their mates.

[pommedeterre]

'Greedy fuckers' - over emotive

'Run companies' - this is not nothing and not to be dismissed.

[edamsavestheday]

"60% of UK households are getting MORE from the state than they put in." Yes, and that's because over the last 30 years the rich have been gobbling an ever greater share of the pie. Income differentials between company bosses and workers have expanded rapidly and hugely. There's no natural law about this, the proceeds of economic growth don't have to be concentrated in so few hands. And then the greedy fuckers who have stacked the system so far in their own favour turn round and want some kind of award because they pay a bigger share of the tax cake - that's because they've grabbed all of the money!

We need to be far more like Germany - an economy that even arch-capitalists would admit is 'successful' but which doesn't see the need to divide the country into a few fat cats v. most of the population surviving on the crumbs. No-one could claim Germany is anti-capitalist, but they have workers' representatives on the boards of companies.

It may start to change now it's hitting the middle classes, though. When it was just the poor, politicians could safely ignore them, now the middle classes are realising they are being left behind, perhaps the political emphasis will shift.

The fat cats, btw, are not entrepreneurs with ideas risking their own money. They are either those lovely guys in the city who crashed the world economy by gambling everyone else's money or plain old senior managers who run companies. The performance of chief execs and directors is negatively linked to excessive pay - fat pay rises actually damage company performance, probably because it makes hiring conservative. People get paid oodles for playing safe, coasting at best.

[caroldecker]

When I said income re-distribution, I was referring to making everyone equal on income, or a significantly narrower gap than this country currently has, which is the point of the thread - I agree there needs to be some level of re-distribution.

[Cuteypatootey]

At least there is a minimum wage and benefits in the uk. ( I am not by any means implying this is an easy way to live) Not true of some other countries.

[GarlicJulyKit]

That's a nice Wikipedia page, Carol, thanks. I'll read it tomorrow.

[GarlicJulyKit]

Income redistribution fails because it works for no-one.

Sorry, Carol, but that statement's full of ignorance. All states carry out income redistribution, except a few unstable dictatorships (if any of those are even left!) There is no advantage to letting your country go to rack & ruin because all the wealth is locked in a few castles. Have you ever been to a country full of destitute people? Stepped over families sleeping on the street, tried not to breathe when someone's coughing up tuberculosis, been followed everywhere by beggars? Why the hell would you want a civilised & developed nation to pursue that? Especially when it's the nation you live in!

It's a shame you can't understand basic statistics, because 60% of UK households are getting MORE from the state than they put in. That's income redistribution! And this is under the most viciously liberal government we've had since the war.

I am a capitalist. Luckily for me, I'm not the only one who thinks things threough.

[caroldecker]

wetherall

Compare where we are vs the past or the rest of the world - everyone in this country is in the richest group.

If you want to go back to the best position - in 1950 only 1% of the UK lived in relative poverty here.

Do you want to go to when things were 'fairer' live like this

[pommedeterre]

weatherall - only climate change on that list is new news. The rest have been around for hundreds of years. I'm not convinced we are in an emergency situation - it feels same old, same old in the big picture.

[weatherall]

Capitalism isn't working for everyone!

Food banks
Homelessness
Early death
Suicide
Obesity
Depression
Overcrowding
Crime
Gangs
Pollution
Climate change
In work poverty
Lack of housing
Restriction of freedom and liberty
Broken communities
Addiction

These all lead back to bad capitalism.

[caroldecker]

Garlic

This has been spouted by every generation and they have all been wrong. Capitalism survives because it works for everyone.
Income redistribution fails because it works for no-one.
This si the lesson in every country in the world, unfortunately having to be repeated time and time again because people think it is not 'fair'.
Fuck fair, give me what works

[GarlicJulyKit]

I don't support 'equal' wealth distribution. Neither do I support anti-technology movements! I feel it's imperative to recognise that technology does replace human work - as it's supposed to. And that this is reaching a critical point, where our traditional model of human work as economic worth becomes redundant. Therefore I want a reasoned & humane solution. Because the economic alternative is a "final solution".

6/10 of UK households receive more from the state than they pay towards it. This is dysfunctional. There are not enough jobs paying enough to live on. You either have to create the jobs, in order to extend the life of our economic model, get rid of the people, or think differently about it.

Before land enclosures started ~ 13th century, common people had land which they used to build houses, farm, and create local markets. A universal basic income is fundamentally a modern version of this - taking technological flexibility, improved health, education and communications into account (thus using money instead of subsistence farming.)

[oddcommentator]

Place moved me to tears. It all happened in 1979.

In most of our lifetimes.

Does this mean i support unbridled exploitation. Not. at. all. But when you punish success or even show disdain for it then you dont tend to get any success.

I read somewhere that half of america's billionaires made their money in industries that didnt exist 40 years ago. not sure of the link so dont quote me

[oddcommentator]

Oh Charley - it was tried recently, it had a few problems. There was a de-technification of a country where they consciously chose to become an agrarian economy again. Wasn't a roaring success, in fact even to this day the country still struggles. In order to make it work, there was forced land re-distribtion and income from the rich to the poor and those who didn't agree were dealt with at Choeung Ek.

Now i can see people about to pop on a decry that this is different - the truth is it isn't. It was the logical conclusion of all of the solutions being pandered about by the "we are the 99%" and the "soak the rich".

For every glitzy graph showing how the evil rich are making us all poorer there is another saying that incomes are increasing. The fact remains tax is either to provide enough money to complete the governments agenda or it is the governments agenda. The free-market capitalists see tax as a way of raising revenue for the government to do stuff with and it is therefore a question of a maximum amount of milk for a minimum amount of moo. The far left see it as an end in itself to punish those with more. Middle ground sees it as arguing over the government agenda.

Abraham Lincoln said you do not make the poor rich by making the rich poor. If you confiscated all of philip greens billions and distributed it to the population of britain then we would get a one off payment of £50. That would be it. Who would be next? that rich bastard next door with a new car? yeah he is rich. And so it goes.

[caroldecker]

I think we should all read this and weep that they failed and all the change since then has been hardship for all