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.

Money comes primarily from banks creating it more or less out of thin air.

Too much of it creates inflation. Meaning those at the lower end of society cannot cope.
At the moment mainly all that we are seeing is products getting smaller and smaller. That is the first step.

I totally agree. The mistake some people fall for is that rich have "worked hard" to be where they are. No, they haven't. Not in most cases. Some have robbed their countries and come here knowing we welcome dirty money. Some robbed it from our ancestors, hundreds of years ago. Some have been downright dodgy and criminal. Some have worked hard, yes. But why should you have millions or billions through "working hard" . Even if you worked 24/7 at £50 an hour you'd have nothing like these people!
But people tolerate it as they swallow right-wing propaganda (from the rich press owners!) and like to believe they'll win the lottery one day (they won't). In the end, as sad as it is, we live in the society we deserve and tolerate.

In fact, I worked it out. If you worked 24 hours a day(!) at £50 an hour and paid no tax, from your 18th birthday to your 40th birthday, you'd have less than £1m.

There are two things about this that are particularly annoying me at the moment.

1. That we seem to be going back to Victorian values where we punish the poor for being poor, and

1. That despite my fairly low income I am paying tax to subsidise the wages of hard-working families whose very low wages are being subsidised by the state thereby helping employers not to pay proper wages.

This video is interesting - it compares what people think the differential between rich and poor should be, what people think it really is, and what it is in reality. Some shocking figures, and food for thought in what we like to think of as a democratic society.

These are the people that will be bothered because they would like a redistribution of wealth or they love a bit of capitalism.

I fit neither of those.

The following link explains it better
www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2688622/Westminster-chumocracy-protected-paedophile-revelations-claims-Cameron-s-advisor-child-abuse.html

It is all rather beginning to stink at the "top".
Or rather it has for a long time, but the general public are now cottoning on.

So you would put all 'rich' people in the same boat as Westminister kiddy fiddling chumps?

Rich people aren't bad. The same way that poor people aren't bad.

A person who may or may not happen to have money can be a dick. That says nothing about their social strata.

Wealth could be better distributed, and for a lot of rich people who employ people under fair wages and create opportunities that is what they are trying to achieve.

Not all rich people do this. And some do but don't shout about it.

But the majority of this thread isn't any better than poor bashing/chav labelling only to the other extreme.

Then there are people who come along once in a while claiming that they are poor which makes my blood boil. They are used by the establishment to deter people from concentrating on the real issues & direct their attention elsewhere.

local.mumsnet.com/Talk/credit_crunch/2111309-Smoker-mother-struggles-on-100k-a-year

No matter how hard we work, we are totally priced out of the housing market when it comes to trading up from a 2 to 3 bed house. I would need 100k to trade up and that is a massive gap for an ordinary working person to fill.

As mentioned above, the pay gap isnt ever going to improve and profit will never be equally distributed. I feel sad for the children of this generation and what their future holds for them.

It is all rather beginning to stink at the "top".

That is what I am trying to say. Not much more and not much less.

Have I begun to be very wary of the very rich? Yes.
All of them. Most of them, yes, I am afraid so.

Did I used to be? No.
But it has now gone beyond, way beyond I would say anything seen in the last century.

I ma sure that some people will come up with some examples of it always being thus.
But I dont think there has been anything on this scale for a considerable amount of time.

Should be a ? after All of them.

The gap between the richest and the poorest isn't really changing, worldwide - what's happening is that incomes are normalising across the world. So whereas it used to be that even the poorest in the UK were probably better off than in some developing nations, now the distribution of rich and poor is spreading out across the world.

Effectively in objecting to the normalisation of incomes worldwide you're saying 'I want the UK to stay relatively richer than everywhere else, and I don't care if poor countries have to stay poor in order to make that happen'. Globalisation has winners and losers. The price of millions being lifted out of poverty in developing nations is that the middle classes are increasingly hollowed out in the developed world and incomes fall proportionally.

You may not like it, but short of pulling up the drawbridges and ensuring income equality at the expense of overall wealth (like Cuba) there's not much you can do about it.

But none of that explains the huge vast sums that some have.
It is not good for them, and it is not good for society. Whether it be Russians or UK people. Or any country come to that.

It is coming to 5% or even 1% in this country being super rich. Having far far too much.
And the other 95% or 99% struggling. It isnt quite there yet. But it will be in probably less than 30 years. In the lifetime of our children if not ourselves.

Hands up who wants that?

settingsitting You're right. It's beyond belief.

Is it something like the 5 richest people in the world own more money than the rest of the world put together?
I'm almost certain that's not true.

It's not far off. Here's that well known socialist rag, Forbes on the subject:
www.forbes.com/sites/laurashin/2014/01/23/the-85-richest-people-in-the-world-have-as-much-wealth-as-the-3-5-billion-poorest

Even if the inequality doesn't bother you, this is not sensible. There is no way people with that much money can spend even a fraction of it. It doesn't trickle anywhere, it stagnates, which isn't good for any of us.

Those figures are far worse than I thought

How can anyone justify them?

There are 7 billion people are the not?

So 85 people have the same wealth as half the world.

Yes, I think you're right:www.worldometers.info/world-population/

If we are completely honest with ourselves so many of us carry blame.I have no savings, and no valuable material possessions (no house or car) yet the fact that I'm tapping away on this screen with my internet connection tells me that I have more than I need.

Of course, the difference is the impact that the super wealthy could make if they lived more modestly.

But let us not fool ourselves or absolve ourselves from blame globally, even as the little person.

I don't think it's about blaming anyone. The point is that, whichever side you're on, this is not a sensible way to live.

Agreed Floisme,but responsibility and facing up to it, must precede the solution.

I don't quite see the point of comparing ourselves with other countries. May I complain when I'm on the same play as a starving Bangladeshi ?

I note with interest that Burberry shareholders have objected to the £10m annual pay for their CEO Chris Bailey in addition to an annual allowance (whatever that is ) of £440,000 and shares which are currently worth £7m.
I daresay he is very good at his job but I can't see that he's that good.

The point is whether we see ourselves as global citizens or British citizens I suppose.

I can see absolutely though that the issue can be addressed on both scales.

Everything is designed for poorer people to get poorer. I.e if you have a smaller deposit for a house you get a worse rate. If you have to buy from one of those dreadful places like Bright House because you can't get credit elsewhere then you end up paying double what the item actually costs. Meanwhile, the super rich are able to get excellent interest rates and pay accountants mega bucks to protect their assets so they pay less tax than us minions.