To boggle at the concept of earning £1 million a day......

[MistressoftheDarkSide]

www.theguardian.com/business/2021/mar/05/the-very-private-life-of-the-man-on-britains-biggest-salary

That's it really - I mean, I'm sure he has worked very very hard and made many sacrifices along the way etc etc..... (said with only the merest smidgeon of cynicism).

I just cannot get my head around how one would spend that much money?? Or how exactly it has been earned and is considered to be justifiable in terms of productivity versus return?

I hold my hands up, I'm crap with money and have never had alot even by possible MC standards, and the virtual nature of money is also a bit of a conundrum to me when it's on this sort of scale - it's like a parallel unverse to me altogether.

As to the investment in Extinction Rebellion, - it sounds very worthy, but is it though??

I'm not exactly envious, more agog at the absolute disparity of wealth between the top and bottom of society I suppose. And why should I even give it headspace? I feel an odd sort of fascinated detachment - like I've discovered a new species or something!

Thoughts?

Some interesting facts, from Oxfam, about wealth inequality. The figures are for 2020 and we know the pandemic has only made matters worse.

www.oxfam.org/en/press-releases/worlds-billionaires-have-more-wealth-46-billion-people

I note in the Guardian article our philanthropist no longer donates a third of the management fees for the CIF to the foundation, his giving is now discretionary.

No one "needs" to be a billionaire in order to live a comfortable life. Investment returns are fairly modest at the moment at about 3% but an investment of 1 billion would generate an income of 30 million pounds per year, equal to £82,000 per day.

There is currently nothing to stop people accumulating obscene amounts of wealth but if you are a billionaire with ever increasing wealth you are a greedy fucker, not a philanthropist no matter how much you think otherwise.

Or how exactly it has been earned and is considered to be justifiable in terms of productivity versus return?

An explanation I like (think it came from a movie) is that investment managers get lots money for the same reason that fishmongers families are never short of fish.

So he should donate huge chunks to charity, The rich are getting richer at the expense of the poor. There’s only so much money to go round, it’s the likes of him who are creaming it all off.

I don’t believe everyone has to, or should, earn the same. I do believe that the current disparity we see in the world is morally wrong though.

Can you clarify how much disparity is OK?

To give a baseline, world median net worth for adults is something like £5000, I think, so no-disparity would mean no-one having more than that.

If you want wealth capped so that no-one was above the current global 1% threshold, some fairly ordinary two-bedroom flats where I live in London would be above what you'd allow people to have. Are you OK with people having more wealth than 99% of the people in the world? (I love my three-bedroom London flat with a nice view, would be sad to lose it.)

How much is it OK to have? And why that level, rather than half/twice as much?

I can get on board with him funding a children's charity but if he's interested in forcing the government's hand over climate change I think his "investment" in ER is misplaced.

I don’t think I’m talking in hyperbole. The story itself is hyperbole. The man’s wealth is hyperbolic.

I do think if individuals didn’t earn huge sums and that money was passed down to the rest of us then we would all come up. As a whole we would benefit. That doesn’t mean we are all going to earn the same and would never have any choice, as whole we would just have access to more.

I don’t think that reducing inequality is idealistic either.

Can you clarify how much disparity is OK?

I don’t think I know an exact figure, but it is less than 11,000 times the average wage. I do agree with you that this is a global issue - we can’t look at this from just a UK perspective.

Money passed down from where? Is there a money cloud somewhere which rains currency? Money flows through a complex system of markets. It’s traded for goods and services and goes back around again. Throwing about the same empty rhetoric over and again does mean anything. What exactly are your practical ideas? Saying inequality is bad is not a practical idea, it’s just a political assertion without any relationship with outcome for poor people.

Nobody 'earns' that much.

I'm more comfortable with someone earning £350m in a year where they work hard and successfully, than someone earning £50m each year for doing absolutely nothing (due to spending a couple of years writing a book more than 20 years ago whilst claiming benefits).

@jcyclops

I'm more comfortable with someone earning £350m in a year where they work hard and successfully, than someone earning £50m each year for doing absolutely nothing (due to spending a couple of years writing a book more than 20 years ago whilst claiming benefits).

If you're talking about jkr then she wrote 7 books that are still huge sellers today. She also has her own charity lumos which she gives away so much of her personal wealth she actually lost billionaire status.

I’m quite aware of the financial markets but thanks for that

‘Passed down’ being a term encompassing greater distribution in terms of more progressive taxation, higher tax credits or benefits for those not earning much, bigger aid budgets etc.

If you know so much about how money is made @sst1234 then I am sure you must also be able to fathom how it can be redistributed.

I don’t think the fact I can’t immediately propose a workable system for global wealth redistribution does anything to weaken my initial point - our levels of wealth disparity are too high. As a society we deserve better.