Wealth Inequality

[Neapolitanicecream]

Gary Stevenson (added byMNHQ) - just been reading his book and Wow. He’s explained what I’ve experienced and seen happening before our eyes and I think I’ve just woken up to a clearer understanding of how the rich are getting richer in every way. What is the future? For all our children?

Agree OP, I believe much of what he says...it's eye opening. We are doomed!

His observations on Rishi Sunak (focused on the tax Rishi pays) really opened my eyes - essentially pointing out how very wealthy Rishi is, along with family he is tied into and how he could never therefore truly represent the interests of ordinary people.

The other thing to read is The Spirit Level. How inequality harms us all - yes, the rich too. And look up the Patriotic Millionaires, a group who want to pay more tax, for the good of everyone. Gary is great!

I have watched some of his videos and Podcasts and find him informative and refreshing.

Honestly when I try to "understand" economics, I always come back to the fact that money is supposed to be a tool, yet it has become the be all and end all.

The "markets" are spoken of in terms of being some entity out of the control or understanding of us mere mortals, but they have been designed by humans and in my opinion are just as rigged as any gambling platform.

And it just goes on and on, spiralling further out of control.

Of course trying to talk about it is met with lofty disdain - "Oh you can't possibly understand, it's nothing like a household budget, don't bother questioning it"....

One thing I do know is that created scarcity and the fear of it is a driving force of capitalism plus the idea that we need to be sold answers to our problems. And once our problems are solved, the market has to invent new ones we didn't know we had to keep it all going.

And yes, our future and our children's future is a grave concern.

Yes I see that those in power can’t really understand what poverty is like and nor do they really care once in power. The unions are very weak (except the tube drivers unions)

This example in the news that a family worth The family, led by Gopichand, topped the 2024 Sunday Times rich list with a combined wealth of £37.196bn.

in court for exploiting servants - low pay and sleeping on basement floors!!!!
disgusting behaviour but not uncommon!!! This is not successful to exploit others

When you measure your success by how much money you have, your aim is only to get more, so you never have enough. That exploitation by Britain's richest family said it all, spent more on their dog than staff. Gary and his take on economics are very enlightening. The more people become aware the better.

I can’t believe that some people have said you are BU?

Is this the guy who grew up poor but became a city trader and made millions? He then left and does videos explaining about wealth and inequality?

I wish Labour had stronger policies to tackle inequality. Taxing wealth rather than raising income tax seems like a no brainer to me. For those earning millions a year, an extra 10% or 20% tax will make no difference to them but could bring in lots of extra money to the public purse.

@Simpsonssky yes it is that guy. How does the Hindja family sleep at night 🤯
do they really need to be reminded that you can’t take it with you ?!!?
if that’s how they treated their servants it makes you wonder about their business practices

Why did it take the Swiss to do something? if they are British

@Simpsonssky is there a concern that the wealthy will just go overseas? Also they already very good at hiding their wealth and so declaring minimum tax

If the wealthy don't share their wealth or invest significantly in the uk do we benefit that much ?

Especially if the investment and spending is abusive or criminal ?

If they are getting that wealthy by taking from us and not giving back - how much do we lose if they go away ?

@greencartbluecart agreed. What bothers me as well is the way the wealthy don’t actually own anything?!!!!….. it all in a trust or just out of reach for tax purposes!!! Because they can afford to pay for clever lawyers

Thanks. He’s great. Really helped me to understand the problem a bit better.

What would we lose in real terms if they did? Is it enough that we’d be so much worse off? Or is that the illusion created to keep us all under the thumb?

What book is this?

@ElevenBells diary of a city trader I think he’s got a podcast

@Neapolitanicecream Sounds interesting but you can't just start a thread about a book and not name the title or the author and expect everyone to know what you're talking about!

Is this Gary from Gary's Economics on youtube? He's ace. Super informative and puts everything in terms that we can all understand.

Gary isn't 'ace'. He looks at economics two dimensionally and distorts the truth about the finance sector and the motives of its participants to suit his left wing politics.

OK, so I think it is probably 'The Trading Game' by Gary Stevenson? Is that the one?

Yes he is on youtube as well. Agree @CroftonWillow he is ace as definitely shining a spot light on greed ….. which some people don’t like and are very uncomfortable with

Yep it’s just clever for me 😮clever accountants www.facebook.com/nerdlerds/videos/1623596774883998/

That was meant to read it all tooo clever for me !!!

@Neapolitanicecream We’ve been constantly told that the rich will leave etc., but I remember watching a documentary years ago but there being so many empty houses as they’ve been bought by oligarchs etc. And there are many houses owned by people who don’t even live in the UK. So I’m not sure what the difference would be if there was heavier tax on the incredibly wealthy? Philip Green pretty much got away with everything and the last I read about it, which admittedly was many moons ago, most of his businesses were under his wife’s name who is/was a resident of Panama. There was a whole thing about the Panama Papers in 2016, but nothing really came out of it. I watched a drama based on the whole Post Office Horizon fiasco and that’s apparently still an ongoing case.

Love gary but yes it's terrifying