To think rich people steal money all the time and that’s often why they’re rich?

[MyAmusedOpalCrab]

We hear so much about “hard work” and “smart investments” but let’s be honest, so many rich people didn’t get wealthy by being ethical. From dodgy business practices to exploiting workers, tax dodging, insider deals and straight-up corruption, wealth often comes at someone else’s expense.

Governments bail out billionaires while ordinary people struggle to afford rent. CEOs cut wages and benefits while pocketing massive bonuses. Huge corporations find loopholes to avoid taxes while the rest of us get squeezed.

Obviously not every rich person is a thief but AIBU to think that a lot of them are? That the system is rigged in their favour and they keep getting richer by bending or outright breaking the rules?

These institutions such as Stanford, Cambridge do put the money into research. Harvard has a bursary system that allows any student below a certain income level to receive tuition for free

The cutting edge research that these institutes are doing massively benefits society as a whole. Especially their medical research.

Completely agree. The one self-made person I know has basically become rich by bulk-buying cheap properties in the 90s, which they now rent as 'emergency accommodation' to cash-strapped local authorities for eye watering sums. They don't maintain their housing stock, belittle the tenants, suck up to the councils, disregard their obligations.

All they care about is getting as much as they can and using it to have a great quality of life. That it's built on housing benefit/taxpayer's money doesn't bother them at all. It makes me cross because local authorities are cutting back on things that we can all enjoy, like parks and community initiatives, left, right and centre because they are broke, yet people like him are bleeding them dry providing these hovels. It makes me wonder who the real benefit thieves are tbh.

Oh, and it looks like they're moving into care homes too...

Yep, and the more this situation continues the more we move towards a huge backlash. You can already see the options now: 1) reform where everything is being blamed on immigration or 2) a Gary Stevenson type model of wealth tax.

im surprised more people are not pushing back. It feels like so many people in full time work cannot really save any more

This could all be sorted out if the government drew up more watertight contacts with contractors, didn’t keep changing their minds over what they wanted, ditched some of the more ridiculous environmental standards (I like a bar as much as anyone else, but the £100m bat tunnel was insane).

You see this a lot. Worst thing for me is that it just wealth transfer from someone else poorer, or the taxpayer into his own pocket. It generates next to no economic benefit yet these people call themselves ‘wealth creators’. It is just nonsense

You’re describing piss poor government decisions though more than greed. Get angry with the local authorities and government for not building enough social housing. Get angry with them for not getting out of the ECHR and not being able to deport migrants.

It’s hardly helpful to people who are starving, is it?

And Labour politicians never did that?
They’re all as bad as each other.

All care homes are private. Profit will come before care.

Of course they didn’t. You do remember who was in power in 2020/21?

How about the £7.3 billion fraud from Covid support schemes, most of which hasn’t been clawed back? A small amount of Covid fraud was due to organised criminal activity, the majority due to unscrupulous directors lining their pockets at the expense of the taxpayer.

www.icaew.com/insights/viewpoints-on-the-news/2024/may-2024/is-the-government-adequately-tackling-covid19-fraud

MyAmuseOpalCrab I absolutely agree with you. I have been saying this for ages. Aside from people who come up with some new patent which has proved very useful and popular, I think the vast majority of business people use all sorts of ploys to increase their wealth.

If workers and suppliers were being paid properly, we would not have so much in-work poverty (subsidised by the government), and owners would not be accruing millions/billions of pounds.
These people are always talking about "hard work" but many people work very hard for very little and often do two or more jobs.

Why do Amazon etc get away without paying millions in tax? Because our government (and previous governments) allows them to.

@HarrietsweetHarriet do you honestly think the government would not tax Amazon if they could?
What is your suggestion ans to how the government should make Amazon etc pay their fair share of tax?

Global taxation with no hiding places.

That's because you're clueless about what's going on in politics and the real world.
Full of hate and ignorance. Bet you love farage 🙄

This fraud did happen on a grand scale, but it wasn’t the big corporates doing this, but the SMEs, the same people as are evading 40% of corporation tax due.

It always surprises me how many dishonest people there are out there. When someone loses a purse and it is handed in with the money intact, and there are comments about ‘good to know there are still some honest people out there’. Who would take money from someone else’s purse??? What sort of person is that scummy? The bad karma would be hard to live with, surely?

OP wasnt talking about 2020/2021. Labour are in power now and they’re every bit as corrupt. Liars, too.
They’re all as bad as each other.

Finally, someone who's wise to the facts, not moaning about benefit cheats and immigration. It's like listening to a stuck record. They're clueless.

That’s not how the world works. Find an alternative means of funding public services or stop whining about how shite they are.

What a stupid remark. She's clued up, unlike most.

Global taxation with no hiding places

Every single country in the world abiding by global tax laws? Good luck with that.
How would it be enforced and by whom?

All the stupid people voted you are being unreasonable.

Just because it doesn’t work like that now doesn’t mean it couldn’t. Raise your aspirations. You won’t find me whining about shit public services, by the way. They can’t be any other way after austerity.

This is such a bizarre perspective to me.

I would consider myself wealthy. This is because of family money / intergenerational wealth / inheritance or whatever you want to call it. I’m not wealthy because I work harder than anyone else, but I’m also not wealthy because I’m a thief or have done anything illegal.

You could argue that a lot of my family’s wealth was made unethically because of the time they lived in, however there was also a lot of poverty in previous generations of my family if you go back far enough.

My net worth is in the seven figures and I am a stay at home mum because I want to be, but also because I have no financial urge to work. I don’t plan on ever going back to paid employment. The dividends from my investments earn more than I would be paid if I went back to my job. I chose my career based on my interests and what I thought would be useful to society because I had family money to fall back on.

We are on track to reach a net worth in the 8 figures within the next decade, provide the value of our assets continue to increase. For us we are increasing our wealth through investing in stocks and we also own property which has increased in value. There is nothing illegal about that. We pay our taxes and give to charity, whilst also enjoying a very nice life. I have friends and family who are also wealthy but are still nice and normal people and they’ve made their money from a lot of different ways, including being born into wealth.

Are you talking about billionaires? I’d agree that businesses like Amazon are acting unethically even if they’re following the law.