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?

There are well over 3,000,000 millionaires in the UK and in 2024 only 9500 of them left. I posted a reputable source upthread. Even the loss of 16,000 is under one half of one percent and does not break anything.

Furthermore, more millionaires are being created all the time.

Nails it.

Sadly the figure I found several places was over £15B

OP, it has been like this since the dawn of civilisation, many revolutions have been about breaking down this type of inequality and the results are invariably another similar or worse (think communist China in the 50's). The super rich and powerful are not sitting ducks, with the help of modern technology, they and their wealth (which brings jobs and investments) can disappear in an instant. Be glad that our living standards are high, our lives are relatively secure, things can get a whole lot worse if we are not careful. I do however agree with some PP who pointed out the inefficiencies of our government, they are the people we can influence but who would want the job of sorting all the mess out, on relatively low pay? Philanthropic competent people are not exactly sloshing around...
You see, it's catch 22.

You talk like it's one person taking a tiny bit of money and that benefit cheats are lovely people! The system has been badly exploited for years! How many people went straight from school into council housing and bred kid after kid! Back in the late 90's when was 17 I got into a relationship with someone whose brother & sister in law sat on benefits in a council house with two kids, the brother used to be all over the place doing cash jobs and raiding skips for things to sell. He used to play the bad back card and when the doctor started refusing to sign him off, he went to find another surgery, when that fell flat he played the depression game. He laughingly showed me a cupboard full of boxes of unused anti depressants. His family hated him for it. I left that relationship in 2003.

They've tightened up a lot of other issues with things like a 2 child cap but the disability benefit system is exploding! It alarms me how many people can just claim they've got depression and anxiety and not work. And now all your neurological things like ADHD, autism etc are also being used to claim - every other kid is dragged to a doctor to be diagnosed with something these days, it's not feasible to give everybody with these conditions a life on benefits! The government are wanting to reform it for a reason because it's a massive, growing problem!

I mean this is a mad thing to generalise about. But having known rich people and benefit cheats I will disagree with this.

Rich people tend to take - resources, energy, time and give only when it is also of benefit to themselves. They send their children away to school and summer camps, put elderly parents in care homes. They take expensive holidays, waste a lot.

Most everyone I know who lives in the breadline (including claiming fraudulently or fiddling their claims) is also massively investing in their community through participating in local networks of care and support, they volunteer but don’t call it that (by for example running a little football team, or tuck shop) they buy second hand, take few or zero holidays. They care for their own kids and parents and do it to a much higher standard than ‘paid for care’.

Would it ever happen though?
If some countries sign up to this those who don't can clean up by providing tax havens🤷🏻‍♀️

I've worked in shops, nursing homes, factories, pubs, then moved to an office - no moving up in each job, just changing jobs to change the grind to something different. Working hard in the office job enabled me to get some training and experience and then start to move up, more choices granted, but none handed to me. If you think that's in some way having good choices to choose from, I'd be really interested in what you think someone without good choices to choose from looks like. I didn't "marry well", other than choosing an equally hard working man who went from cleaning to factory work to office work and again put in the hours. None of this was presented, it's hard work, long hours and determination to make change; I don't see that as having good choices to choose from, I see it as little or no choice but to graft, although I guess the choice to work two jobs to pay the rent was a good one.

Must be idyllic living in those communities on a breadline. Recurring threads about run down towns disagree with this somehow.

As to rich living their lives - I bet you haven't met too many.

Sorry. Wrong end of the grammar - and I am called Grammarnut: own goal entirely!

To what extent do people struggle because they failed to apply themselves at school etc? Because my secondary school was pretty dire with lots of kids creating havoc. The few like me who applied themselves did well. I have not much sympathy for those that flatly refused to take school seriously as made it harder for others to study. It’s easy for middle classes to wring their hands.

I suspect the top 1% of the UK earn a lot more than 160k. But I was thinking of the global 1% who are exemplified more by the super rich of the US, who make money out of every transaction that average US citizens carry out.
And someone on 160k will use more of the services available in the UK than the people on 30k. I.e. the police, armed forces etc are protecting their property; they are likely to use the road network to a greater extent, and also the (subsidised) trains.

People who earn less devour less of the infrastructure of a country than those who are well-paid because they are not about doing things, not buying in large amounts (financial protection provided by the government being used). Most legislation and most state protection is geared to the advantage of the well-off rather than the badly-off. So the woman on 30k is not getting as much for her tax as the woman on 160k, even though the woman on 160k is paying more out in tax.
NB We are the 1% - anyone living in the developed world, including the woman on 30k. The 1% of the 1% (us) are the super rich.

Absolutely nobody with a brain is suggesting that people on £160,000 should be shouldering the burden more than they already are. It's the people with say £50/£100 million or more. THEY are the ones who aren't paying their share.

Agreed. All take and no give!

Im Sure there are some like that, it you must be aware that a lot of the benefit bill is in-work benefits? We are literally subsidising big business out of the public purse so they can get away with paying their workers less than a living wage and rake in profits.

Yep and then you get all the morons who defend the "hard work" and suggest the wealth is earned / deserved. These people are parasites.

@Sally20099 where did you get that top 1% on £160k from? Are you just looking at salaries? The top 1% according to ONS had minimum wealth of £3,121,500. We aren't talking about people earning well from paid employment. Wealth and wealth hoarding are the problem.

Writing cohesively is important too.

They are though. Massive amounts going to charitable causes and research. I couldn't give a monkeys whether their name is on a University building or whatever. I guess you'd have a problem with the Jospeh Rowntree foundation ??

This 'fariness' or 'paying their share' argument just doesn't fly at all. Whether we like it or not - we live in a global economy now. People with £50 - £100m are mobile and can move if they wish. Personally I'd rather have them here paying at least some tax, employing people and spending money here. You never know - they might even consider building another business.

The labour narrative of 'working people are good' and 'wealth creators are bad and we should take some of their wealth' is divisive.

Depends on how you interpret putting their money to work in life changing ways to benefit people who really need it, doesn’t it? For me it’s not ego enhancing donations to already wealthy institutions, it’s alleviating starvation or improving health for large numbers of disadvantaged people. Bill Gates’ health projects are a prime example.

They are mobile. Their assets mostly are not. We should tax them on money nade in this country wherever they decide to go and live (as the US govt does).

My best friend's dad is a billionaire. My husband went to Dulwich College, and most of his friends are very wealthy. I work at a Russell Group university and teach students from Eton, Harrow, Brighton College etc. My friends and colleagues are a mix, but many from what I would consider 'rich' backgrounds. I also grew up in poverty on a council estate in one of the poorest parts of the country, so I do actually have a pretty unique 360 view of this. Rich people tend to be pretty self-serving and insular (so much so they often can't even see how their choices, like three houses or kids in public school, shore up inequality) - poor people, by virtue of not having much and seeing those they love not having much, tend to be more community-minded. Obviously, it is nicer to be rich than it is to be poor. But rich people are not more virtuous and do not 'do more for society'. I would rather be a child or an elderly person in a moderately off working-class family than in a super-rich one, because I have seen up close how the very affluent treat their vulnerable (pay someone else to wipe their a*se!)

I think you have been hoodwinked. I manage money for a living and have seen wealth multiply just through asset purchases in the last decade or so. Most of these people are not building businesses, because let’s be honest why would they?? They don’t need to do anything expect live off passive income. They spend more time buying properties and renting them out.

It is always gobsmacking how many people will rush out to defend the hoarding of wealth, and then those same people are inevitably livid when someone scams an extra £200 per month universal credit to feed their kids!