To think the problem with wealth inequality is that rich people don't know how rich they are?

[Neeroy]

Article in the Times today saying that people earning six figures 'don't feel rich'.

Because they are surrounded by six figure earning peers they are comparing themselves to people who have more rather than the 90% of the population that have far less. This is why the budget is poorly received in the news, because rich people think they already shoulder too high a burden when in fact compared to everyone else they still have far more disposable income. Even if they have to cut down on the number of holidays they go on. They aren't sitting in the dark under a blanket. Or only making food that doesn't require turning on the oven.

I don't think they realise how so many people have to live.

www.thetimes.com/article/1fb46414-8f65-436f-8f95-451d69626148?shareToken=8061d939633164c0dfbd805240c8e008

Just so you know a standard (not elite) nursery is 2K a month nowadays 5 days a week / 8-6 pm
for families with 2 kids only 10% discount …
and obviously no free childcare hours until 3 yo

5 years ago it was 1300 pcm

True. As usual we'll get absolutely bugger-all.

Wealth inequality is a massive problem, and counting Elon Musk's net worth a dollar at a time would be an unapproachably challenging task for any realistically size team of people to achieve, but I think this post overestimates how much a billion is.

A million people counting one billion dollars would only have to count 1000 dollars each. A teller counting votes in an election would be expected to count a thousand in a few hours at worst - at best perhaps only around one hour.

Yes, be angry, but don't exaggerate.

Thank you. I was lucky enough to never have to pay for child care. I do realise how lucky I was.

I'll never understand wtf it has got to do with anyone else how much money someone has.

Why do people care?

I think if they look honestly as to why they care so much, it is entirely down to envy and resentment.

I have been poor and am now not. I never expected rich people to supplement me when I was poor. I just don't get it.

If you want to be rich, get rich. Why spend your time moaning about other people being rich.

The Tories.

The only part of the op I do agree with is that the people you call rich compare themselves to their peers so may not feel it. Of course they have more disposable income. Do you think they should have the same as someone in low paid employment who takes no risks or makes an active choice to live on benefits? Communism doesn’t work. The reality is that if the wealth creators go, things will be even worse for families already struggling.

London does not need levelling down. The regions do need levelling up. The labour govt is already investing some exciting new technologies in the regions.

Wales is set to become a world leader in nuclear technology…
North Wales has been chosen for the UK’s first small modular reactor nuclear power station, marking a significant industrial investment backed by £2.5 billion and supporting 3,000 new jobs in local economy.
There will of course also be mutli billions of private investment in infrastructure.

Scotland in quantum technology
The UK Government has awarded £8.9m to three Scottish universities to help position Scotland and the UK as a “world-leader in quantum”.
One quantum laboratory and two research hubs have secured a share of a new £121m fund. This is part of a 10 year strategy worth £2.5bn. The five quantum tech hubs will be Glasgow, Edinburgh, Birmingham, Oxford and London.

https://www.ukri.org/news/five-hubs-launched-to-ensure-the-uk-benefits-from-quantum-future/

You too 😊

Warehouses are cold, vast and packed full of stuff to pick and be packaged up to fulfil orders. Orders come in thick and fast. And then Christmas shopping begins, the pace kicks up a few gears and you have to be fit and healthy to keep up.

It doesn't need to be stated in the contract when it's common sense. If you don't want these sorts of jobs to exist, stop ordering crap off the internet.

Here’s my problem. You don’t have to be rich to be happy. I’m not rich, I’m comfortable. But I am very happy. I don’t understand the scrabbling for money. There should be a balance imo.

Yes of course, I completely agree with you - I hate them, I voted Labour despite being high earner and hell has to freeze over before I vote Tories after Brexit, Boris, Liz, etc.

however the debt does pay for various government outgoings- when tax receipts are not enough. So it can and does pay for benefits and public services - directly or not. So the debt doesn’t appear out of nowhere, it means the government overspends

Everyone came from something. Good or bad. People arent "nothing". They shape our lives.

Its all a matter of scale. Even the poorest in this country are rich on a global scale. Very few people are getting their drinking water from rivers in the UK.

Totally agree.

Article in the Times today saying that people earning six figures 'don't feel rich'.
Because they are surrounded by six figure earning peers they are comparing themselves to people who have more rather than the 90% of the population that have far less

Its also outgoings. Ive got a young guy in my team on 6 figures. His partner earns less. He pays a lot of tax and has huge student loan deductions.He has to put far more into his pension scheme than the older members of the team because they closed the decent pension scheme.

His train to work costs a bomb, he's saddled with a big mortgage. He spent years to save a deposit for a 3 bed house that needed work doing and is now finding tradespeople cost double what they used to.

He doesn't have loads of disposable income. He's got security, property ownership yes, but he clearly does not have the trappings of a wealthy lifestyle. He and his partner are questioning if they can afford kids, as the childcare would be £2k a month & they wouldn't get full 30 hours of childcare funding or child benefit because of what he earns.

We feel broke, everything is more expensive, things we wouldn’t have thought about spending on - we now give quite a lot of consideration. Although we aren’t huddled under a blanket with the lights off, contextually we don’t feel particularly wealthy and are more careful than ever. Wages in our industry have stagnated, at the same time costs for everything have increased drastically. It’s not a case of shaving off a few caribbean holidays sadly, it’s rethinking larger fixed costs like mortgages and school fees. The latter being a cost we could choose to allow the state to pick up. If lots of higher rate tax payers decide to spend less on things like mortgages, consumer products, school fees etc, growth will continue to nosedive. Reeves has a tough job however she slices the pie. Ultimately people are always in favour of someone with more money than them paying a larger proportion of the country’s taxes, but that will mean services continue to erode, with those paying the least tax being most likely to need the very services that are decaying because of underinvestment.

Neither of those are real situations.

It's like trying to catch smoke on here at times.

I don't care how much money someone has, as long as they're not exploiting people to earn said money. It is mildly annoying when folk who have no idea what it's like to be actually struggling keep telling everyone how much they're 'struggling' though.
Struggling to pay private school fees isn't the same as struggling to heat your home, and struggling to afford organic food isn't the same as struggling to afford any food.

Success in the UK is not celebrated as it is in countries such as the US. Here it’s scorned.
So not only are the wealthy expected to subsidise others a lot of whom (not all) don’t have the same aspiration, they are vilified.

Is this an environment to attract growth and innovation? It isn’t a level playing field as those with money can live anywhere. The others will then be left with higher taxes.

Aspiration is being replaced with entitlement and it’s killing the country.

I'm not sure it is about struggling. I think complaints are more a case of people saying that they have worked hard, taken risks etc. and reached the top of, or at least very high levels in their profession, reaching what many assume to be the promised land, only to see our wonderful tax system take out 62% and a reasonably ordinary house mortgage putting them in a position that isn't really befitting their achievements. To the extent where they perceive their lifestyles to not have been particularly enhanced. It is an argument that i have a great deal of sympathy for.

Very few people are exploited in the UK unless they are actual criminals and then we can all agree with what to do with them (drug dealers, pimps etc) so I don't think that is it.

People literally don't like other people earning money. Elon Musk has been mentioned many times on this thread. Why would anyone care how much money he has, or indeed any idea whta he intends to do with his money? He isn't exploiting anyone, he is actually providing many people with fulfilling work and making them well off too - why would you hate that other than if you are envious?

As for people struggling to pay private school fees, this government did act out of spite towards fees and that may have pushed people to not being able to pay them, so that would be a legitiate moan, however I rarely have ever heard anyone moan about that. If you have heard that regualrly I would be surprised and it is more likley just one of the tropes that people use to hide their envy.

So then what - accept exploration or starve? Thats why we have labour laws, because otherwise its even worse