The Rich According to the Guardian

[Judy1234]

www.guardian.co.uk/money/2008/aug/04/workandcareers.executivesalaries

Purits- not new but don't have any friends. will you be my friend ?

I'd say finding out exactly what poverty is like for those who suffer it and bringing it out of the closet is exactly the point of her job. If you don't even know that hotels that charge hundreds of pounds for a nights stay are cleaned by people who are so poor they live - literally - in cupboards, then how can you take action about it? Dickens' writing about poverty changed a lot of things. Was he a hypocrite too?

Who do you mean by 'she'? PT?

My comment was simply that wealthy people who have a genuine desire to reduce inequality would presumably act on this desire.

There are plenty of journalists who spout all sorts of hypocritical claptrap. That's how they make their money! Not all, of course, but some.

Not my business to tell other people what they should do. Up to them.

So who are these hypocritical journalists?

I'll be your friend TD but are you sure that you want to fraternise with the enemy!?

What do you expect her to do? She is using her platform and her talents to tell us about how the poor live. I found her discoveries genuinely suprising. I did not know what utterly pitiful wages people were paid, nor the wicked scams that meant that often they were not paid at all. Neither did I realise until recently that that waiting staff were exempt from the minimum wage as apparently their tips would - if they were lucky - raise their salary to that magnificent level (but only if paid in cash, otherwise the restaurant owner could legitimately steal them)

Isn't Toynbee now the darling of both New Labour and the Conservatives?

Polly Toynbee

Glad someone else said it first though. Reading the Guardian is like listening to a permanent dull whine - sets my teeth on edge. Add to that, the lumpen prose of Ms Toynbee and I just want to cut my head off.

And if you want to extend the debate on fair taxation then we should look at how much taxation is (not) paid in the poor developing world by multinationals vs the resources taken from those countries. Not pretty!

ToughDaddy

Why do those earning more or less average money loathe people who earn lots of money? I just don't geddit.

PT earns a lot of money for her shitty columns and books. She owns a villa in Tuscany and sent her children to private school.

Quattro - You and me both. Every time I read the Guardian, I want to scream and write to the Editor. Shame really as they have some excellent writers. And their crossword is rather good.

that's right Ftriver Tdiddy doesn't mess around

"as a proportion of income, poorer families give more to charoty" is stated in this report. But obv poor households give less in terms of actual money.

Many wealthy people do give a lot to charity. A lot of time and effort and money is spent by chairities trying to secure their donations because they are most deifnitely worth having. Many prefer to remain anonymous and don't likethe paternalistic branding of their name on 55 plaques or whatever it might be.

I do think that the journalists also want to sensationalise a little. I think that it is a bit more important to focus on absolute levels of poverty i.e. reducing it and less on relative poverty per my earlier point

I certainly dont loathe people who earn large amounts of money. Some of my best friends etc etc....

But I certainly do loathe the defensive "we've earned every penny ourselves and don't owe anything to anyone/tax is theft/poor people will always be poor because they are stupid/lazy/feckless and it's nothing to do with me" kind of crap that gets spouted regularly on here.

Raising awareness is an important way of bringing about change. And how on earth does anyone know exactly what Polly T does privately in terms of acting to help disadvantaged people?

I don't loathe rich people either. Not one bit. Your assumption that lower earners do is rather bizarre.

(But it has to be said, PT is a really shit writer. And I say that as a Guardian reader).

This thread is making me cross now. There is lots of reading between the lines of what PT and her mate are saying in that Guardian article. This is the latest executive report from the CAF which shows charitable giving by income quartile, gender and age for 2007.

Read it

poimty - that article is over ten years old.

Dittany - I haven't got any Venture Capitalist mates and I don't (knowingly) have any tax dodger mates either. I'm a SAHM and not at all money-driven.

Swede's report says on p7 "wealthier people are most likely to donate and to donate the most money".

SWEDES! breathe...

har - so it is. Your report doesn't mention percentage of income ratios. It's pish

But what are we debating here? Whether rich people give to chatiry? Of course they do. Whether poorer people do? Of course they do. And?