The Rich According to the Guardian

[Judy1234]

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

Dittany - I thought I'd already explained that I'm not intimate with a Venture Capitalist. If that changes I'll let you know. You might like to know though, that a builder friend of mine pays tax on precisely the same basis as a Venture Capitalist.

I wouldn't live in Bulgaria if you paid me. And neither would quite a lot of Bulgarians. 10% tax means a crumbling infrastructure.

The whole point is that it would pay you. 30% of your income if that flat rate tax is to be believed. You can use the bonus to pay for your own healthcare ...

Quattro - Yes but you might also need to build your own water supply, drains, roads etc. And I'm not sure that the private schools in Sofia have lakes. That would be a deal breaker for Xenia.

I thought it was well known that Venture Capitalists (like many other businesses) took advantage of Business Property Relief and paid tax on that basis? I have worked with Venture Capitalists.

Actually Venture Capitalists pay Capital Gains Tax not Corporation Tax. With Business Property Relief and taper relief this reduced the tax to 10% of the gain. You need to brush up on your tax.

And as I said before. It costs more to collect CGT than the CGT exchequer receipts. A sign that we have an overbloated State. There is now a flat rate of CGT so it's all history anyway. Investment in VCTs is hugely high risk and if the returns become nominal due to a higher chunk of the profits going to tax, it doesn't take a genius to work out that people are not going to invest so readily. The tax breaks were set up precisely to persuade investors to invest in high risk start-up companies. Something that benefits all of our futures. It's a shame you can't all see the bigger picture.

Poverty is only hard because people compare themselves to the rich and are jealous. If they compared themselves to people who are less fortunate and perhaps went to church more and weren't so materialistic they might be a lot happier.

What are people going on about venture capitalists over? Most of them draw some kind of salary and pay tax on that from some business or other. Because they are exceptionally successful and much better at work and things than most of us on the thread they are able to build up businesses and sell them. I know quite a few. They pay tax on the profits they make when they sell the business. LK Bennett just did that but she'll have ha a salary from her company too over the years plus dividends. What's the problem? What are you saying - that these people shouldn't bea llowed to build up businesses and sell them and make a profit? If not why not?

We now have a 10% CGT rate for your first million and 18% thereafter but I really do not know many venture capitalists who do not also have some kind of salary on which they pay tax,.It's just like a mumsnet poster who works as a teacher and pays tax but also has a buy to let flat she sells for a profit and then pays tax on that profit at capital gains tax rates of now 18%.

Dh told me how not that long ago the Bulgarian govt had to send its army home for a month as they'd run out of money to pay them. Apparently.

No, poverty is hard because some people have to put their kids to bed, knowing they will wake up in the middle of the night crying because they are hungry.

I work with a family where the mum has learning difficulties and was sexually abused by her father. To 'escape', she married at 17 to a violent man who continually raped her throughout her marriage. She now has 7 children. When her 2 eldest came home from school and found her lying at the bottom of the stairs, in a pool of her own blood, they called 999 thinking she was dead. Her "DH" is now not allowed to come near her so she raises 7 children, alone, in a crappy council house, in a crappy area, on crappy benefits.

And you think her life is hard because she's jealous of people with nice cars & holidays??? Errr, no

did anyone see that programme about 8 women from the sixties that one of them documented? Fascinating. At 60 guess what they all said and what was beared out..wealth is immaterial

still fucking skint though and our combined income is about 180K - but we're not rich!

I am not defending Xenias remarks but there is a difference between relative and absolute poverty. Many of us are poor compared to the private equity gang but not not poor in absolute terms. Most of the UK is better off cf say 200 years ago? And most of the UK is better off than most in the world?

Perhaps this is what Xenia is getting at but in her inimitable style?

Apparently our happiness is strongly correlated to how well off we feel COMPARED to neighbours and relations. So we can triple the aggregate national wealth, heat all the homes in the UK and end up feeling unhappier as a nation due to inequality.

Not sure what your point is Tough Daddy re relative and absolute poverty. Of course we are talking about relative poverty not absolute poverty. I would hope that in a country as advanced as the UK we would not be anywhere close to having people dying of hunger in the streets (although as we know a number of elderly people die from hypothermia every year as a direct result of poverty).

As to happiness being related to people's perception of wealth as compared to their neighbours, I would have thought if anything this is an argument for reducing inequality. Again I don't understand your point.

As for Xenia's remarks about poor people going to church and being happy with their lot, there really isn't much to say about this kind of willfully ignorant drivel.

I agree that the poverty in this country is not in the same ball park as in developing nations.
Most people have a home, free access to medical care and free education for all. It's by no means ideal but I do think it is something of which we should be proud.
When I visit West Africa I am always taken aback by the grinding poverty...few homes have electricity let alone comps and internet access. Most children go barefoot and will do anything for paper so that they can take it to school. And the midwives, such as they are, literally beg us for old bikes because they are a good way of getting up country where the roads are bad.

Whatever anyone thinks of Xenia, her comments about relative poverty are spot on. We are not talking absolute poverty in the UK. I have no doubt there are some people who live in pretty awful circumstances, but this is often due to complex factors, eg the 'poorest' family I have ever come across had 8 children, and despite the children being poorly dressed and undernourished, the parents smoked heavily and the family also kept several large dogs which must have cost to look after. And please don't flame me, because I am simply reporting facts. We don't have the grinding poverty of third world countries. As litchick says, things are not ideal (but then what country is? None, because people arent perfect) but compared to a lot of countries we are well off.
I think ToughDaddy makes a pertinent point - you could raise everyone's standard of living hugely, but a lot of people would still not be happy because their relative 'poverty' would remain the same.

Who suggested we were talking about absolute poverty?

Poverty has been mentioned rather a lot on this thread. Given that unless we become a nation where everybody lives in the same type of house, has access to the exact same standard of living, and is paid exactly the same wage for whatever job they do (or don't do) then there will always be relative 'poverty'. Or relative richness, whichever way you look at it. I would be relatively poor if I gave up my job. There is nothing intrinsically wrong with the fact that some people are richer than others.

It's a poor excuse for the rich to be selfish 'oh, well, there are people worse off in Africa'. Oh clearly that's OK then... how bloody daft. On that basis, we'd never have had any social progress at all, because there is always injustice somewhere in the world. Should we ignore poverty in other African countries because of the tragedy in Zimbabwe?

There's an old story, which may well be apocryphal, of the social change after the 1945 election returned a resounding Labour majority - big enough to bring in the NHS. Apparently the day after the results were announced, an obnoxious boy travelling to a public school tried to attract the attention of a railway porter by shouting 'Oi you' or the 1940s equivalent (something like 'my man' IIRC).

The porter turned round and said 'that's all gone now, you can't talk to us like that any more'.

Looking at this thread, seems there are still plenty of obnoxious people who think they have a God-given right to look down on everyone else and expect us to be grateful for our lot. No doubt they think it's a shame the custom of forelock-tugging ever went out...

I guess there are a few obnoxious people in all walks of life edam - believe me, they're not confined to any particular social class or income bracket! When I've worked in schools in the past I've come across just as many obnoxious kids and parents who certainly couldnt be described as well off or privileged!
I don't see the evidence of a lot of obnoxious people on this thead. In fact I haven't seen any posts which suggest people are happy to look down on everyone else. Lots of different views, yes, but not what you describe.