The worlds going mad. Am I really part of the problem?

[DHofSB]

Ok, so there’s a lot of talk about the rich, global politics and inequality at the minute and I get it. However, when I look at comments, threads etc people seem to be aiming blame and sometimes hate to people that sound like me.
My real concern, apart from my own sensitivities of course, is for my kids seemingly growing up in a world where being successful is seen as bad and there being little to no desire to strive and work hard any more.

Allow me to explain but I would like your thoughts…

Father was a policeman, mother a part time hairdresser, they’ve been divorced 15+ years now and both retired
No family money or inheritance involved for them, unlikely for me either
Went to normal comp school
I joined the Army at 18
BUT (bear with me, trying to make point not boast)
I now earn £500k+ a year in a white collar job
I have £1m+ in stocks (that I can’t sell yet)
I have a £950k house with no mortgage
My 2 kids go to private school (with VAT will cost similar to our house over their school lives)
My wife doesn’t (have to) work
I have c£90k pension pot (not a viable saving option for me due to my income, anything over £4k a year into pension I have to pay income tax on hence pointless)
AND YET
I don’t feel wealthy, we have a good life (several parents at the school our kids go to have £2.5m houses, how is that possible??!)
I paid hundreds of thousands in tax last year but my family don’t use the NHS (private through work), or the school system, no benefits/welfare etc Obviously other aspects of public infrastructure we do or would consume: roads, policing etc
I work hard and long to ensure I continue to provide for my family, especially once I inevitably stop earning this kind of salary

Modern society seems to suggest I am the devil, part of the problem with society and should be taxed (even more) heavily. Surely what my family and I have built for ourselves is a good thing and something I would expect most people to have wanted to achieve coming from a similar background, or do I have this all wrong?..

@DHofSB The biggest problem with your post, and anybody with similar earnings who might have written similar to you, is you saying that you "don't feel wealthy". You earn £500,000+ every year but don't feel wealthy? How? Because you mix with people who have more than you have? That is a true "give your head a wobble" salary-related comment. Had you said £100,000, I'd have completely understood.

Regarding your follow-up post about it, so you don't feel wealthy because there are many more levels of wealth above you. I suppose that's just how it is. Maybe then you should consider yourself not wealthy. But if you are asking yourself if you are part of the problem, I think people on your kind of earnings are kind of part of the problem, particularly when they complain about paying great sums of tax but not using many of the services. But there are bigger problems, other people and corporations to go after first in terms of taxation.

Define "work long and hard". What does that actually mean?

Cleaners work long and hard, mothers work long and hard. Do they get paid £500k?

No.

You're a man, which comes with all the benefits and privileges that being a man entails.

You have private healthcare, no mortgage on a massive house in a nice area. Your kids go to private school, your wife is a house wife.

Of course you're bloody well off! Even after tax.

Bore off.

While I understand that you don't feel wealthy, surely you understand that this is only because, due to your lifestyle, you are surrounded by people wealthier than you?
Objectively, you earn more than 99% of people in the UK
UK Salary Percentile Calculator: Are You in the Top 10%? (2025)

In answer to your questions of who is buying the stuff even you can't afford, it's a mixture of
a) Yes, some people who have more than you - this isn't a lot of people, but some of them are very, very wealthy. If you think of billionaires - that's a thousand millions, for example. It's not like car show rooms are selling hundreds of their most expensive cars a day, or gucci millions of bags. A few people buying (comparatively) occasionally is enough to turn a profit, vs millions of people buying cheaper goods frequently.
b) People like you who are just making different choices with their money - 14 years of private school x 2 can pay for several range rovers and many more designer handbags, as can 1m of stocks
c) People who have less than you who are putting it on credit

I don't think high earners should be taxed more than they already are, and do think that when people say stupid stuff like "eat the rich" they completely understand that that is supposed to refer to people like Elon Musk, and, while £500k seems completely unachievable wealth to them, on the overall wealth distribution scale, someone like you is far closer to them than to some russian oligarch.

Nobody (sensible) is denying you haven't earned or don't deserve your money but you must see it's going to rage-bait people if you refuse to accept you are objectively wealthier than the vast majority of people.

Acknowledging the part luck and circumstance played in your life (e.g. you could have worked just as hard as you did now but if you'd been born with physical/mental disabilities or grew up in care or were born drug dependent or in a poor country you'd have been unlikely to achieve what you have) doesn't negate your hard work.

For someone claiming to be in such a high earning, presumably professional role, you appear to have an incredibly poor grasp on how finances work (your own and others) if you're confused how some people afford certain things...

This position and post smacks of entirely entitled arrogance in some ways.

OK, you have worked hard at your job, and become successful and you moved into the top percentage of earners in your field/the UK. But, others also have worked extremely hard, but been less lucky, successful etc probably due to health issues, circumstances, unexpected things putting a spanner in the works...

It's pretty ridiculous to say you aren't really wealthy. Of course you bloody are.

Try living off the NMW and earning a pittance and then come back and say what really constitutes wealthy.😳🙄😒

What on earth are you talking about????

Christ, with a salary that pays £23k a MONTH, no mortage to pay and massive savings cushion????

Really??

Yes, one could almost assume the op isn't being quite honest?

I did wonder about that when he didn’t appear to know how much he could put in his pension.

People aren't saying that success is bad. What people are saying is that in an economic system where asset values grow faster than the real economy, and those capital gains aren't taxed, the consequence is that asset owners gradually impoverish the rest of society. This is a bad plan for everyone, including the asset owners, and you can see the political effects playing out all around us.

It's not about hating people or making emotional claims. It's just about organising our economic affairs as effectively as we can, while acknowledging no one has perfect insight into this problem.

Weird. Although being wealthy or rather feeling wealthy is a mindset. I've always felt rich even when I lived in a squat, actually objectively speaking that's why I was rich.
I also lived in a small flat in a dreadful part of London where I watched police arrests of drug dealers and those boards asking for witnesses to murders with some regularity pop up on my road. I felt rich then as I had a gorgeous swimming pool nearby plus a very good public library.
I feel super rich now I'm older I do live in a more expensive area but I'm further from a pool.

It’s an emotive and devise topic but I don’t actually think individuals like you are “the problem”

the problem is the UKs asset driven wealth gap… with no generational wealth behind you (unpopular opinion approaching) it’s not hugely surprising you feel this way.
We have a household income of about 300k gross - we are decidedly “poorer” and have a worse standard of living than our peers (whose parents are wealthy). Our peers don’t need to save aggressively, or think about how to fund private education if they want it, or pay for their summerholidays, or bother with their pensions - they will all inherit £1m plus from parents some all looking at 5m plus… 😵‍💫🥴 we will get sub 100k if anything in total.

When people say we need to address taxing the rich I agree… but that’s not people like you…. It’s the asset wealthy.,,

• the super wealthy (by that I mean your Rishi sunak’s who legit earns more than your annual gross salary as interest every month)
• corporations avoiding paying tax
• the prolific money launderers who own dozens of properties who I am must endure as a resident of London…
• foreign investors (Norway owns half of Covent Garden now 🧐)

These groups are the problem

I’d just ask how you are helping to spread the wealth. We’re not rich but we give a lot to charity and volunteer.

You are extremely wealthy. However, it's people like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos who I think most people are referring to when calling rich people evil.

The reason for this is that these people could save millions of lives each year with no noticeable dent in their fortune. But they choose not to do that, which really ought to be viewed as at least manslaughter.

I think it's crazy that you don't think you are wealthy. The fact billionaires exist doesn't mean you are not wealthy.

But if you earn 500k paye, I think you pay enough tax.

There’s a difference between the very wealthy which you ARE and the top 1% Elon Musk/Zuckerberg people
you’re really really wealthy just not uber rich

Within a shortish drive of most of you I bet there are homes, car showrooms and clothing stores selling goods that you, I and most of the top earners in the country can’t afford (without some other kind of wealth available) so who’s buying this stuff?

I can tell you live in an affluent area! Of course it depends on your definition of 'shortish drive' but, for example, there are no houses worth more than £2m round here - which if you are on £500k a year should be well within your affordability (and you'd get a mansion for your money). Clothing - I have no idea where you'd even find clothing not affordable on that salary.

I don’t begrudge anyone their success nor am I resentful of wealthy or successful people (most people aren’t).

I’m just shocked you don’t consider yourself wealthy?! Granted you don’t have wealth like a sultan but a £500,000 a year salary, upwards of £1,000,000 in investments and a paid-off £1,000,000 house would put you in the top 0.5% of the UK population in terms of wealth and probably in the top 0.1% globally.

When in real-terms you are richer than 99.9% of the world’s population, how can you not feel wealthy? Just because you are surrounded every day by people who have far more wealth than you doesn’t mean you are not wealthy.

You might not consider yourself a fast runner if you finish 12th in the men’s 100m in the Olympics and you compare yourself to Ussain Bolt who leaves you in the dust. But you would still be speedier than 99.9999% of the entire world so would objectively indeed be an incredibly fast runner.

It's not possible to have fully privisitsed health in the UK, as for some areas there are hardly any consultants that work privately. Even if you were under a private consultant they would probably still be using and referring between NHS facilities and depsrtments. Unless you're talking about extremely minor health stuff like dentistry or dermatology. 'Going private' in the UK means 'jumping the queue by asking for a paid for opinion/ diagnostic and then being referred back to an NHS trust with a letter'. So don't lie.

This.

Our wait lists on the NHS are long jn part because of people ‘going private’ and using NHS resources to do so - ie consultants charging lots of money whilst using NHS facilities.

Gary Stevenson from Gary's Economics (like or loathe him) suggests a 1% wealth tax on over £12m.

I personally am in favour of not being able to hand down more than the average cost of a UK house per child, with a few exceptions.

Go and volunteer at Citizens Advice ir a debt advice charity.

You will soon see how well off you are.

You should apply for - Rich House Poor House...

Football players, movie stars and oligarchs.

You need some therapy if you don’t feel wealthy. I can’t understand where your money goes. I also have a house of similar value to yours (bought recently before I’m accused of being a boomer), and have a very healthy pension pot and more savings than you, yet I’ve never earned more than 20% of your income. I feel extremely comfortable/blessed.

I can't speak for the rest of the UK, but that's not true in London. It's possible to go fully private for all medical care.