How to Get Filthy Rich

[SoManyTshirts]

Looking forward to Gary Stevenson’s documentary on C4 tonight (Wednesday). I’ve been an admirer of his YouTube channel addressing inequality for a while and it will be interesting to see how his theories are received.

Same here - I watched his episode of the making of it the other day, so looking forward to this. I hope it at least plants a seed in those that are resistance to taxing wealth and make people stop and think a bit more.

He seems decent enough, but we have always had wealthy people around and nothing will stop any of it.
Plus if you’re that rich you can find ways around paying more tax, it is what it is. They can protect their wealth.

I've never heard of him but he's coming over well so far.

He seems very well meaning. My son quotes him a lot. At least he is self made.

The kind of families he is talking about though will just move to Dubai or somewhere to avoid any kind of tax rises because they can. He is being very idealistic, which is nice, but he must realize that it won’t work in the real world.

This rich American seems completely obnoxious however I do believe everyone should pay tax. Even notional small amounts. There was a happiness survey 20 odd years ago which showed populations are happier when everyone pays tax. It leads to everyone feeling they have a stake in society. What is shameful is people having such low incomes when working full time that it is deemed harsh or unfair to tax them. I'm taking income tax here.

I agree that everyone paying in is a good idea, but which government has the balls to change it?

I’d like to know how that aristocrat’s inheritance tax affairs have been managed. It’s as though taxes only apply to the little people.

The very rich man could easily pay a wealth tax , but he doesn’t want to and will make sure he doesn’t.

He didn’t come out great…

He was on that programme last year where they handcuffed people together for a week or so. He was horribly racist.

Can't take their land with 'em though, can they?

No , probably employ a manager on 30 k to manage the land whilst he goes abroad to avoid tax.

I think it was a bizarre programme. The idea that rich people getting richer makes poor people poorer is nonsensical. It's bad government policy that makes people poorer. There isn't a defined pot of money that we all share.

The woman from patriotic millionaires seemed to think that rich people were the cause of everyone else not being able to send their children to university. Eh?

The billionaire at the very start got hardly any air time but he spoke a lot of sense.

A lot of those rich people were obnoxious.

Rich people probably feel like poor people do, they pay enough tax as it is. Nothing stopping people paying more if they want to. It is a tricky one and if it had proved to work then why hasn’t anyone tried it before ?
He was a lovely man and had a social conscience , but also really idealistic. As I said before, the very rich people will find ways around any kind of wealth tax. You also need to go after the ‘ cash in hand ‘ people who hide it away , but that’s probably harder to prove or maybe go after the big companies who avoid a lot of tax. ( I didn’t watch to the end , so maybe he mentioned those too!)

Genuine question - if there isn't a 'defined pot of money', why can't we all have more and eradicate poverty? It must be based on something (? gold reserves?)or it's actually worthless. I'd like to undertand this a lot better than I do.

We can all have more. That's the point the billionaire at the start was making. He came from poverty. Gary Stevenson came from a normal working class home and because rich because of his personal skills. There is nothing to stop people getting richer but most people don't take risks or have ideas. Billionaires are not all born into wealth, many are born poor and become rich.

You will never eradicate poverty. Never. That's just not how the world and human beings work.

https://www.linkedin.com/posts/danneidle_i-dont-usually-write-personal-stuff-but-share-7480973416515313664-Q8nQ/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_ios&rcm=ACoAAAJNfbkBHwIYQxDuBODKLfhsZUzttanJcYs

His diction was horrific: he reminded me of Paul Whitehouse’s Rowley Birkin QC.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/comedy/fastshow/characters/rowley_birkin.shtml

The Guardian article is spot-on. He came across as idealistic but without any depth. A lot of what he said was word salad. It was quite a tedious watch.

I've never come across Gary Stevenson but people on here talk about him like he's the second coming. So I was expecting a little more than what I got.

He seems really nice and well meaning, but that’s not enough to eradicate poverty.
DS 2 is bit like this , very idealistic and everyone else ( rich people ) can pay more. It really isn’t as easy as that.

Money is just a means to trade resources. There is not an infinite amount of resources - land, housing, food, water, healthcare - and increasing inequality means that the super rich absorb too much whilst others are short-changed. The billionaire’s wealth was generated in part from the work of others who did not become wealthy (and may or may not have needed UC etc).

I thought it was an interesting watch but Gary Stevenson himself was an awful presenter. He couldn’t make eye contact with anyone, not even his dad. And it annoyed me that he dressed like a homeless person despite being a multi millionaire and was still earning good money from private trading.

Gary is a BS artist telling people what they wish was true but isn’t.

This conversation with Dan Neidle, who is intelligent, knowledgeable and left leaning shows how out of his depth he is.

https://x.com/aswren/status/2075233992148705718?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E2075233992148705718%7Ctwgr%5E704f4a0bfa4ab4c7c915c2507c97cd3816c1e2e4%7Ctwcon%5Es1_c10&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fspectator.com%2Farticle%2Fwatch-gary-stevensons-wealth-tax-dream-gets-a-brutal-reality-check%2F