She's lucky, she gets to write sarcasm for a living.

I could do the job much better.

Is that sarcastic, or not?

Ah-ha, you'll never know, for my brand of sarcasm is subterfuge.

What is your base point to say that it isn't working? What are you comparing these figures to?

I for one would not mind someone as clever as Bill Gates having a say in how the world was run.

He didn't ask about that, though.

The thread says "Proof" the trickle down effect is a myth - where is the proof?

Just because the rich are getting richer it doesn't mean the poor are getting poorer?

It just means the rich are getting richer quicker than the poor are getting less poor - if that is not too much of tongue twister

[url=http://rwer.wordpress.com/2013/02/21/us-wages-and-productivity-1968-2012-minimum-average-and-the-1/How about this example from the US?[/url

[url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25827061This is just one more indicator of the situation/[/url

"A quarter of young people in the UK now live with their parents, official figures show.

"The Office for National Statistics (ONS) said more than 3.3 million adults between the ages of 20 and 34 were living with parents in 2013, 26% of that age group.

"The number has increased by a quarter, or 669,000 people, since 1996.

"This is despite the fact that the number of 20 to 34-year-olds in the UK remains almost the same, the ONS said.

"In 1996, the earliest year for which comparable statistics are available, there were 2.7m 20 to 34-year-olds living in the family home - 21% of the age group at that time."

if wealth is relative, then surely it is.

I am not sure what you are asking but my point was that these 85 people effectively hoard their wealth. It isn't being put to good use and did you miss the £18.5tn stashed in tax havens mentioned in the article? This wealth is not "trickling down" as people such as yourself tell us it will if we just let people keep their cash and avoid taxing them. This is all going on while the rest of us, you included, are asked to pay the price of the banking collapse of 2008.

In particular Osborne has openly said he will save £12bn from the benefits bill so this will mean those who can least afford it are paying for the banking collapse.

Do you consider this morally acceptable?



Nothing to do with the point I made. I think John Caldwell, another philanthropist, is great. Doesn't mean he should have a say in running the world.

Him and Gates can stand for election if they fancy that. I bet they would get more votes then the owners of Wall Mart.

when you stashed it tax heavens what if those richest people live and trade in countries that don't pay tax? Just because there is 18.5trillion whats to say it was taxable in the first place?

also with the housing situation for 20 years old; In my opinion i would count this to people not be allowed to get them selves into debt so easy.

Your talking as if all those people actually require benefits. I feel sorry for the people who do genuinely require benefits but thats not rich peoples fault or the governments maybe previous governments but its the fault of the scroungers who feel proud to keep on taking.

Its not your fault but your opinion is very much the opinion of a typical ex-pat, those who gain their experience of the uk now from newspapers and soundbites.

What would you think if we told you that the vast majority of benefits are not paid to "scroungers" at all but to working people ?

Personally i have only been in dubai for 5 years. I worked part time in the uk whilst studying and i always remember a women who i worked with had a couple of children and she worked hard don't get me wrong but the husband was a lazy who learnt a trade but could never hold down a job anyway, after i my course i was working the same amount of hours as her and earning actually more in the end but somehow she could still afford a car (I couldn't) Go out every weekend (at the time i did admittedly) went on two holidays (I couldn't afford it). After two months of listening to her about whats she's bought i started to wonder how the hell can she have more money than me when she has kids, Cars, Husbands not working and also has a house (I had to rent privately), so after listening to her talk i soon realized she had so much benefits and top ups she was almost earning double what i was and on top of it her husband was claiming carers allowance for his sick dad even tho he was never with him. Also going to any pub in wigan mid days and you will see more than one claiming benefits and drinking/bookies all day.

This is a subject that does really annoy me because Im in a foreign country trying to earn a living and set my self up whilst others are just being paid for, on top of that i can't tell you how many taxi drivers or indian/pakistan people tell me here in dubai they are trying to go to the UK and get a passport.

Now i know there is genuine people out there but the benefit system when i was in the uk was completely wrong even for those deserving of it.

Let's make this simple - would you say the average standard of living has increased or decreased in the last 30 years? If the answer to that is yes - difficult to argue that not to be the case - how has that happened?

No I don't think it is morally acceptable that anyone expect the bankers should pay for the their excesses and that includes you and me. Unfortunately life is not fair and these things happen. I have no issue in supporting those that are in genuine need e.g. mentally/physically disabled. What I object to is the abuse of the system which is pretty widespread. Benefit St is a parody of this position but the behaviours you see there would be replicated in virtually every village/town/city in this country. My own in laws, there are 6 claiming with 7 children none work that p1sses me off big style and perhaps its proximity clouds my view.

Perhaps if the levels of abuse weren't happening our tax bill would go down giving us more cash to spend and maybe an upward Keynesian cycle might start?

An example - I have a company I own 100% - my wage bill is 200k a year, in the year I make 500k and I give my workforce a 10% salary increase. I this case the wealth gap has increased between me and my worforce but my workforce has has also increased. The workforce has also increased its wealth not just to the level I have.

How much of this is a symptom of the difficulties in the mortgage/property market?

The Daily Mail's comments is full of ex-pats mopaning about this and that. They live in Spain or wherever, probably sponging off our state and Spain's and when something hits the fan they expect to run back here and the government to ship them back at taxpayers expense. They don't pay tax here and yet they expect all this because they happened to be born here and then chose not to live here. Are they not scroungers of the very, very worst kind? I think we should start taking British passports off some people who don't want to pay tax here.

well they are the ones who are hypocrites and i never read news tabloids for anything other than sport. i think people should have there british passports removed if they decided the don't want to work because its easier to sit at home and let others. And majority of expats who i know anyway are usually the ones who have funded them selves and have a private pension and own there own home so they don't depend on the state when or if they go back.

What you don't go 50/50 with your employees tight mark. Yorkshireman by any chance

It isn't just rich people but companies who are making use of tax havens. That is where the figure comes from. It is a figure Oxfam estimate as to the amount of money held in tax havens.

It is held in a [utax haven[/u for a reason you know. Can you guess what it is?



What is that about?

Yes they are a tax havens but for example jersey (not sure if this is consider one anymore) but a lot of people bank in jersey because of the strong banking and accounting systems in place.

The 2nd part was a reply to another post somebody using a statistic that there is a higher rate of young adults living with there parents.

The data is for up to 30-year-olds.



So you consider that an average UK house price of £242,415 (to last October – and flats are slightly higher at £250,101) and an average UK income of £26,000 have nothing to do with it?

And do you consider £250K for a one-bed flat in a not-particularly-genteel area of a city to be 'a good thing'?

To remind people: it used to be considered sensible that nobody paid more than three times their household income on a mortgage. So for that £250K for a one-bed flat, a sensible mortgage would require a household income of £83,333.

:2h91ap7l

That is a kind of Peter Mendleson view of being comfortable with some people being excessively wealthy despite not being so oneself.

There are two problems with this. First of all we aren't discussing the last 30 years but what has happened since 2008 and from them till now living standards have declined. The fact they may have declined from a high point doesn't mean it is right that your and my living standards take a hit while the 1% are unaffected and are in fact becoming even wealthier.

However, your and my position is I am guessing still pretty comfortable. The ones really taking the hit are the working poor of this country and no doubt others who in the UK are going to see more cuts to what benefits they are entitled to while at the same time there is enough cash hidden away in tax havens to make Osborne's £12bn seem like chicken feed.

The other problem with this situation is the concentration of wealth also concentrates the power. You might be comfortable with Bill Gates helping run the world but I certainly do not want a bunch of plutocrats subverting national governments and I do believe we are entering a phase of history (if we are not there already) where we face this possibility. Concentrating wealth and power leaves to self serving interests doing just that.

:2h91ap7l

How on earth have you swallowed this propaganda? Most people who claim benefits work. Benefit fraud is a tiny fraction of what the majority perceive it to be. It is a huge amount [i:2h91ap7lless[/i

And perhaps it would go down if we didn't subsidise the likes if Virgin Trains to run the West Coat main line when the publicly run East Coast is proving the most efficient of the lot and delivering more revenue to the government?

You really need to do some research into just how much benefit fraud costs and if you did I can't see how you would not conclude the government is spending far too much effort for far too little return when there are bigger fish to fry elsewhere.

Completely agree with this – including (for the sake of clarification) your comments on SMEs.

Just to add, really, if there are billions or trillions of dollars sitting in tax havens, those are doing nothing to boost any economy, be it local or national.

And I think that we're already in the realms of supra-national corporatocracies, which exist over and above any nation state and have no loyalty to any nation state, irrespective of where such companies first emerged.

And that is completely anti-democratic in any sense that most people here would consider the concept of democracy.