Because it avoids answering the question? Something our friend here is very adept at.

I didn't I simply gave examples of people who earn huge sums through their talent alone and asked the question how do they fit into his categorisation? Simply really even for you!! I am unsure why you even entered the debate you clearly have nothing of value to add other than try and deflect as usual.

What I don't get about you is, you apparently had it all good job, good salary, fine clothes, you own house etc - you made a conscious decision - as is your prerogative - to give it up. Yet you seem to want to stop others following the path that you yourself was quite happy to follow years ago - this seems a little hypocritical? Perhaps you are saying you know best and we should all follow your doctrine?

And another lefty with nothing of value to add - why do you feel the need to stick together - you are both grown men!!

Kettle and pot come to mind with you two.

League fan is always critical of the rich, seldom hear him having a go at other areas of society that cause far more trouble than a tiny number of mega-rich individuals. He give no value to how they may have made their money it is just unfair that they have so much and he has little - envy a terrible emotion.

Quote ="Dally"This article pretty much sums up how I see things as regards our wonderful Cameron / Osborne economic miracle: www.standard.co.uk/business/mark ... 76913.html'" The issues about UK productivity growth are quite interesting. You often see the argument that our productivity issues are due to having more labour market regulation, particularly in comparison to the US. The idea of efficiency wages (mentioned in the article) is something that I think will become increasingly popular in the next few years, so for example with regards to the London Living Wage 75% of employers surveyed said they felt the quality of their employees' work had increased. Stiglitz also argues that inequality is decreasing productivity because it "undermines market incentives". While capital investment is almost always going to increase productivity, how else the government attempts to boost productivity could be the biggest variable. It could either see the low productivity growth as a consequence of rigidities in the market, or a consequence of rampant growth in inequality and falling real wages (for most). Sadly under this Conservative government, I think the answer to that is very clear.

Quote ="Dally"This article pretty much sums up how I see things as regards our wonderful Cameron / Osborne economic miracle: www.standard.co.uk/business/mark ... 76913.html'" The issues about UK productivity growth are quite interesting. You often see the argument that our productivity issues are due to having more labour market regulation, particularly in comparison to the US. The idea of efficiency wages (mentioned in the article) is something that I think will become increasingly popular in the next few years, so for example with regards to the London Living Wage 75% of employers surveyed said they felt the quality of their employees' work had increased. Stiglitz also argues that inequality is decreasing productivity because it "undermines market incentives". While capital investment is almost always going to increase productivity, how else the government attempts to boost productivity could be the biggest variable. It could either see the low productivity growth as a consequence of rigidities in the market, or a consequence of rampant growth in inequality and falling real wages (for most). Sadly under this Conservative government, I think the answer to that is very clear.

You believe this nonsense? How old are you?

I doubt there is anyone who doesn't think (even if it is only in the privacy of his own home) he or she bears some semblance of responsibility for some portion of the world's ills. After all - there's PLENTY of blame to go around.

But the notion that a hundred, or a thousand, or a hundred-thousand "ordinary" people are MORE CULPABLE than Kenneth Lay (ENRON), Basil Jackson (Anglo-Iranian Oil), Allen W./ John F. Dulles (United Fruit), Warren Anderson (Union Carbide), Bernie Madoff, Jordan Belfort, Allen Stanford, Ivan Boesky, Howard Hughes (Hughes Tool & Die, TWA), Fritz Thyssen, Paul Warburg, George Herbert Walker Bush, Clint Murchison, D. H. Bird, Martha Stewart, Thaksin Shinawatra, Alisher Usmanov, Roman Abramovic - and all the other Russian oligarchs, the Wall Street bankers who financed Hitler's Third Reich, the chairmen and fellow board members of all the major cigarette manufacturers who demonstrably LIED about the effects of tobacco smoke on the human respiratory system, the senior staff of ITT who played a key role in overthrowing the Allende government in Chile (plus the thousands of deaths at the hands of Pinochet, the car-bombing of Orlando Letelier), the chairmen of BP who have worked hard to install repressive dictatorships in the former Soviet southern states in exchange for oil rights (as well as the Deepwater Horizon catastrophe), the war profiteers of Halliburton, KBR, the Carlisle Group, Blackwater (now "Xe"icon_wink.gif, BAE Systems, Lockheed, Boeing, Bechtel, Aegis Defence Services, General Dynamics, Nour, Chevron, Exxon-Mobil, L-3 Communications, EADS, Raytheon, Environmental Chemical, International American Products, Custer Battles, Monsanto, Krupp, Syngenta, Grupo Mexico, Smith & Wesson, I.G. Farben etc. etc. etc. etc.?

I'm sure if you looked hard enough and far enough down the chain of causality you could find some means by which I have profited from the actions of BAE Systems or Lockheed - but this DOES NOT mean I gave my permission for the former to irradiate a patch of Iraq with depleted uranium shells or the latter to slam hundreds, perhaps thousands, of Hellfire missiles into Palestinian apartment blocks or that I am "equally guilty" or "jealous" of them.

I'm sure my grandfather at some point in his life purchased products made by one of I.G. Farben's international subsidiaries. This DOES NOT mean he gave his permission for them to develop Zyklon B for the role of exterminating the Jews or that he is "equally guilty" or "jealous" of them.

I'm sure a good proportion of the world's population have eaten Chiquita bananas, or filled their cars with BP's oil, or made phone calls through ITT's telecomms infrastructure, or purchased goods or services from ENRON - this DOES NOT mean any of them approved of overthrowing the democratically elected governments of Guatemala or Chile or Iran - or ripping off the pension funds of tens of thousands of hard-working employees or that they are "equally guilty" or "jealous" of them.

I'm certain YOU have wittingly or unwittingly eaten produce which was grown with the aid of Monsanto's fertilizers. Does this mean you are EQUALLY CULPABLE for the hundreds of thousands (perhaps millions) of acres of not just unusable but highly toxic Vietnamese land which was sprayed with Agent Orange during the war and forty years later is still causing birth defects, stillborn babies etc. - or that you are "equally guilty" or "jealous" of them?

Explain to me - IN PLAIN ENGLISH - how you arrive at this PERVERSE idea that anyone you know is equally culpable to the above - or the myriad number of other examples I could produce from memory alone?

Or are you just going to carry on spewing out this RIDICULOUS and OFFENSIVE mantra that anyone who takes issue with the gross economic imbalances we see all around us is just "JEALOUS"?

Marvellous post.

I don't understand why people don't understand that the world is more skewed than the people who run it would have us believe.

Clearly what you still "don't get" is the fact that I have absolutely no problem with anyone making money - the only caveats being how they made that money and what they then do with that money once they have made it. I applaud any entrepreneur who uses his/her talents to make money and if in doing so, they also employ others, then that too is to be lauded.

My caveats exclude those who simply make money from money: by doing nothing other than gambling on markets, shorting etc. they are unlikely to be employing anyone, apart from a Philipina cleaner or nanny. Once they've "made" that money, if they then seek to avoid paying tax by employing someone to show them "tax efficiencies", then they'll be subject to my derision. I seriously struggle to understand why anyone who has previously enjoyed all the benefits of a tax-payer provided infrastructure and welfare system, should then think it is equitable to do whatever in their power to avoid making any such contributions to the present economy.

As for my own situation, it is my choice and I'm far happier than I was 20 years ago. I probably wear better clothes than I did then, 20 years ago I'd never dream of wearing Savile Row bespoke, Pal Zileri Abito Privato suits or Turnbull & Asser shirts, Nudie jeans, Trickers shoes etc. Back then I was spending up to £800 on Armani suits, £50 on Thomas Pink shirts and £120 on Loake shoes. Now I buy my clothes (socks & underwear excepted) from car boot sales, charity shops and ebay.

The reason you don't understand say far more about you than it does about me

Graeme & I haven't seen each other in ten years and during that period, I can count the number of electronic conversations we've had on one hand.

Please don't let your psychosis run away with you

Quote ="Dally"This article pretty much sums up how I see things as regards our wonderful Cameron / Osborne economic miracle: www.standard.co.uk/business/mark ... 76913.html'" And the solitary comment at the bottom pretty much sums up the two-facedness of the media since the election.

Quote ="Dally"This article pretty much sums up how I see things as regards our wonderful Cameron / Osborne economic miracle: www.standard.co.uk/business/mark ... 76913.html'" And the solitary comment at the bottom pretty much sums up the two-facedness of the media since the election.

You really believe this stuff - goodness me all of the downsides and no of the up sides!!

Are you putting the likes of Alan Stanford and Kenneth Lay in the same bracket as Pol Pot, Idi Amin, Saddam Hussain seriously?

Society has - sadly for you - thrown out the notion that we should be equal regardless of intellect, desire, work ethic, ability you see this is where your mantra is just hyperbole - sad very sad indeed.

You will never stop privilege you will never stop inequality. Even in a socialist regime the structure of power still exists. The bosses are still more equal than the rest. We are not all born the same - I assume you can't run like Bolt or are as intelligent as or have the business ability of Bill Gates? Of course in your world Gates is the enemy and should never have been allowed to use his talent, intellect and hard work to accumulate such a huge fortune. You need to find a way of encouraging/accommodating the benefits people like Gates bring within the confines of a workable society. You think how much tax his company has paid of the years and how that has been redistributed to those less fortunate than him. The money he has donated to challenging causes to the betterment of society. For every Abramovic there is a Bill Gates pity you are so blinkered you fail to acknowledge that the world isn't all run by greedy egomaniacs!!

LOL indeed and you can count the number of political conversations on the fingers of one foot!
It's just a nice handy label to chuck around to avoid answering questions.

If you think that you are an even bigger idiot than I had you down as. No one who works hard and earns their money is the enemy, as long as they pay their fair share of taxes while doing so then bloody good luck to them. I for one have a lifestyle I am happy with and am in no way jealous of anyone who earns more.

It's Sal: the thinking man's gift that simply keeps on giving

Bill Gates is at least the third straw man you've introduced into this debate so far.

I'm still wondering why you do it, apart from some compulsion to say "look over there" and not engage in debate at all

Ah, right - so you're still in your teens.





Strange, I don't remember ever mentioning "Pol Pot", "Idi Amin" or "Saddam Hussain". Obfuscation? I think so.

But whilst we're on the subject of such - where do you think certainly the latter two would be without the pipeline of bribes, materiel and training offered in exchange for resource rights?



LOL - don't feel sad on my part. Are you sure you're having this conversation with me - or some kind of fantasy me which exists solely in your own head? Who's mentioned anything about "enforced equality"?



See - there you go again. Who's mentioned anything about "stopping inequality"? The issue here is your assertion that anyone who takes umbrage with the manifold injustices of the corporate sector hasn't a leg to stand on and must only be "jealous". I take it that since you've been careful to avoid returning to that silly claim and have instead resorted to straw man weaving (as well as exposing your woody for capitalism) you'd rather not make an even bigger fool of yourself.

I see Iain Duncan Smith has successfully ended child poverty in the UK within a month of the new government coming into office

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33347511 Seems the Tories now want to end sickness benefit.

www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-33347511 Seems the Tories now want to end sickness benefit.

The problem with welfare is that it creates a class of people that are dependent on the state. So, essentially it's the states way of bribing voters.
When the welfare state was set up, only people over the age of 70 were given a weekly payment. This made the welfare system very cheap, because the life expectancy in Britain at the time was 48.
However, although cutting benefits will decrease government spending it doesn't address the real issue of private debt (mortgage payments, credit cards, student loans, bank loans etc). If the public is paying down debt it's inevitable sovereign debt will increase as the government tries to circulate the money into the economy that isn't being circulated as the public is saving in order to pay their debt.

We're the most indebted nation in the developed world, our total debt is 900% of GDP, and most of that is private debt-not government debt. Debts that can't be repaid, won't be repaid, and either we have to default and go bankrupt, or a significant proportion of the debt will have to be written off.
IMO, the initial bailout that was given to the banks, should have gone to the public in order to pay down their own debt, thus giving the money to the banks in the form of debt repayments, and giving the public more disposable income, to save, or spend within the economy.
Unfortunately, because of the nature of our political system, no Politian is willing to stand up to the Ponzi scheme running-oligarchs in the financial sector. They're just happy to keep the bubble inflated long enough so the 5hit doesn't hit the fan while they're in office.

Edit:

Just to add, the UK's current (trade account) is also far more concerning than is portrayed by the government and the media. Our economy will never be able to recover if we don't start producing more than we consume, there needs to be a reindustrialisation of Britain.

I'd be thoroughly embarassed, as a government, to talk about more welfare cuts when the current situation has already led to a neccessity for foodbanks.

Shame on them.

They're more interested in getting dividends for shareholders, than sorting out the root cause of any social problems.

[url=http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-33376467Don't you even dare to criticise government policies, otherwise we'll withold funding[/url

The goal is the Thirdworldisation of the Britain with employees begging for jobs offering similar terms and conditions as you'd find in one of Russell Brand's sweatshops.

I'd laugh if it weren't so tragic. Sheeple meekly sitting by watching rights and benefits their forefathers literally gave their blood to win trickle away - forever lost. Do people seriously believe they'll see them return once we fight our way out of debt? But then if you're dumb enough to think debt is some kind of statistical irregularity in markets rather than an economic weapon there's no point in further discussion.

Until people stop watching TV, think for themselves and take forceful action they deserve everything they get.

There was a necessity for foodbanks way before the nasty, nasty Tories got into power. Still, the simple solution would be to ban them completely then we'll go back to the halycon days of the early 2000's when everyone had enough money to spend on food, booze and ciggies.
Which other charities would you also like to see banned? Macmillan, perhaps.

Why not simply type WAAAAAAHHHHH....Tories, it'll save time.

People will stop watching TV when this Thirdworldisation eventually happens. Carry on taking the pills.

What is your opinion of foodbanks ?

Are they a necessary charitable effort in emergency situations, or do you believe that they are all politically motivated hence the reason why they have multiplied several fold under the current incumbents ?

Quote ="BobbyD"There was a necessity for foodbanks way before the nasty, nasty Tories got into power. Still, the simple solution would be to ban them completely then we'll go back to the halycon days of the early 2000's when everyone had enough money to spend on food, booze and ciggies. Which other charities would you also like to see banned? Macmillan, perhaps. Why not simply type WAAAAAAHHHHH....Tories, it'll save time.'" You are totally correct, people did use foodbanks before the Tories, all 25, 899 of them. What you can't seem to grasp is the number of people who find it necessary to use them SINCE the Coalition/Tories have been in power, 1, 084, 604 of them. Any idea why there has been such a big jump in the space of 6 years? And please don't say if its there it will be used, you have to be referred to use a foodbank and show proof of income etc. www.trusselltrust.org/stats

Quote ="BobbyD"There was a necessity for foodbanks way before the nasty, nasty Tories got into power. Still, the simple solution would be to ban them completely then we'll go back to the halycon days of the early 2000's when everyone had enough money to spend on food, booze and ciggies. Which other charities would you also like to see banned? Macmillan, perhaps. Why not simply type WAAAAAAHHHHH....Tories, it'll save time.'" You are totally correct, people did use foodbanks before the Tories, all 25, 899 of them. What you can't seem to grasp is the number of people who find it necessary to use them SINCE the Coalition/Tories have been in power, 1, 084, 604 of them. Any idea why there has been such a big jump in the space of 6 years? And please don't say if its there it will be used, you have to be referred to use a foodbank and show proof of income etc. www.trusselltrust.org/stats