The Rich get richer, much richer1

[unbeliever]

Quibbles and distraction?

 

You claimed that inequality was going up and the Gini coefficient says it isn't. How about you stop quibbling and address that?

 

Socialism doesn't respond to evidence.

[Staunton]

Socialism doesn't respond to evidence.

 

In 1979, the year Margaret Thatcher entered 10 Downing Street, the gini coefficient was at 0.24. Between 1979 and 1989 it soared to 0.34, and it has remained remarkably stable to this day.

 

https://www.equalitytrust.org.uk/how-has-inequality-changed

[RonJeremy]

This is just disgusting

 

WHY should he get paid that much??

 

He doesn't get paid that much. He earns that much. There's a difference.

Envy is not a pretty trait.

 

---------- Post added 09-05-2016 at 18:28 ----------

 

It doesn't matter how many times RonJeremy tries to pretend that tax avoidance is not an issue, it is!

 

The strategy that supporters of neoliberalism employ when people point this out is simply to muddy the waters, distract, and engage in quibbles.

 

Don't be fooled.

 

And notice that RonJeremy is not arguing with me, he's arguing with press reports in the Daily Mail, The Times and the BBC.

 

I am simply connecting the issues and drawing attention to the endless scandal.

 

I don't recognise your position. Are you saying we shouldn't do business with foreign companies?

[Staunton]

The headquarters of WPP, Martin Sorrell's advertising company, is on Farm Street, London. Once again RonJeremy hopes to distract, to keep us from focusing upon the stark injustices of tax avoidance and executive pay by leading us down a labyrinth of quibbles and distractions, together with hackneyed accusations such as the politics of envy.

 

It is essential to resist such strategies and focus on the facts, that the rich and powerful have simply absented themselves from all common decency and fairness. And they have done this by cheating the tax system, and by exploiting ordinary people across the globe to enhance their wild remuneration packages.

[gomgeg]

I can't see the problem here if it's a private company, and presumably the thousands employed pay taxes and claim less benefits so isn't that trickle down.

I was more amazed this week to see that Jack Wilshire at Arsenal gets about 60k a week, for the number of games he plays he probably gets paid more than Lionel Messi, but if the fans are happy again no problem.

[Mister M]

Socialism doesn't respond to evidence.

 

I think that there is mounting evidence to suggest that societies that are beset by huge inequalities are beset with huge social and economic problems. I think policy makers in the 1970s and 1980s probably didn't forsee some of the consequences that many researchers are identifying:

http://www.unicef.org/socialpolicy/files/Insights_August2010_ENG(1).pdf

https://www.jrf.org.uk/sites/default/files/jrf/migrated/files/inequality-income-social-problems-full.pdf

The Spirit Level is just one of many analyses into this area.

 

Which is not to say that societies with no inequalities don't have social and economic problems....Perhaps it's all a question of degree & what society considers acceptable or not.

 

If this research is accepted, to turn your question on its head, I wonder how the society we have now will respond, if at all? Apart from a few odd examples, I don't see change as happening voluntarily.

 

---------- Post added 09-05-2016 at 19:25 ----------

 

He doesn't get paid that much. He earns that much. There's a difference.

Envy is not a pretty trait.

 

---------- Post added 09-05-2016 at 18:28 ----------

 

 

I don't recognise your position. Are you saying we shouldn't do business with foreign companies?

 

I don't know Solomon as a person, but I guess some people's aversion to people earning huge amounts is based on what one considers indecently excessive when there are people sleeping rough.

Of course there is envy - but, personally, I don't envy Sorrell. I wouldn't want to be in his position. I think someone can argue for a more balanced society without it being motivated by envy.

And from my RE at school I remember that what made envy a deadly sin is that it engenders other deadly sins such as greed or pride....

Edited May 9, 2016 by Mister M

[rollwithit]

Good on him for earning that much and employing people. Presumeably he pays more in tax every day than most people who complain do in a lifetime. Well done to him for supporting the economy and paying MUCH more than his "fair share" in taxes supporting those less fortunate along with the idle and feckless.

 

---------- Post added 07-05-2016 at 21:09 ----------

 

Oh sorry. I forgot. There's a fixed amount of money in the economy and he is just taking it away from the rest of us :hihi: :loopy:

 

You wouldn't be saying that Ron if he robbed your pension pot to prop up his business and pay out dividends.

[RonJeremy]

You wouldn't be saying that Ron if he robbed your pension pot to prop up his business and pay out dividends.

 

Has he? I didn't know he was a crook like Gordon Brown who raided virtually all pension pots.

[Staunton]

[/color]The UK gini coefficient appears to have been pretty much level since 1990...

 

Cyclone is quite right. Inequality rose dramatically during Margaret Thatcher's time as prime minister (neoliberal) and, as we agree, remained high throughout John Major's (neoliberal), Tony Blair and Gordon Brown's (neoconservative) periods at Number 10, and they stayed high through the coalition right up to today, under David Cameron's (neoliberal) administration.

 

Corrado Gini's measure of statistical dispersion known as the gini coefficient is famously forbidding in its complexity, but that's very much the point - economists love to make use of complex formulas and bewildering coefficients because they are guaranteed to intimidate all but the most enthusiastic of statisticians.

 

Don't be put off by this ruse. In simple terms the gini coefficient demonstrates that inequality rose dramatically in the UK as soon as Margaret Thatcher took office, and has remained high ever since. Over the last thirty seven years inequality has been a structural feature of the government's economic policy.

[Solomon1]

Absolutely! I'm with Solomon1. Is one advertising executive worth more in one hour than a care worker earns in a whole year?

 

 

Exactamundo!

 

---------- Post added 09-05-2016 at 20:50 ----------

 

He doesn't get paid that much. He earns that much. There's a difference

 

What's the difference?

 

And if you don't think it's wrong

 

For ONE person to get that MUCH money

 

There's something wrong wi yo mate