Greece tried to put the well being of its people first and got shafted....................... and will end up plunged into poverty by an organisation that lists amongst its objectives - the elimination of poverty.........................go figure!
There are two things that desperately need either controlling or eliminating .............greed and religion. How many of of the worlds problems can be attributed these factors.
I don't really see why that would put us at war but it's not a realistic scenario anyway. I believe in low, flat taxes and small governments. I believe anyone capable of doing something legally that finds them great wealth should be applauded and chances are they'll be employing and making richer many others, not forced into a bizarre wealth cap. The chairman of the company where I work I won't name as he's a relatively well-known person but he's worth an estimated £1 billion, created a company from scratch which was the first of its kind in Europe and bought and built up a large but flagging business on top of that as well as making millions outside of what we could call regular business. If his wealth had been capped he'd have hit that cap years ago when my company employed maybe 20 people rather than the few hundred it does now. My point is that inequality isn't a problem per se. It's a symptom of a prosperous economy. Living standards of the poor now are better than they were 20/30/40 years ago. There will be short term dips but as long as the long term is an upward curve, who cares if the rich get richer?
For a feisty young whippersnapper Watford you are surprisingly deferential to wealth. Alexander Boris de Pfeffel (seriously) Johnson has parlayed his silver spoon (Eton etc) into high paying public sector jobs. Just like Cameron. But these blokes are not seriously rich. The epitomy of this kind of wealth would be the Royals, or other inherited wealth people. Now, I would love to leave my kids enough not to worry about homes etc (I won't succeed in this), but not to have to work? **** that. Many of the mega rich are just mega rich because money breeds money. Some, like George Soros and Warren Buffett (who are, by all accounts, good blokes) are in effect leeches like the entire 'financial services' industry, producing nothing for their cash (may be a little harsh on Buffett on this one) except cash. Banking, shareholding and joint stock companies exist to provide a way for us to essentially gamble on the future success of genuine enterprises. But they have grown a hideous and all important life of their own where money takes decisons on morality. And ruins ordinary people through corruption - see Greece, financial crash. There are those who are seriously rich because they have a great idea and see it through (Dyson, Jobs, Gates) or take a big gamble (like Fernandes on an Asian budget airlines) and it comes off. Good luck to them I say, but I really don't think that, after the point of being 100% sure you can keep yourself and your family in luxury for ever (which doesn't take that much unless you require diamond encrusted personal jets), increasing their wealth is the motivation. The game is the motivation. For every one of these bloke there are hundreds of others who's ideas are just as good and gambles just as logical, but it doesn't come off for them. Then there are the real scum, like Mittal, Ecclestone and Abramovitch, who seize on events and strange circumstances to enrich themselves, and don't give a toss for the exploitation of others in the process. Oddly this type seem to like the horrible displays of wealth like £100m weddings and super yachts. Also include the corporate game players. My CEO has a salary 10 times mine (which is enough for me, though of course I'd like more) plus another $4m a year in shares and pension contributions. He has $50m worth of company shares. I would imagine that his salary alone is hundreds of times that of our lowest paid employees in India or elsewhere. I'm with Pils, within companies this differential is nuts, a disincentive to success. In the 3 or 4 short conversations I have with him a year my big boss comes across as clever and open, though he has made some dreadful strategic decisions. He has done his time, been 'ambitious' in a way that has never interested me, and is reaping the rewards, along with the stress. Those with a real 'talent' that society seems to value - some sportsmen (usually always men), singers, artists - do all right for themselves. But I don't really respect and applaud them for what they earn, they were just in the right place at the right time. They got lucky. Miraculously so in the case of SWP. For most of these, (financiers and quasi criminal scum aside) being purely motivated by money is not going to lead to success. I don't begrudge anybody, criminals excepted, wealth. But wealth of itself is pointless if all you can use it for is to protect yourself against a savage and chaotic society. Which is doubtless why Gates, Buffett and others are quickly giving the majority of their wealth away.
I am deferential to wealth. Though I'd say I'm middle-class myself, like most people nowadays are in this country, at least in leafy Herts, I've been around much wealthier people most of my life, and I don't begrudge them it. I'm lucky that I was a very bright kid and got a big scholarship to go to a top school and where I work now has some seriously heavy hitters, most of whom started off in Financial Services and some are the type you described. I think corruption is inevitable where there's huge money if it's allowed to take place, as the likes of Abramovich have taken advantage of. I'm totally against that and a lot of today's problems in Russia stem from the corruption during the transition away from Communism. I'd love for that to be stamped out. Also, just being Jewish and around NW London makes it impossible not to know at least a few obscenely wealthy people to the point it becomes almost the norm. I don't particularly like it but that's how it is. Those who get lucky, legally, are really glorified Del Boys with posher accents and fair play to them. It probably won't last unless they're fortunate to get out before it goes to pot, but they're having a go. Anyone can try it when they're young. Most will fail but if the system is there to give people the opportunity then I think it would be more foolish to never try, if money is what motivates you. Sorry to ramble on but all my point was that I don't have the answers but that a global wealth cap is unworkable and would turn out to be illogical. It wouldn't benefit the poor in the long run IMO. And I don't know what to do about the gap between CEOs and peons. Junior Hoilett, before tax probably earns 200 times as much as the Loftus Road toilet cleaner. I guess that's just supply and demand.
I'd bet the toilet cleaner could cross a ball better too, but Hoilett is perceived to be one of a tiny percentage of people able to be a top professional footballer (sic) while in theory anyone with at least one arm and two legs can clean a toilet. It's not very fair, but it's probably the best system available.
Nice response mate. Did you go to Haberdashers by any chance, thats up your way isn't it? I don't have any answers either, and doubt very much there is a single one except pompously begging people to do more good than harm and think about the consequences of their actions. The less well off as well as the rich.
It was/is my local Public school but I didn't like it at the time. Played them a fair bit at rugby. The best way to improve living standards, in my opinion, isn't through maximising wealth of the poor but other means. Health, education, state pensions.
It wasn't meant in a bitchy way. I was just trying to make the point that it is hard to understand the problem from leafy Leamington Spa or indeed Oxfordshire. It's easy to say, "let them all in" when one isn't effected by it. Whether the people are Syrian refugees or economical migrants, they all add to the total numbers, which have become huge. Are our views on the benefits of immigration that different? I have already said that it has enriched our Country greatly, but I feel that it is now happening at far too fast a rate.
Dunno. Greece is the best place in the EU for a good holiday. That's why Germany kept paying until now Nivea's sun cream machine broke down.
And what happens when it is no longer possible for economies to grow and prosper and the curve is no longer upwards? The resourses of the planet are finite so what happens when the source dries up and the wealthy and corrupt have hoarded the bulk for themselves? You seriously dont believe that wars wont break out as the rest of the population are plunged into poverty and a battle to survive? How far away do you think we realistically are from the middle classes being massively affected and their standard of living replicating the current living standards of the poor if we continue at the current rate of ever increasing inequality between rich and poor? A generation, two? I mean, for example if property prices and wages continue as they are it wont be long before even the children of the middle classes are unable to afford to buy or rent their own homes. The working poor and their offspring are pretty much out of the equation already.
If the world's resources run out we'll all be ****ed. It won't make much difference how equal society is.
Just heard on the radio, admittedly from a Syriza MEP, that one of the conditions which Greece's creditors are insisting on is that Greek companies pay their taxes for the next year IN ADVANCE. And that tourists to Greece will be subject to 20% taxes (on top of the usual VAT etc, 3-400% higher than their Med competitors). If true (and this may be an exaggeration for political impact) it seems that the creditors wish to destroy the Greek economy (not exactly healthy anyway) in order to get some interest paid in the very short term. Meanwhile Cameron is promising 'unshakeable resolve', whatever that is, in the face of terrorism. It's going to be a rough week. Gets better - on the Today programme Cameron promises 'full spectrum response' to Islamic terrorism, saying it represents an 'existential threat' to the West. Who writes this stuff for him? 'Existential threat' of course implies justification for any action to negate the threat. It's why Israel will one day bomb Iran. He also compared the battle against IS to the one against communism - 'our narrative against their narrative'. I don't think he can be more wrong on this, IS is a very different beast to the bureacracies that ran the Eastern bloc (which defeated themselves after 70 years). But it's the rivers of jargon that are most worrying, though silly to expect anything different from an ex PR man.
Agree no arrogance, but any comparison between Greece and the UK is spurious imo. The UK is the second largest economy in the EU and imports from EU countries far more than it exports. Our exit would have huge adverse consequences for the EU. If Greece leave the euro, there'll be agitation in Europe anyway, with observers looking for the next Greece to fail. There would never be a better time for Cameron to negotiate a decent deal to enable us to stay in the EU.
So is it not a good idea to redress the balance and prevent this very scenario? If we dont tackle greed and the insatiable appetite of humankinds obsession with economic growth and the possession of products and wealth simply for the sake of possession this is precisely where we are heading...............and at a rapid rate. Your stance of encouraging everyone to strive towards the "top" and thus trying to emulate the greediest in society is merely fuelling this problem. Surely far better to impose some form of restraint on those that cant control themselves? Hence my proposed cap on wealth.
And is reliant on the debt of its people in the pursuit of growth................ we really are no different and are simply an interest rate or two's increase away from being in the same position.
Yes I'd like economic growth- it should benefit everyone. Who's to say if the world's resources will run out and when? The biggest problem we face is over-population and that will only possibly be solved by educating the poorest people in the world and raising their status which typically goes hand in hand with smaller families.
All the European countries are dealing with debt and deficits, and because of the way international finance operates, all economies are linked to some extent. But if you really believe the Greek economy is no different to the UK, you're misleading yourself. London is arguably the world's largest commercial centre. Manufacturing is on the up, from a low base admittedly. Unemployment is reducing and it's not zero hour contracts. Slowly, very slowly, prosperity is returning to the UK and European countries in the Northern Hemisphere. What has Greece to offer beyond cheap tourism? And you may say the same for some of the surrounding countries.
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