Monday, Jan 11, 2010
The story of a crime scene
The Real News: Plunder, a Wall Street story
house bubble a crime against humanity? trailer for the new documentary Plunder by Danny Schechter
Posted by the number cruncher @ 10:14 PM (563 views) Add Comment
5 Comments
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1. flashman said...
number cruncher: Apologies for the thread hijack but I did some research on the self-made millionaire versus inherited millionaire thing. It seems that your BBC friend was way off the mark with his 5% of millionaires are self-made/95% inherited claim. I found several official surveys that would indicate that way more than 50% of millionaires are self-made. Some of the stuff I found is a bit out of date but they all suggested that the trend is towards more and more self-made, so if anything self-made millionaires are now easily in the majority. If you are interested in finding the same stuff, I did a few google UK searches with “self-made millionaire” and “inherited millionaire” in the title. Some of the stuff that came up was from the tax office
Coutts are traditionally the old money bank but even they had this to say: "Our typical client is now much more likely to be a self-made entrepreneur than someone with inherited wealth, a trend that we think is set to continue"
2. mark wadsworth said...
Flashman, that is on topic, but strictly speaking there are at least three categories
a) inherited millionaires (which is fair enough, if I don't manage to spend it all before I die, I would like my wife and children to inherit it)
b) truly self-made millionaires, who have set up their own business or are soccer stars or film stars etc.
c) property developers and speculators - a large part of their money is windfall gains (and most of my money is from exactly this source).
3. flashman said...
mark: I would put property developers under heading (b). Property developers employ local people and build something tangible out of mostly UK made materials. I think most of us want to see more houses built so at least they are doing something useful. It goes without saying that I don’t consider people who flip houses after tarting them up, to be property developers. They are firmly in category (c)
4. the number cruncher said...
I have not met up with my journalist friend for some time so do not have his sources. But he was very sure of his facts as soon as I see him I will post them. Coincidently I spent the morning filming with a BBC crew today and over lunch tried to sell them the idea of doing a documentary on LVT - but they where not interested, mostly because it is just too boring, not because of conspiracy.
5. flashman said...
the number cruncher: I am convinced by LVT but you need to persuade Mark Wadsworth. He is forever ducking the subject and is probably a major pro-NIMBY campaigner
I will eat my hat if your journalist mate can produce figures that prove the millionaire thing. The stuff I found was pretty conclusive. I suppose I’d better find a tasty hat just in case