Richest 1% Of People Own Nearly Half Of Global Wealth, Says Report

[interestrateripoff]

UK only G7 country with wider inequality than in year 2000

Richest 10% control 54.1% of Britain's wealth, up from 51.5% in 2000 and 52% before financial crisis, says Credit Suisse

[interestrateripoff]

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/inequality-richest-one-per-cent-have-as-much-wealth-as-the-poorest-57-per-cent-combined-a6779201.html

The economic disparities of modern Britain have been put on stark display, as official statistics revealed that the nation’s already-yawning wealth gap has widened still further over the past two years.

The richest 1 per cent of the population have as much wealth as the poorest 57 per cent combined, according to Office for National Statistics figures. The agency also found overall wealth inequality has increased since 2012, mainly thanks to the soaring price of housing in the South-east of England and London.

The news came just 24 hours after the head of the Government’s Child Poverty watchdog, Alan Milburn, warned that Britain is in danger of becoming an “ever-more divided” society, making a mockery of David Cameron’s “One Nation” rhetoric.

A growth success story. I wonder how much of this is based on property?

[Errol]

The pitchforks are being sharpened.

[Noallegiance]

Just need to pay people a living wage build enough houses so the extra money doesn't all go in rent.

There's a school of thought that says a 'living wage' or 'minimum wage' is bad for workers and economies, citing that it destroys jobs and makes it harder for young people to get their first job because they don't have the skills worth the higher wages.

Apparently, free market capitalism is the answer. Someone is paid, for example, £1 to clean a sh!tpot, but £10 to build one. If big government were to leave stuff alone, markets would rebalance to price discovery on wages as well as products and houses leading to more natural relationships between societal sectors.

Apparently.

It sounds lovely.

[PopGun]

Being an alleged member of the global 1% in the UK maybe doesn't seem like it if house prices are based on the incomes of the UK 1%. How much does a house cost in Sierra Leone?

Look they only get a bowl of gruel next door, you get two bowls of rice per day!! Stop moaning

[PopGun]

The pitchforks are being sharpened.

Classic HPC, it's why I can never stay away for long..

[Eddie_George]

It sounds lovely.

I don't think unbridled free market capitalism has ever been tried. Nor true communism for that matter. There's always some corruption in the system that siphons off money.

[PopGun]

I don't think unbridled free market capitalism has ever been tried. Nor true communism for that matter. There's always some corruption in the system that siphons off money.

It's why neither can ever work imo

[TheCountOfNowhere]

I don't think unbridled free market capitalism has ever been tried. Nor true communism for that matter. There's always some corruption banker in the system that siphons off money.

[wonderpup]

I don't think unbridled free market capitalism has ever been tried. Nor true communism for that matter. There's always some corruption in the system that siphons off money.

Most people who argue for unbridled free markets tend to have a rather selective view of what this might mean- for example they will usually wax lyrical about the virtues of removing all protections for the workforce-on the basis that competition is good- but get rather queasy at the suggestion that limited liability protections for investors should also be removed- on the basis that this would be a bit too darwinian.

So they like their capitalism to be bridled just enough to prevent it biting them fully in the wallet should anything go awry.

You can also sometimes detect the never quite openly expressed notion that Capitalism-like taxes- is for the little people. For the truly wealthy to be exposed fully to market forces is just bad for business- which is why guys like Donald Trump can go through multiple corporate bankruptcies and still emerge with their personal wealth largely intact- the system tends to protect the people who shout the loudest about the virtues of exposure to risk by ensuring that they themselves are rarely ever fully exposed to that risk- the risk being passed on to the 'little people' whose pensions and savings are sacrificed instead.

No Billionaire left behind is the credo of the 'free market' rich- after all only an idiot would really argue for a world in which unbridled capitalism might strip them of their wealth- that's just a fairy tale they foist on the great unwashed to justify their ongoing appropriation of anything not actually nailed to the floor.

[Big Orange]

A lot of USA and UK business practice is about often about streamlining/renting out its functions in some form or occasionslly outright crashing it. Amazon is operated at a loss and on ongoing rapacious expansion on the back of global technology which has limits, so will most probably hit the buffers unexpectedly hard like Tesco and Sears look like they're doing.

The CCCP, Apartheid, and more recently Arab regimes seemed almost unassailable to collapse until they collapsed, the same could eventually be true for the USA and the PRC if things go on as they are (and I read some morons online a decade ago claiming the EU would last over a century).

Edited December 23, 2015 by Big Orange

[Steppenpig]

Most people who argue for unbridled free markets tend to have a rather selective view of what this might mean- for example they will usually wax lyrical about the virtues of removing all protections for the workforce-on the basis that competition is good- but get rather queasy at the suggestion that limited liability protections for investors should also be removed- on the basis that this would be a bit too darwinian.great unwashed to justify their ongoing appropriation of anything not actually nailed to the floor.

There's nothing especially "unbridled free market" about "unlimited liability"

Free markets means that all things should be available at a price, so differing degrees of liability should be offered, depending on what the market is willing to pay for them, which is what exists today, albeit, to a very limited extent, as you need some sort of corporate framework to offer different degrees of liability.

"Unlimited liability" existed long before anyone thought of capitalism.

[wonderpup]

There's nothing especially "unbridled free market" about "unlimited liability"

Free markets means that all things should be available at a price, so differing degrees of liability should be offered, depending on what the market is willing to pay for them, which is what exists today, albeit, to a very limited extent, as you need some sort of corporate framework to offer different degrees of liability.

"Unlimited liability" existed long before anyone thought of capitalism.

Free markets are also about risk- my point being that most free market evangelists are very vocal on the need to expose workers fully to the marketplace in terms of eliminating their rights to any kind of protection of their incomes, but mostly silent on the protection offered to investors by limited liability laws.

So while it's apparently good for Capitalism that the little guy should be hung out to dry when it comes to the inherent unpredictability of market forces it's also apparently bad for capitalism that investors should be similarly left exposed.

In other words Capitalism in it's purest form is for the little guy- for those with money this purity is to be diluted by legal arrangements that ensure that if their investments fail they are protected from the full implications- limited liability for investors is a distortion of pure unbridled capitalism - but unlike employment rights they tend to benefit the 'right'people and so are almost never challenged even by those who argue in favor of a purely darwinian market.

In such a pure free market an investor would be exposed to his share of the total losses his venture may incur- not losses limited only to sum he invested. And you are right to point out that limited liability was not always in place- it is a market distortion that was introduced in 1855 explicitly to reduce the risk to investors.

There are good arguments to be made for having limited liability just as there are good arguments to be made for having workers rights- but those who argue that the latter are a distortion of free markets will almost never make the same point about the former- despite the fact that limited liability is just as much an attempt to limit the impact of market forces as are workers rights- both are an interference in the risk/reward paradigm that the free market evangelists claim to hold dear.

[Steppenpig]

There are good arguments to be made for having limited liability just as there are good arguments to be made for having workers rights.

I agree.

I don't think the issues are comparable, in the way you are trying to argue it.

In investing, those who accept most risk receive the higheat awards. Limited liability has estalished itself as the norm, presumably because that is what maximises investor participation.

The "market" equivalent for employment would be for applicants to determine what risk/reward profile they wish. Those who wanted high remuneration would have to accept high risk (no pension, no notice period etc.). Those who wanted workers' rights would have to accept a lower return, (This does in fact happen to some extent.)

[Mikhail Liebenstein]

OMG I am a 1%er, viewed in global terms.

and so is my communist neighbour who spends her time ranting about 1%ers!

The 1% of the 1%, but even that doesn't cut it.

Really its the 1% of the 1% of the 1%.

[pig]

Rich in a poor country, for sure. People's sense of financial well being is largely relative to their immediate peers and neighbours anyway.

You can live well on a much lower income in certain countries. You may not have a washing machine, but do you need it when the dhobi women will hand wash them for next to mothing.

That's what worries me - the rich would rather impoverish the country than reduce their relative priveledge.

[wonderpup]

I agree.

I don't think the issues are comparable, in the way you are trying to argue it.

In investing, those who accept most risk receive the higheat awards. Limited liability has estalished itself as the norm, presumably because that is what maximises investor participation.

The "market" equivalent for employment would be for applicants to determine what risk/reward profile they wish. Those who wanted high remuneration would have to accept high risk (no pension, no notice period etc.). Those who wanted workers' rights would have to accept a lower return, (This does in fact happen to some extent.)

I'm not saying that limited liability and workers rights are directly comparable- but it's fair to say that both in their different ways represent an attempt to mitigate the impact of market risk on the financial situations of those involved.

In the kind of pristine capitalism advocated by some free market evangelists neither workers or investors would be offered this kind of protection from market forces.

But it's always the issue of workers protections that seems to bother these types- they never seem concerned about the equally artificial nature of investor protections from their creditors that are embodied by the limited liability laws. After all if you are owed a lot of money by a company that goes down why shouldn't those who invested in that company- and were happy to take the profits when it was successful- be fully liable to make good your losses? They do, after all, owe you the money.

The very idea of a limited liability company is no more than a legal fiction that pretends that the people who owe you money when things go wrong are somehow different to the people who took the profits when things were going well- but they are, of course, the same people. So if they were fully engaged in the process of profit taking why should they not be equally engaged when it comes to making good on debts?

If we wish to argue that the legal protections offered to workers are a government intrusion into the markets then the same must be true of the legal protections offered to investors- both are illigitimate if your starting point is that the state should never be allowed to interpose itself into mechanics of the marketplace.

Edited December 24, 2015 by wonderpup

[crashmonitor]

Being an alleged member of the global 1% in the UK maybe doesn't seem like it if house prices are based on the incomes of the UK 1%. How much does a house cost in Sierra Leone?

Well as a couple we would be 1%ers, not including state pension rights, and individually about on the threshold and very little of that is in property. a bit of a myth that all boomers have no money and big properties.

Do I feel rich, absolutely not, 300k in fixed rate bonds earns you diddly squat these days.

A mortgage free property and a large sum after 36 years of working and savings earns you less than a benefit lifer these days.

Edited December 24, 2015 by crashmonitor

[pig]

I'm not saying that limited liability and workers rights are directly comparable- but it's fair to say that both in their different ways represent an attempt to mitigate the impact of market risk on the financial situations of those involved.

In the kind of pristine capitalism advocated by some free market evangelists neither workers or investors would be offered this kind of protection from market forces.

But it's always the issue of workers protections that seems to bother these types- they never seem concerned about the equally artificial nature of investor protections from their creditors that are embodied by the limited liability laws. After all if you are owed a lot of money by a company that goes down why shouldn't those who invested in that company- and were happy to take the profits when it was successful- be fully liable to make good your losses? They do, after all, owe you the money.

The very idea of a limited liability company is no more than a legal fiction that pretends that the people who owe you money when things go wrong are somehow different to the people who took the profits when things were going well- but they are, of course, the same people. So if they were fully engaged in the process of profit taking why should they not be equally engaged when it comes to making good on debts?

If we wish to argue that the legal protections offered to workers are a government intrusion into the markets then the same must be true of the legal protections offered to investors- both are illigitimate if your starting point is that the state should never be allowed to interpose itself into mechanics of the marketplace.

I'd start with your last paragraph as a premise to question and conclude with your first - investors (ie gamblers) and workers really aren't directly comparable.

Perhaps the problem we have here could be framed as

an overall perspective that always seems to be weighted to burdening workers with as much rent risk and tax as possible , while liberating business/corporates of almost the same (BTL vs FTB in a nutshell!) - as if they weren't actually part of the same interdependent system.

[winkie]

[wonderpup]

I'd start with your last paragraph as a premise to question and conclude with your first - investors (ie gamblers) and workers really aren't directly comparable.

I agree they are not directly comparable- but my point is that both employment protection laws and limited liability laws are intended to achieve the same thing, which is to protect selected groups of market participants from the full consequences of market forces.

You might feel that employees are not market participants in the voluntary sense- but they are none the less subject to the vicissitudes of the market, just as investors are similarly subject- so those who argue that workers protections are a distortion of market forces are correct- but it's also correct to say that limited liability is also such a distortion.

Perhaps the problem we have here could be framed as

an overall perspective that always seems to be weighted to burdening workers with as much rent risk and tax as possible , while liberating business/corporates of almost the same (BTL vs FTB in a nutshell!) - as if they weren't actually part of the same interdependent system.

Exactly- there is an inherent tendency to regard measures designed to help workers as 'distortions' of free markets, while those measures designed to protect the interests of capital are framed as somehow being essential to the system and therefore beyond critique. This is why most 'free trade' agreements contain copious rules regarding the protection of capital's interests while at the same time emphasizing the need to eliminate as many workers protections as possible.