177 Billionaire's in Britain

As long as the money has been obtained/earned legally and all appropriate taxes are paid when due, it is nothing to do with me.

I can’t process this much money in my mind and do hope they help others and donate to charities etc?

Well I ‘m not one of them yet!

MrsKen you may well be joining me once the state pension goes up next year!

Oh! Yes. An extra pair of tights, bar of soap, ice cream. I can hardly wait

For the first time in a decade I bought a lottery ticket last week. Sadly I didn't win the £84 million prize, but I had lots of fun dreaming of what I would do with the money. Imagine all the charities you could help and how you could change the lives of those you love who you know struggle to make ends meet.

I wonder why billionaires need to be billionaires and why they aren't tempted to give the vast majority of the surplus away? I suppose some do.

As part of my work, I do financial research for a hedge fund.
There are many wealthy families that have set up family funds and foundations.
Many of these people are also impact investing.
We need wealth, we must embrace it.

Wealth is useful if it is used and spent. We don't need the wealth that is squirrelled away in tax heavens, that does no good for anybody.

Just under 33 million in the working population in the UK . I make that 0.0000053%, or 1 in 186,441 of the working population.

That does not seem unreasonable. Rare as hen's teeth, and we make so much fuss about them.

Guess which Party most of them support. That's why nothing much happens about tax evasion and the Cayman Isles.

Grantanow What is the evidence for your assertion?

A lot happens about tax evasion Grantanow. Nothing wrong with having money in the Cayman Islands, as one of our friends does. Conservative voters don’t support tax evasion.

Sago is correct, a lot of wealthy people (such as our friend) do good with their money but don’t make a song and dance about it.

I agree with sago and germanshepherdsmum ??

RichmondPark1 Most billionaires acquired their money by building up big businesses and much of their wealth is based on the value of the business. To give all the money away they would have to sell the company to someone else. Not an easy thing to do if you own a business valued at £1 billion or more

Others earn their income by investing in other businesses, and again, would need to sell up all their their shares. Where they hold very large tranches of shares this could destabilise the company, and again it may be difficult to find someone in a position to buy a million shares in a company. In other cases the money is invested in land, which again would have to be sold.

Someone with a £1 billions of assets, will not have an income anywhere near that amount, only what those assets earn, which will be a lot, but nowhere near £1 billion.

Many very wealthy people have set up charitable trusts, and given most of their wealth to the charity. It is what Bill and Melinda Gates, have done and also others, like, I think, George Soros, and Warren Buffet.

Many more wealthy people give quietly. The singer George Michael was not a billionaire, but after he died it was revealed that he was a very generous donor to charities of all kinds. Nothing of this was known when he was alive.

I must say, if I was wealthy enough to be able to give enormous sums to charity, I would keep it very quiet indeed. Otherwise, on one side people would be fawning over you and saying how wonderful you are and how generous, on the other side, you would be inundated with begging letters. Either reaction would make me shudder.

I'm sure you're right M0nica.

A billionaire is just the same as a millionaire when we were young.

^I can’t process this much money in my mind and do hope they help others and donate to charities etc^?

I can, it's one thousand million, and let's hope they paid all the tax due and paid any employees well as well as supporting charities.

I have read today that Jeff Bezos needs to spend $28Million a day to stay where he is and not accumulate more.

If he needs any help …

?

Bea65
You say you can’t process that amount of money.
This might help.
One million seconds equates roughly to 11 days
One billion seconds equates roughly to 31years

Depends on how you define 1 billion. I know that mathematically, and it was how I was taught, a billion was a million millions, but nowadays it is often taken to mean 1000 million.

When I looked it up the definition I got was that: In the USA meaning of a billion is a thousand million, or one followed by nine noughts (1,000,000,000).

This will mean that the US definition is the one generally used internationally, and I think, increasingly this is how it is defined in the UK.

One source stated In official UK statistics the term is now used to denote 1 thousand million – 1,000,000,000. Historically, however, in the UK the term billion meant 1 million million – 1,000,000,000,000 - but in the United States the term was used to refer to 1 thousand million.

Regarding Geoff Bezos I have to be very grateful to the man as it’s due to his philanthropy our daughter and SIL are having such a comfortable lifestyle, he invested in a small Silicone Valley start up which my SIL now runs part of, it has grown and become a major player.
Our youngest son left university and went to work for Amazon in the Czech Republic his training was outstanding, it was a great stepping stone for him.

Message deleted by Gransnet. Here's a link to our Talk guidelines.

I’ve reported this last post - the sender has sent me a distinctly dodgy PM.