Jeremy Corbyn Elected

ourworldindata.org

So although there is still great inequality of income, poor people are less poor than they were, which is good. I think it matters what rich people do with their wealth too; I don't think it's automatically a bad thing that some people are extremely rich. The Gateses, for instance, use their wealth in good ways. Not all rich people are greedy bastards who don't care about others poorer than themselves.

If the poor are becoming less poor as time goes on, which apparently they are, then we are doing something right even with fierce competition.

The average person in Thailand is better off than the average person in many other countries, so it isn't simply a race "to the bottom". A step or so lower, maybe. As people have said, that's how it works. It's probably how it's always worked and probably always will be. In economic terms, some jobs simply aren't as valuable as others or, to put it another way, they can be done by more people so the competition for them is greater.

From time to time, cities of previous third world countries, are shown on tv programmes.
And quite a lot of them say, these cities have started to boom since 20 years ago.

I would have to disagree though about the extremely rich.
In years gone by,some people were Lord of the Manor or whatever. I would imagine that their wealth, in many cases, was a lot less in comparison to those with a lot of wealth now if you see what I mean.

I doubt it STB.
Georgiana, Duchess of Devonshire accumulated gambling debts of the equivalent of nearly £4million.
As Wikipedia puts it,
'At her death[in 1806], she owed the equivalent of £3,720,000. She was so petrified of her husband discovering the extent of her debts that she kept them secret; the duke only discovered their extent after her death and remarked, "Is that all?"....'

He had plenty of money to pay off the debts, and then some.

If the slate was wiped clean and every person in the world had the same amount of regular income I guess it would not be very long until it changed because in different places different commodities and services are scarce/plentiful and thee are natural entrepreneurs, charitable beings, greedy bastards and clever/stupid people!

And if that happened would I be worse or better off?
Would I have to hand over my house, my engagement ring etc, to even out the 'wealth'?

It is said that there is a great divergence between the very rich and the very poor in this country.
But there are an awful lot of people who are somewhere in between.

A few weeks ago there was a report about the increase in the number of millionaires in the UK. Up by 41% in the last 5 years, to one in 65 adults now.
Mostly due to inflated house prices.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_yrAD69fLQ

Mostly due to inflated house prices. which means absolutely nothing unless we are forced to downsize!

djen

But I still don't know what the weather's going to be like .....

Last nights programme was fascinating. You could see just how easy it would be to take everyone out of extreme poverty and for (comparatively) little money.

I recorded it, can't watch it at the moment as the RUGBY is on

Do let me know what you think Roseq I thought it was amazingly interesting.

I heard on the radio (I can't remember which programme) that people on £30,000 a year - quite a good salary I would say but not exceptional - are in the top 10% of global earnings. All so interesting when you look globally.

Not watched it yet, the RUGBY keeps coming on
Is there a World cup or something ...?

Not doing very well in the polls, is he?

Do you actually believe polls?

I seem to recall that you yourself gave them great weight before the leadership election, durhamjen, and indeed before the general election.

Did you?

I think we have all learned from the GE polls Ana. Also this is a peculiar time to look at polls as other conferences are taking place. He has time I think.

Did you see the Hans Rosling programme Jen? It's here if anyone is interested.

Just watched it today. I recorded it and was going to remove it to free up space to record something else, but have left it on to show my grandson, who often asks about poor people.
It will be interesting to see what he says.
I thought it was a brilliant programme, so easy to tell what the problem is and how it needs to be fixed. Just hoped all those who think we should not give money to other countries have watched it.
I also hope that something comes of it. Who would have thought absolute poverty could be eradicated and population controlled in that short a time.

I was way out with the quiz, I don't know about you, Gracesgran. But the fact that there are as many people living in absolute poverty now as there were in 1800 is quite worrying, too.

What is absolute poverty?
Pretty sure the line on that has moved many times.

I was reading today, I think the Womens Weekly, that whole families and streets in South London used to consider two weeks hop picking in Kent 60 years ago, from 7am to 5pm as their annual and only holiday .

Watch the programme, soon. Gracesgran has given you a link to it.
It tells you all you need to know about poverty, absolute and relative.
Then you can argue about whether the line moves or not.

I might watch it at some point.