The Queen has COVID

The question is - where exactly does the 85% go?

Into the pockets of the already wealthy, I think...

It's just another revenue source for public spending. Which immediately gives the lie to the obstinately clung to, but completely erroneous, belief that spending is funded solely by our taxes.

Peasblossom

If we stopped paying the Sovereign Grant would we have to give the Estates back? Or would we have to keep handing over the money. Breach of contract? If we did away with Monarchy.

We get most of the income anyway.
The question is - where exactly does the 85% go?

The income goes mostly to the nation, but the monarch gets 15% of it as the Sovereign Grant, to fund their expenses

Or buying/selling an annuity.

Peasblossom

If we stopped paying the Sovereign Grant would we have to give the Estates back? Or would we have to keep handing over the money. Breach of contract? If we did away with Monarchy.

It sounds a bit like a lease, doesn't it. That would make me think you would have to buy out the current owner of that "lease" whoever it was at the time. The State and Crown would then be separated.

Peasblossom

If we stopped paying the Sovereign Grant would we have to give the Estates back? Or would we have to keep handing over the money. Breach of contract? If we did away with Monarchy.

Gawd knows, Peasblossom. I don't...

I would say that 'The Crown' in this instance is more referring to an abstract concept than to any individual monarch.

If we had no monarch then there'd be no-one to hand the money to so I'd surmise that the 'nation' would take it over. Of course, a tory government would then start selling it off the Crown Estates to Russian billionaires... They like 'selling the family silver'

If we stopped paying the Sovereign Grant would we have to give the Estates back? Or would we have to keep handing over the money. Breach of contract? If we did away with Monarchy.

24 June 2021

The Crown Estate announces £269.3 million net revenue profit for 2020/21

The Crown estates are held in trust by a separate organisation and managed by them on behalf of the nation, but they don't belong completely to either the Crown or to the nation. The income goes mostly to the nation, but the monarch gets 15% of it as the Sovereign Grant, to fund their expenses. The trustees make a public annual report (which I have linked to elsewhere) of their activities and finances.

The taxpayer does not pay the Sovereign Grant, it is paid out of the income from the Crown Estates, which were handed over in return.

I shall enjoy reading this book that arrived today.

The Myth of British Monarchy

Peasblossom

So the Crown Estates actually belong to the people not the Crown?

But does the Monarchy still manage them?

Sorry to sound so ignorant.

No, the Monarchy doesn't manage them.

As much as people would like to know about them (or probably more) here:

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_Estate

The article also gives the history of them back to William The Conqueror.

Hope it answers everyone's questions

So the Crown Estates actually belong to the people not the Crown?

But does the Monarchy still manage them?

Sorry to sound so ignorant.

? Phew! You must be exhausted after that MaizeD!?
But thanks for bothering to lay the facts out for us.

Perhaps someone could explain how the wealth of the monarchy was initially earned.

The wealth of the monarchy was originally obtained by the ancient convention that the conqueror of a land owned all the conquered land.

The conqueror handed out parcels of the land to their top helpers, the nobles who had provided the manpower for his army and his (because it's always a 'he') descendants carried on handing out bits to their friends, their mistresses, their bastards. Everything that was left technically belonged to the Crown.

In the 18th C King George 111 handed over whatever crown lands remained, to the nation in return for a yearly allowance to be granted to him and his descendants out of the proceeds from the lands. These are what's known as the Crown Estates. That is where the current monarch's money to cover the expenses of the Head of State comes from. So no, it doesn't come from 'the taxpayer' and never has. Their private wealth comes from invested savings made from their 'allowance' and from inheritances from relatives. Prince Albert was very good at saving money, it was he who purchased the private estates of Balmoral and Osborne, for example. Sandringham was also a private purchase. There are others.

There is a song from a musical money makes the world go round

Well, I had to laugh at that, ^GG13*. The song wasn't from a nice feel good entertaining musical. It was from a deeply political piece critiquing the complacency of the wealthy while Nazism took hold of the Weimar republic. The money was only making the world go round for the heedlessly wealthy, indulging in their sybaritic pleasures while their country fell into the clutches of an evil regime. It wasn't a song of approval. It was a song of disgust.

You seem to fail to realise that I am talking about the world's wealthiest people. I'm not talking about people saving a few £1000, or even a few £million. I'm talking about people who have £billions upon £billions. That's just chicken feed in comparison

This story is about the USA, from an economics blog:

What we find is a stunning asymmetry: if the top 1%'s net worth has risen along with GDP since 2000, it would now be about $21 trillion. Instead, it's now over $43 trillion, a $22 trillion gain above where it would be had it tracked GDP growth.

For context, this is larger than the GDP of the U.S. ($21 trillion) and the combined GDPs of the six largest economies behind the U.S. and China: Japan, Germany, UK, France, India and Italy which total about $20 trillion. It's more than the nominal GDPs of China and Japan.

macro.economicblogs.org/charles-hugh-smith/2021/11/hugh-smith-gains-wealth-gdps-japan-germany-uk-france-india-italy-50/

Just the USA, mark you. Not any other countries where people have amassed incredible wealth.

In its own way, resenting that rich people have a lot of money is also making money the be-all and end-

You are very far out Elegran if you think I speak from 'envy' of the rich. In fact, I find that quite insulting. Haven't I tried to make it clear that it is the sheer uselesness of all that wealth acquired by the mega wealthy and being used for nothing, sitting in tax havens and god knows where else, that makes me angry.

Think of the £billions that Russian oligarchs have sucked out of their country while over half of the Russian peoples live in poverty. Of the indignation felt by many people in the UK by the money created by the government supposedly for dealing with the covid crisis that has gone to the already wealthy, while NHS workers are denied proper reward for their skills and services, while the tories vote to deprive poor children of food, while £billions have been obtained by fraud which goes unchecked, while the poor face the choice between eating and heating... When all the time there should be enough money in the economy to relieve them.. That's not envy, that's real anger at making the acquisition of wealth an end in itself and draining economies of something which could benefit all of a country's population. Money has no value unless it is used.

The state has no money of its own, only what they get from the population through taxes.

You are completely and utterly wrong on this. All money comes first and foremost from the state. Whether it is spent directly by it into the economy by the provision of public services, or indirectly through the banks, which issue money under licence from the state which ensures that they have sufficient to cover their lending, whether loans businesses or private individuals. The banks don't 'lend' money already deposited with them by other people, they create completely new money with every loan.

You know that this money isn't 'tied' to anything. We came off the gold standard 50 years ago. There are no huge deposits of gold and silver somewhere in the bowels of the Bank of England which 'back' the state's money. When that 'was' the reality of national wealth taxation was a means of the state amassing money to pay for things, but it isn't now.

The £billions created to cover covid were just that, created. It wasn't 'borrowed' from anyone, it doesn't have to be 'paid back' to anyone because there is no-one to pay it back to..

Callistemon21

Sweetpeasue

Anniebach

I hope the Queen makes a full recovery

I do too *Anniebach *

Me too

I think we all want her to recover quickly, with no lasting damage to her health.

Sweetpeasue

Anniebach

I hope the Queen makes a full recovery

I do too *Anniebach *

Me too

The wealth of monarchy

Publicly funded
Did not pay taxes until the 90s then only voluntarily
Does not pay inheritance tax
Benefited hugely from the slave trade money passed down
Has queen's consent princes consent means means can vet bills to ensure her private interests and that of monarchy are met.

Her private income is money from the tax payer she has put millions of this in off shore accounts.

Anniebach I can't believe it took you so long to bring up, yet again, my (modest) holiday home. Well done!

I don't think it's that difficult to work out when you have hoarded more than you will ever spend.

I don't see why people shouldn't inherit money that has been earned. But I understand other views on this.

Perhaps someone could explain how the wealth of the monarchy was initially earned.
The Queen has Covid and we all wish her well but many affected by Covid are struggling,⁶ and will for a long time with little or no support. I think that's why we get responses which sound uncaring.

Sorry my replies are so short. I have limited energy.

Have a good day everyone.

Difficult to deal with when our head of state and her family are among the entitled ultra-rich who believe they can do what they want without consequences.

What price British democracy when a rich elite has the government’s ear?
George Monbiot
Opinion piece

www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/feb/23/ultra-rich-tory-party-donors-politics

Good we can should have wider discussion on monarchy

Elegran ? ? ? especially your final paragraph. Sadly

Anniebach

Estimated volver

Mollygo the Queen is apparently lucky she does have to peg out washing, as all 95 year olds have to

Yes, I did take the higher estimate.

The lowest one I found was £500 million, still a nice little nest egg,

And yes, she is lucky she doesn't have to peg out her washing, isn't she? She's quite lucky that she's managed to live to 95, isn't she, and hasn't had to worry about being affected by the diseases of the poor.

Nanadeturbe " it's wrong to store (hoard) money that will never be used while fellow human beings are in need. " Money is an inert thing. only of use for what it can buy. Taken from one person and given to someone else it will cover their needs at that moment, but it won't support them this time next year, or for the rest of their lives. That will need a repeat, and a repeat and a repeat.

A good government oversees the economy and the infrastructure so that every child gets as good an education as the most affluent ( but doesn't assume that every child is identical to all others and will come out of a sausage machine identical to all the other links - nor would it be a good thing if they did) has easy access to medical treatment as good as any that the rich pay for, that the legal system is as accessible and fair to the shelf stacker as to the tycoon, and that all other organisations of the civilised state work for the benefit of every member of the population.

To do that takes money. The state has no money of its own, only what they get from the population through taxes. The tax structure is such that those with the biggest income should pay the most tax. If more money is needed to fund all the infrastructure, then it has to come either from taxes or from persuading the wealthy to endow more schools and hospitals etc.

You can't stop people from making money and putting away the surplus for a rainy day - that is the same instinct as our distant ancestors had to collect wild food when it was plentiful and store it, or to grow more produce than they could eat immediately and preserve it for winter. what you can do is to make absolutely sure that some of their stores go toward funding the national organisations that support those who don't have a big bank balance.

Perhaps, encourage the philanthropic to endow a school or a hospital ward and continue to pay all of its expenses. Some old schools and hospitals were set up centuries ago with buildings and a capital investment whose interest brought in an income, specifically for orphans or the poor. Part of the motive was to make sure that the donor would have a seat booked in heaven, but the earthly result was that education and medical care wre provided for some, at least, of those who would not otherwise have received them.

Philanthropy is not a fashionable concept these days, any more than honourable and imaginative public office.

Sorry this got so long.

growstuff what is wrong with wanting to better yourself?

As for low pay/low skilled jobs, increase the minimum wage.

Lucca

* some of the posts almost make it sound as if it serves her right that she’s got Covid because she’s so wealthy*

Absolute nonsense

Exactly.

The only posts that could be perceived as that came from someone called Poppsbaggie, whose name I definitely haven’t seen before