US & UK are poor societies with some very rich people.

Perhaps our government could look at best practice in other ‘rich’ countries and see how they manage wealth inequality. I’m sure many European countries have similar problems though from what I’ve read and seen.

What is the population of Norway though? About the same as Scotland I imagine? Easier to govern less citizens perhaps and make real change.

The U.K. citizen is poorer on average than most European countries, and if we continue to follow the trajectory that the Tories have placed us on Slovenia and Polish average citizen will be better off by the end of this decade.

The UK is a magnet for some to come to. It must suit them or they wouldn’t keep trying to get in. But how we ‘level up’ is the bigger question. It would be wonderful if we could do it.

Urmstongran

What is the population of Norway though? About the same as Scotland I imagine? Easier to govern less citizens perhaps and make real change.

Norway of course ensured that the wealth from North Sea oil was invested for the future good of it’s citizens.

They have recently used income from this investment to support and protect their citizens from extortionate energy price rises.

Thatcher completely squandered it. And Truss intends to tax the U.K. citizens in order to pay for the loan to the energy companies.

Urmstongran

The UK is a magnet for some to come to. It must suit them or they wouldn’t keep trying to get in. But how we ‘level up’ is the bigger question. It would be wonderful if we could do it.

We have far less asylum seekers than many European countries

Re the OP
Where would you rather live? A society where the rich are extraordinarily rich and the poor are very poor, or one where the rich are merely very well off but even those on the lowest incomes also enjoy a decent standard of living?
A fatuous question. I can’t imagine anyone, rich or poor, saying they wouldn’t prefer the second option.

I’d like to see the wealth better distributed across the UK. Increased taxes would help, if the money raised by doing that was actually distributed to those who need it, not to those who know how to work the system to benefit from it.

Norway succeeds in your apparent need for the rich to get richer but takes the rest of the population with it.

Perhaps the UK needs to look at how Norway is achieving that. Norway does have its share of people living in poverty and it’s rising, but I read that extreme poverty is rare.

Baaad TORIES‼️ (Again) ?
Maybe we should just vote Labour in and have done with it as most of GN posters would love that anyway.
Mind you, looking back (Blair PPI debacle), Brown (cashing in the family silver) it’s never plain sailing whoever is in.

Our country has not faced up to any of this. There must be discussions for at least a fairer society, do you think this is down to political parties- I can't see that happening!

The Twitter thread was certainly interesting, but I think the FT is seeing me as too poor to read the article by either access Thank you for bringing this to us Whitewave; it is quite shocking, or would be if I had anything left to shock.

You ask Which is more important to you and then offer one of two choices:

1. That the UK is an over all wealthy nation?
or
2. That wealth is better distributed within the UK population?^

These are the choices offered by the two extremes in our FPTP system. Why could we not govern so that we have a wealthy nation where the rich have even higher standards of living than in other countries, but the poor are also living better than elsewhere? The idea that we could all be better off and still not have such a wide gap between rich and poor seems not to be something that neither the far-right nor far-left in this country can contemplate.

I believe that until the two major parties accept that “we must all hang together, or most assuredly, we will all hang separately”, then we will simply go on swinging from one extreme to the other.

As MaizieD has posted repeatedly taxation does not fund government spending the U.K. could tax the rich at 90% and it would not make any difference to government spending.

However, taxation at 90% would not be an incentive to invest in the U.K.

Life is unfair and unjust, I have no idea what the overall solution is other than increasing the living wage and ensuring that the State safety net works for all who need it.

Quite so, GG.

I would call India a poor country withe a few very rich, the level of poverty in India and many other developing nations does not compare with the UK.
The Poverty line in the UK - half the median wage, around £15k, being poor in the UK is far far better than being poor in most other places.
That does not mean more could and should be done.

India is a developing country

Have you seen the adverts still asking for aid in these poorer countries? Water aid. Flies on babies faces. Cleft palate repairs needed. The UK has no comparison with India. (Who also run their own space programme). Now there’s a huge discrepancy. We are not happy over here unless we’re wearing a hair shirt.

Totally agree Urmstongram. India has a huge discrepancy between rich and poor, much more than the UK. It is also one of the world’s most prosperous countries, paradoxically. I hate to say it, but China actually handles distribution of wealth better. I have been to many countries that really are poor and where many do starve to death - Cambodia, parts of Vietnam, Malaysia, Myanmar. There really is no comparison. Not saying there is no problem but it doesn’t happen nearly so often as it does in those countries. Of course it should not happen at all, I agree but don’t bash yourselves up in a country where at least you do have a welfare system, primitive or not. Incidentally, why did you vote to leave the security of the European Union who would have ensured certain minimum wage standards?

GrannyGravy13

How do you propose to redistribute the wealthy folks earned income?

Confiscate a percentage of their bank balance and hold a lottery for the poorest in society to see who gets a bit?

What a contemptuous and disrespectful post.

DaisyAnne

GrannyGravy13

How do you propose to redistribute the wealthy folks earned income?

Confiscate a percentage of their bank balance and hold a lottery for the poorest in society to see who gets a bit?

What a contemptuous and disrespectful post.

Not at all

I just cannot see how consistently blaming the wealthy for all the ills in the U.K. is beneficial to solving the problem.

Perhaps I should have put a joke emoji at the end to indicate that it was a tongue in cheek post

As I have consistently posted on this thread and others since I joined GN, there needs to be a conversation as to why working people have to resort to food banks and UC.

Is it because some businesses are operating close to the edge and pay increases could force them to close? Or is it purely bosses not bothered and paying minimum wage, which if this is the case it is immoral although not illegal.

I will repeat myself (again) we need a safety net that works for those in crisis.

Right, can I take a moment to just clarify this?

The reason that the UK is so unequal is:
1) the asylum seekers
2) India
3) People with mental health issues
4) People with mothers
4) Obese people (sorry, was that a different thread?)

It's definitely not the people with huge offshore accounts, aristocrats with the idea that they have a divine right to reign or those who think the best way to run a country is "devil take the hindmost".

Have I got that right?

MaizieD

GrannyGravy13

How do you propose to redistribute the wealthy folks earned income?

Confiscate a percentage of their bank balance and hold a lottery for the poorest in society to see who gets a bit?

Perhaps instead of starting at the point where you're defending the right of the wealthy to hang onto every penny, you could look at how to improve the lot of the poorest in our very unequal society. By legislating for a living wage and decent welfare benefits, for a start. By regarding 'the poor' as human beings with the same basic needs as everyone else, not as parasites on 'the rich'.

Being a decent human being means paying a wage another decent human being can live on.

I know I am probably the only person in the world who thinks this but the claim for benefit should come from the source of the need for benefit. It is companies that benefit from Universal Credit, etc. It means that government has set a threshold above which a company doesn't need to pay because government says it will pick up the tab. That cannot be a "living wage".

If companies benefit, they need to be the ones who claim. There will be good reasons for helping them by guaranteeing loans or making grants but that can only be when the benefits office has gone through the company's income, etc., and noted whether they are deliberately depriving themselves of capital by paying for people they cannot afford at the top of the company or by paying excessive dividends.
No one who is working should have to claim to make their basic income a living one.

GrannyGravy13

As MaizieD has posted repeatedly taxation does not fund government spending the U.K. could tax the rich at 90% and it would not make any difference to government spending.

However, taxation at 90% would not be an incentive to invest in the U.K.

Life is unfair and unjust, I have no idea what the overall solution is other than increasing the living wage and ensuring that the State safety net works for all who need it.

You must read further than 'taxation doesn't fund spending' GG13. It can also be a mechanism for redistribution of wealth,.

Whichever way you cut it you will find that, on the whole (from ONS figures) the top percentile in the UK pays less in over all taxation than does the lowest percentile. So if we're going down the route that believes that taxation does fund spending, then the richest, on the whole, pay less than the poorest.

Nobody is talking about 90% tax for the wealthy (though it is debateable whether or not that is a disincentive). I started this thread because I was shocked at the conclusions that Burn-Murdoch had reached when looking at the data and though that others might be, too.

I even thought it might cause some reflection on how we can achieve a better standard of living for those not fortunate enough to be wealthy, for everyone in the population,.

Silly me. Instant defence of the rich...

There is no rule of nature that says that a tiny proportion of the world's population has to hog most of its resources. It is not a god given right to be rich. Yet people defend wealth and monopoly of resources as though the heavens would open and the earth swallow us up if it were to be any different.

I really don't understand it.

Correction:

the top percentile in the UK pays less, as a percentage of their income, in over all taxation....

DaisyAnne

MaizieD

GrannyGravy13

How do you propose to redistribute the wealthy folks earned income?

Confiscate a percentage of their bank balance and hold a lottery for the poorest in society to see who gets a bit?

Perhaps instead of starting at the point where you're defending the right of the wealthy to hang onto every penny, you could look at how to improve the lot of the poorest in our very unequal society. By legislating for a living wage and decent welfare benefits, for a start. By regarding 'the poor' as human beings with the same basic needs as everyone else, not as parasites on 'the rich'.

Being a decent human being means paying a wage another decent human being can live on.

I know I am probably the only person in the world who thinks this but the claim for benefit should come from the source of the need for benefit. It is companies that benefit from Universal Credit, etc. It means that government has set a threshold above which a company doesn't need to pay because government says it will pick up the tab. That cannot be a "living wage".

If companies benefit, they need to be the ones who claim. There will be good reasons for helping them by guaranteeing loans or making grants but that can only be when the benefits office has gone through the company's income, etc., and noted whether they are deliberately depriving themselves of capital by paying for people they cannot afford at the top of the company or by paying excessive dividends.
No one who is working should have to claim to make their basic income a living one.

I agree.

We have always paid way above the so called minimum wage we value all our employees and treat them well.

In return we get a contented workforce, who enable the company to function and make a profit.

That makes no sense to me DaisyAnne. A company employs X and pays them maybe considerably more than the statutory minimum. However X has a stay at home spouse and quite a few young children. If as a result of their chosen personal circumstances X is paid UC, why should the blame be laid at the door of their employer?

India is a developing country
The UK and the US are DEVELOPED countries.

This is primary school stuff