howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
this article comes from the "independent on sunday"
Britain's bosses are pocketing an increasing portion of the nation's income, according to a report from the High Pay Commission to be published tomorrow. As the majority of people in the country face the largest drop in household income for three decades, a tiny minority at the top are awarding themselves a growing slice of the UK's wealth.
The top one thousandth of the British working population currently receives 5 per cent of the country's earnings, a ratio equivalent to that in the 1940s, the report says. If these trends continue, income for the highest paid will account for 14 per cent of the country's total by 2030 - the same proportion as in 1900.
The independent commission was set up in November to scrutinise the rising pay of those at the top. Its first report concludes that during the decade Labour was in power, income at the top grew by 64.2 per cent, while that of an average earner increased by 7.2 per cent over the same period.
Guest 640- Registered: 21 Apr 2007
- Posts: 7,819
Yes this was mentioned breifly on Andrew Marr show today. I think I waffled on myself about it before in some post or other quite recently. We all accepted in the old days that bosses got paid more than the flat cap workers, however it is outrageous that pay has increased in the way it has. These bosses or their board chairmen turn up on various tv programmes telling us all that good line...
"we have to pay the going rate otherwise the talent will go elsewhere"
We all like a good conspiracy theory. This is probably a conspiracy. The pay rates get ever higher on the premise that the next guy down the road is paying it. He on the other hand is telling his people that the rate must go up higher still as the guy up the road is paying it.
Are they all in it together. Pushing the dizzy spiral ever higher, while the gap widens between them and the ordinary worker.
Guest 698- Registered: 28 May 2010
- Posts: 8,664
Oh dear I can feel a graph on Barry's Blog coming on!
I'm an optimist. But I'm an optimist who takes my raincoat - Harold Wilson
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
The thousand wealthiest individuals in Britain own assets/money in the value of 398.5 billion pounds. This is the equivalent to well over one third of the national debt.
Take away their assets, and well over one third of the national debt will be paid for in one fail swoop.
Leave 'em each one house and ten thousand pounds, I say! The rest to the Treasury!
Guest 655- Registered: 13 Mar 2008
- Posts: 10,247
I read all this socialist balderdash (to use the politest possible word) and am thankful that saner heads run the country.
It is so lacking any sense or logic it deserves no answer than that.
howard mcsweeney1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 12 Mar 2008
- Posts: 62,352
funny how you resort to terms such as socialist and lefty when losing the argument barry.
an independent commission reached the published conclusions.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Indeed no, Barry! If these excesses of wealth went to the Treasury, then they could be used to reduce the national debt.
Most of the 1000 wealthiest here, if not all of them, have massive incomes to increase their assets, and in no time they would be stink rich again. Not taxing them properly is like leaving a lawn to overgrow, or shall I say: a hedge
.
The Government must concentrate priority on a new algorithm of taxation of the very rich, and I am sure that the Tories will be looking into it, and beyond all doubt will receive great public approvaval if they go ahead.
The implication then, BarryW, is that one has to be socialist to require fair play? Strange!
Jan Higgins
- Location: Dover
- Registered: 5 Jul 2010
- Posts: 13,883
We now have the minimum wage how about introducing a maximum wage linked to the hours worked.
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I try to be neutral and polite but it is hard and getting even more difficult at times.
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DT1- Location: Dover
- Registered: 15 Apr 2008
- Posts: 1,116
Yes Paul "we have to pay the going rate otherwise the talent will go elsewhere"
In the case of what they could potentially pay back into the country, their money quite often has a head start.
Guest 698- Registered: 28 May 2010
- Posts: 8,664
Confiscation of wealth does not happen in democracies. What is unfair is that the richest people can afford to use elaborate structures to reduce their tax burden to a lower level than us mere mortals. In the USA they have what they call the Alternative Minimum Tax which is a rate below which you cannot reduce your total percentage tax rate no matter what loopholes you use. Seems a fairer way to me.
I'm an optimist. But I'm an optimist who takes my raincoat - Harold Wilson
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
But in a democracy, people could vote for a confiscation of surplus wealth.
If £400 million of assets in our Country belong to 1,000 people, who are getting richer, while most people are getting poorer, then there can be nothing immoral in confiscating what can be considered an unholy surplus.
We should bear in mind that the talk here is of private assets, not industrial assets such as, say, BP.
Guest 696- Registered: 31 Mar 2010
- Posts: 8,115
Sorry, that should read £400 billion.