TOPIC: Britain's five richest families worth more than poorest 20%

The scale of Britain's growing inequality is revealed today by a report from a leading charity showing that the country's five richest families now own more wealth than the poorest 20% of the population.

Oxfam urged the chancellor George Osborne to use Wednesday's budget to make a fresh assault on tax avoidance and introduce a living wage in a report highlighting how a handful of the super-rich, headed by the Duke of Westminster, have more money and financial assets than 12.6 million Britons put together.

The development charity, which has opened UK programmes to tackle poverty, said the government should explore the possibility of a wealth tax after revealing how income gains and the benefits of rising asset prices had disproportionately helped those at the top.

Although Labour is seeking to make living standards central to the political debate in the run-up to next year's general election, Osborne is determined not to abandon the deficit-reduction strategy that has been in place since 2010. But he is likely to announce a fresh crackdown on tax avoidance and measures aimed at overseas owners of high-value London property in order to pay for modest tax cuts for working families.

The early stages of the UK's most severe post-war recession saw a fall in inequality as the least well-off were shielded by tax credits and benefits. But the trend has been reversed in recent years as a result of falling real wages, the rising cost of food and fuel, and by the exclusion of most poor families from home and share ownership.

In a report, a Tale of Two Britains, Oxfam said the poorest 20% in the UK had wealth totalling £28.1bn – an average of £2,230 each. The latest rich list from Forbes magazine showed that the five top UK entries – the family of the Duke of Westminster, David and Simon Reuben, the Hinduja brothers, the Cadogan family, and Sports Direct retail boss Mike Ashley – between them had property, savings and other assets worth £28.2bn.

www.theguardian.com/business/2014/mar/17/oxfam-report-scale-britain-growing-financial-inequality?CMP=EMCNEWEML6619I2

I've just received my latest gas and electricity bills and was shocked at how much they are. I really wonder how the less fortunate are managing to survive, what with the rising costs and little to no income?

I notice the Windsors managed to keep their family name off the list.... especially at the moment, while ole Lizzardy is pleading poverty and demanding another £38 million from the public purse.

I don't know, maybe I was born with an overload of unnecessary morals, but I'd feel shite if I had between 3 or 7 BILLION pounds stashed away in a small country where children went hungry and the elderly either starved to death, froze to death or were killed off in hospital just as quickly as they could be.

What needs doing to these busterds is marching them empty handed to the nearest coast, giving them each a wooden boat and telling them to "Eff off and never come back!".

^Exactly cantata...

The driving mental imbalance of a hoarder is that if they can surround themselves with enough stuff they will in some way become protected from the outside world. The truth is that when the hoarder has filled their home with so much stuff that it makes the neighbourhood smell people will come and clear it out.
I have some binbags, and I notice there are more people prepared like me to help with the house clearance.

Spring cleaning is a must for everyone with collectibles who need to clear out excess stuff ect...

We live in a world where people will pay second hand prices for second hand items.

So just keep in mind that cluter is only temporary if you always have a plan.

As for real hoaders has anyone seen the TV show before, it's wild....

www.aetv.com/hoarders

jonb wrote:
Was this post for this thread jonb?

.......... wrote:
Er, yes - seeing as these people are "money hoarders", never having enough money, always needing more to keep themselves surrounded and protected by the big cushions of wealth, which keep the common people at bay (that's us).

Bit of a ramble coming up... but, I was walking the dog this evening and I went off into this sort of mad fantasy where I thought how wonderful it would be to become a "goddess", and to be empowered to go around helping people. To be able to say, "Yes" to requests for help - money help, health, job, Yes, Yes, Yes. I thought it would be a real priviledge .....

.... And then I remembered this thread and thought, "those people could already do that kind of thing, now"; when, in reality, all they'll ever do is grab for more and stuff their own gizzards. That's their biggest poverty, I reckon.

In the nineteen seventies, the economic order changed, it was put forward by the economists with the ears of authority, it did not matter who owned the wealth as long as that wealth was in the economy. Secondly the authorities were having a problem that the skilled classes were using their earning power to gain an ever increasing share of the economy. This muscle was often exerted through strikes and other action which interrupted the industrial process. As such as part of globalisation economies moved away from economic policies which encouraged wealth being gained through work to economic policies where wealth was gained through banking. As such you see governments of both left and right working towards driving down wages, but at the same time encouraging home ownership, and borrowing in the form of mortgages (which is borrowing) to bring this about.
The voices that spoke against this agenda saying that it would drive all money into the hands of a few. Were told money would trickle down naturally.
We are now in a time where economic collapses will become more frequent, living standards are consistently falling, and wealth is owned by an ever smaller set is proof that-
It does matter to an economy how evenly money is shared, money does not trickle down.


If those with wealth do nothing to rectify the situation they will be helped to do so which will be far less pleasant for them.

This is what happens to empires.

This is your king. twitter.com/thisisyourking

Invalid consumer key/secret in configuration

cantata wrote:


Aint that the truth, I wonder if she ever stops to think that sometimes. If not then neither would I be surprised, the phenomenally wealthy don't have a moral compass, not when everything has a price for them. The irony of the state labeling unemployed as parasites is lost on these so called 'Elites' (And WTF is so elite about these people anyway?) They are the true parasites, living lives of obscene greed and selfishness off the labour and lives of the majority.