Sunday Times Rich List shows fortunes of British super-rich soar by a third

[Hannah Bell]

The latest annual Sunday Times Rich List reveals a massive increase in the wealth of Britain’s super-rich.

The list exposes the Brown government’s claims that its multibillion-pound bail-out of Britain’s banks was taken to ensure the economic well-being of working people. Under conditions in which all the official parties are insisting that working people must sacrifice jobs, wages and public provision to slash Britain’s £167 billion deficit, the Sunday Times reveals that the super-rich have enjoyed the largest rise in their wealth since it first began publishing the list 21 years ago. The 1,000 richest people in Britain increased their wealth by fully 30 percent last year, or £77 billion, bringing their total wealth to £333.5 billion...

As Philip Beresford, who compiled the list, notes, “The rich have come through the recession with flying colours”. “The rest of the country is going to have to face public spending cuts”, he continues, “but it has little effect on the rich because they don’t consume public services.”

...They are not simply protected from the savage spending cuts now being prepared by the next government—whatever its colouration. Rather, the increase in their wealth is the direct product of Labour’s near £1 trillion “stimulus” programme. The billions handed over to the banks were solely aimed at enabling the financial institutions and super-rich to continue their criminal speculative manipulations, and gorge themselves still further at public expense.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2010/apr2010/rich-a29.shtml

[Oregone]

1. Isn't she lovely...Isn't she wonderful...Isn't she precious

This one goes out to Capitalism

[RandomThoughts]

2. The system is not capitalism.

[Oregone]

3. It surely is, and its surely the problem

Capitalism == private ownership of the means of production

Wealth begets wealth, so it is no surprise that the born-rich continue to amass more by the mechanism of capitalism.

[ZeitgeistObserver]

4. What problem?

[Oregone]

5. The problem, by which all other problems are born from

Poverty (as a result of mass wealth disparity)

Capitalism promotes the rich getting richer, at the expense of the working/consumer class. In order for this to happen, many must get poorer and a gap forms. Poverty enslaves. It starves. It kills. Poverty breeds depravity. Desperation. Waste.

Poverty causes fanaticism. It causes ignorance. It causes wars, terrorism, exploitation. It is the one problem that the rich will not "war" against, because doing so goes against their interests. Poverty is here to stay, but why must it stay in such magnitude?

[ZeitgeistObserver]

6. Most people don't have a problem with the rich.

In fact they'd like to be rich themselves. Best cure for poverty there is.

[Oregone]

7. "Best cure for poverty there is"

Incorrect. It perpetuates the problem. For me to be rich, far more will have to be poorer.

Its like winning at a casino...it only solves your own problem at the cost of ensuring a hundred other poor sons of a bitches walk out losers that day.

[ZeitgeistObserver]

11. No, it's not a contest over a fixed amount.

And don't blame the poor for all the world's ills.

If everybody in the world was well-off, we'd still have wars.

[Oregone]

12. "don't blame the poor for all the world's ills"

To the contrary, Im blaming those who create the systems that perpetuate poverty

"If everybody in the world was well-off, we'd still have wars"

Bullshit. Regardless, its a hypothetically that will never come to fruition anyway.

[ZeitgeistObserver]

13. Yeah we would.

People fight over lots of things, nationalism, religion, power and so on. Poor countries don't attack rich countries.

[Oregone]

14. "Poor countries don't attack rich countries"

Oh brother

Rich countries attack poor ones, very often, to accumulate more resources to be distributed to the richest in their society. Often, its done through the labor of the poorest in the country who have no other means to make a living and ensure stability for their families. Its done through lies that prey upon the weaknesses of the poor people, engineered by the elite (they use fear to manipulate people--fear of religion, communism, races, etc).

If everyone was well off, there wouldn't be rich and poor countries (and therefore, much more risk in an attack). If everyone was well off and comfortable, it rests on the premises that resources are already distributed equally among countries in a beneficial manner. If everyone in a country was well off, less would resort to being soldiers to support their family, and would be more educated about war and its consequences (therefore, they would be opposed to it). If everyone was well off without such disparity, the few elite would not have so much to gain from a war, being that a system should already be in place that distributes new wealth equally among a population.

There would be less societal illness (and less hate, ignorance, and means to manipulate a population). There would be enough satisfaction to deter risk. The would not be enough reward to small sectors of the population to mitigate exposing other sectors to risk.

The world would be different. People would be different. Economic systems would be different to simply accomplish this fantasy land in the first place.

[ZeitgeistObserver]

15. Is there an echo in here?

Well if you figure wealth would solve the problem, then you should be keen on people getting rich. :rofl:

[Oregone]

16. Wealth doesn't solve the problem at all

It is the distribution of wealth that could solve the problem (or create more of one).

Capitalism, as it stands, unfortunately distributes wealth to the already rich, disproportionally to the amount of labor involved in the original production. In capitalism, the few who are already wealthy have the most to gain from the production of wealth (those few most often are born that way, with a right to perpetually profit from another man's labor).

The larger the disparity in wealth across a society (no matter how well off the lowest on the ladder are), the more problems you will see (historically speaking); it isn't the actual amount of finite wealth that determines the well being of the society at large. And it follows, the larger the disparity is across countries, the more international problems you will see.

But hell...its a good place to be, no, right on the top.

[ZeitgeistObserver]

17. Doesn't cause it.

It's amazing how free people are with 'redistribution' of wealth though.

[Oregone]

18. Nor did I say "wealth" causes problems

I said capitalism does, because of the way in which it distributes wealth. Capitalism creates the ultra-wealthy and the ultra-poor. Full circle.

[ZeitgeistObserver]

19. Well, that's the system we have.

And it doesn't 'create' either one.

[Oregone]

20. And its a shit system to boot

But you are welcome to embrace it like Stockholm victim.

Whatever semantics you want to use, thats the clear manifestation of it. Wealth begets wealth. Without constant government hand-holding and intervention, its a system that crumbles on its own merits, despite what Ayn Rand would attest to.

[ZeitgeistObserver]

21. We've always had rich and poor.

Long before 'capitalism' was ever heard of.

[Oregone]

22. okey doke. That makes it alright!

:rofl:

[ZeitgeistObserver]

23. Makes it reality.

And no amount of 'redistribution' is going to change that.

[Oregone]

24. No shit its a fuckn reality, and its a damn problem

Full circle.

:wtf:

[ZeitgeistObserver]

25. To you, maybe.

[Hannah Bell]

26. no rich without poor, no poor without rich. one assumes the other.

they're words that carry meaning only by comparison.

far from "curing" poverty, it's the cause.

[ZeitgeistObserver]

27. You guys go in circles.

[RandomThoughts]

8. You make a point.

I guess I should say it does not have the elements that Capitalism needs to work, and goes further then just capitalism. Since private ownership is also involved with setting social issues, and information systems to the population. But that is not just economic system. As an economic system it is Capitalism, although Capitalism has many forms.

[kenny blankenship]

9. Who says a Labour Govt. can't work?

[underpants]

10. Returning wealth to its rightful owners

thanks for all the sucker money, they say