The characteristics and incomes of the top 1%

Arklight

Kentish_Dave wrote: »

Bend over for them? The tax and benefits system in the U.K. takes a significant fraction of the output of the most productive workers and simply hands it over to people like you.

A trader in an investment bank on £500k per year will be paying about 45% of that in total on tax and NI, which means that they will be doing their twelve hour days, five days a week, from January into Mid June for your benefit before they earn a penny themselves.

Despite this, you still seem bitter. Why?

You could have done what they do, had you wanted, and planned your life better.

Yes sure they will. If there's a problem with taxation and the rich it's down to avoidance rather than overpayment.

Meanwhile their investment bank is employing people working 12 hour days on minimum wage to do a variety of roles our banker is barely aware of. This still leaves them with incomes so low they have to claim benefits paid for by people who do pay all their tax.

It always makes me laugh when you see people who have the most pointing at those who have the least and insisting they are the problem.

Kentish_Dave

Arklight wrote: »

Yes sure they will. If there's a problem with taxation and the rich it's down to avoidance rather than overpayment.

Meanwhile their investment bank is employing people working 12 hour days on minimum wage to do a variety of roles our banker is barely aware of. This still leaves them with incomes so low they have to claim benefits paid for by people who do pay all their tax.

It always makes me laugh when you see people who have the most pointing at those who have the least and insisting they are the problem.

OK, go on then, which people is my investment bank making work sixty hours a week on minimum wage?

Arklight

Kentish_Dave wrote: »

OK, go on then, which people is my investment bank making work sixty hours a week on minimum wage?

You might be surprised the different number of jobs low paid people have and the hours they put in if you tried speaking to them.

Perhaps if the UK had more of them and a few less tax avoiding bankers whose banks periodically go bust requiring billions in taxpayer handouts (don't the rich suddenly love socialism when it's time to save their own skins?), the UK might be better off as a whole.

GreatApe

Malthusian wrote: »

It's not a monopoly. A monopoly is where there is one supplier controlling all or nearly all of the market. There are loads of record companies and loads of artists.

Re the football I think you are wrong. People don't pay for skill. You can see this with the youtube boxing matches. People paying more to watch two popular armatures fight than two professionals. It's popularity network effects

The way it works is that you are more likely to watch or listen to or read something that other people watch listen and read and the bigger the audience the bigger the industry can get

GreatApe

Kentish_Dave wrote: »

Unpaid? I work in banking, which is how I know that we pay our taxes, and that they are not small.

What is it that makes you think that you couldn’t have done the same, and earned the same money? There’s a huge variety of people in the industry nowadays.

There is a natural distribution of mental ability almost fully determined by generics. There is some 'hard work' but even the ability to be able to do hard work is largely genetic

You might be lucky and be on the far right of this distribution and you probably mostly spend time with people in the same segment of this distribution so you think you and your pals are average when in fact you probably aren't. Don't take this as a compliment it's just a genetic lottery just like a beautiful person shouldn't be proud of their beauty a smart person should not be proud of their brains. You can be thankful and greatful for this luck though

This is before even considering life which can and often does limit or cripple those with the genetic ability before it can manifest itself. You might be a genius maybe one in a billion but if your parents were alcoholics and you were malnourished your fooked. If your parents abused you you are probably !!!!ed. If you suffered some sort of physical problem say you were hit by a car you could be fooked...

GreatApe

Arklight wrote: »

Yes sure they will. If there's a problem with taxation and the rich it's down to avoidance rather than overpayment.

Meanwhile their investment bank is employing people working 12 hour days on minimum wage to do a variety of roles our banker is barely aware of. This still leaves them with incomes so low they have to claim benefits paid for by people who do pay all their tax.

It always makes me laugh when you see people who have the most pointing at those who have the least and insisting they are the problem.

There are no poor people in the UK who are functional and have an average mental capacity even if they choose not to work

there are however a huge number of dysfunctional persons (many who are 'poor') and families who live really terrible lives and their dysfunctional difficult lives won't be solved by the government or by how high or low the tax on income is

mattvolatile

GreatApe wrote: »

Their dysfunctional difficult lives won't be solved by the government or by how high or low the tax on income is

History, and decades of sociological research, prove entirely the opposite.

westernpromise

In the UK generally and in London especially, if you don't work, it's because you don't want to.

GreatApe

mattvolatile wrote: »

History, and decades of sociological research, prove entirely the opposite.

I ain't not never met no-one who ever said anything half smart who was a sociologist...

But really I don't believe it there is little to nothing you can do to fix an abusive father or husband irrespective of the tax rate

lisyloo

GreatApe wrote: »

I ain't not never met no-one who ever said anything half smart who was a sociologist...

But really I don't believe it there is little to nothing you can do to fix an abusive father or husband irrespective of the tax rate

Of course you can. You can get divorced from an abusive spouse.
Like many problems (debt, addiction etc.) it is difficult.

Would it not be better to give people some help to get back on their feet so they can start contributing and bring up the next generation well.

I have a sibling with mental illness. The system has just about managed to keep her a functioning and contributing individual.

The other options are to keep supporting these people financially their whole lives or shoot them.
I’m sure some would agree to shoot anyone with problems but whilst that’s not allowed then surely some short term appropriate help would be better than a lifetime of financial support?

So for example if we helped veterans with PTSD get the right help then they are clearly capable individuals longer term.