Inequality in the UK set to become as bad as the US

Discussion in 'Western Europe' started by alexa, May 14, 2019.

  1. alexa

    alexa Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    We currently have the second most inequality after the US in developed natons but appear to be catching up.
    https://www.theguardian.com/inequal...o-us-levels-of-inequality-warns-top-economist
     
    Last edited: May 14, 2019
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  2. Mandelus

    Mandelus Well-Known Member

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    This is called Stone Age Capitalism: The rich get richer and richer - the middle classes get poorer - the poor are becoming so poor that they are more and more attached to the welfare and social services of the state = financed by tax money.
    And this is often justified by the bullcrap and myth that the rich then make more jobs for the others ... in times of globalization bullshit, because where are the new jobs all too often where created? in cheaper foreign countries!
     
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  3. alexa

    alexa Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    and with Technology there simply are going to be less and less jobs. 8 families have as much wealth as half the world and with that wealth, power. I have heard political theorists suggest we are moving back to a new kind of feudalism...
     
    Last edited: May 14, 2019
  4. alexa

    alexa Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    As there will not be jobs for most people, I have even heard people asking whether they may believe the world does not needs us all.
     
  5. Mandelus

    Mandelus Well-Known Member

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    Sure ... the discussion of replacing humans with machines is decades old ... or even older!
    Basically, I also see that very skeptical ... because if machines produce everything, which people should then pay by what income with work?
     
  6. Wildjoker5

    Wildjoker5 Well-Known Member

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  7. alexa

    alexa Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    I watched the beginning to check where it was coming from. It looks simply like propaganda and is self explanatory. It it gets a bit more deep let me know and I'll check again.

    We are no longer working under capitalism. That ended in 2008 when we, the people, paid to save the bankers from their blunders. You will notice from the OP that it is those in that sector who are again benefiting financially while the rest of society suffers paying off their blunders. Likewise you will no doubt know that those International trade deals all had little bits in them so that the Monopolies involved did not lose financially if they found themselves in a position where under capitalism they would.

    More than anything the problem is about such monopolies. They should never have been allowed to come into being. The US used to have laws against them and as I have said before, being brought up just after ww2, I learned that Monopolies were things which created Panic in people as they worked towards making sure it would not be. Our democracies and to a great extent Capitalism were sold to neo liberalism which now is who runs our Governments. We are plutocracies not democracies. Our Governments serve the few most wealthy, not those who vote them in. That could change if people got their act together but there again with the Media being Corporate owned and those in Government seemingly bought, it is quite hard for someone to survive offering something different like for instance the social democracy the UK had prior to Thatcher. Corbyn is moving towards that and our Press cannot stop making up lies about him, something which the London School of Economics researched and said went way beyond free speech and was itself an attack on democracy - him being the leader of the opposition Mind you, things do not always work out they way people want and the Tories now are looking like a spent Party. It has also come to light that our Secret Service were spreading lies on Corbyn. I'd say now may be the last chance the people get to take back their democracy and yes we need to change this ridiculous situation we now have where 8 families can have as much wealth as half the people in the world and with that a horrendous power bordering on or possibly world Dictatorship. I hear they have all built marvellous living spaces in which to live after climate disaster, a disaster from which many if not most if not all of them made their obscene wealth
     
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  8. Wildjoker5

    Wildjoker5 Well-Known Member

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    If you are claiming that professors at college are promoting propaganda, then I am sure you apply that over all subjects evenly right?

    Around 11:20 is when it really explains how everyone in income levels in the US are actually going up, not down.
     
  9. The Rhetoric of Life

    The Rhetoric of Life Banned

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    Is Equality Fairness? - That's what you've got to ask yourself, why should the unskilled earn as much as the skilled/why should the skilled earn the same as unskilled?
    That's why I'm suspicious of Equality, because Equality means we're all equally screwed. Fairness is better than Equality any day.

    We don't want Equality in the UK to be as good as former Soviet Russia, God Bless America, God Bless the UK.

    Also, competition drives down prices and drives up quality, with private enterprise competing for our business.
    The last time somebody like Jeremy Corbyn (James Callaghan) came along in the UK, British Leyland happened; It was so bad, we had over 10 years of Margaret Thatcher to make up for it.
    You could say Thatcher was ahead of the curve with carbon emissions when she got us out of coal.
     
    Last edited: May 14, 2019
  10. alexa

    alexa Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Then you did not put in a video suited to the thread. I watched the first example only. If it was supposed to be answering what this thread is on, then it was propaganda trying to hide what this thread really is on by pretending things are different to what they are..
     
  11. Soupnazi

    Soupnazi Well-Known Member

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  12. alexa

    alexa Well-Known Member Past Donor

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    Seriously? In a democracy each person has an equal right to everyone else. That is the basis of democracy and why for instance Governments need to make sure that for instance minorities do not come under attack from the majority.

    In a society with equal rights we would see strong social mobility. The US and the UK of developed countries have been the worst in this area for a long time. Without social mobility people are trapped into their status of birth. It is a hierarchal society. It is not one which offers the same opportunities to all people. It is most certainly not the 'american dream'.

    Research shows that societies which are more equal, where there is not a massive disparity in income, where social mobility is strong, where access to services is available to all have the best social cohesion, least crime and least mental illness.

    Where there is massive inequality as there is in both the United States and the UK, a few people are able to make obscene amounts of money - and a great deal of that money is unearned. Without some regulations countries develop monopolies. This leads to a very few people having an enormous amount of power and those people are not the ones we vote in but are the ones who those we vote in answer to.

    In the United States we have found that there has been a massive increase in drugs, alcohol abuse and suicide as the lack of hopes for any future affects white middle aged working class men in particular. One of the reasons research suggests that it affects white rather than black workers is that white workers bought the idea of the American Dream. They believed they really did have that opportunity if they just worked. Black people knew they never did. Hence white middle aged wc men are taking their lack of ability to work and create a decent standard of living for themselves and their families as personal, as a character defect belonging to themselves rather than something very wrong with the economic system we are living under.

    Massive inequality results in such things as people voting in someone like Trump, people being very angry and this being manipulated to get them to hate another to divide the population which seems to be happening all around the West right now. In the seventies Bank Managers and other Managers used to earn about 7 times as much as their workers. Now it can be thousands of times as much. This causes other changes. The Managers now live in a separate world. They start living in 'gated' communities because they have a need to feel safe from the people who do the work. In the end if it is not possible to change this situation by democratic means their is revolution or enslavement.

    Of course the main way countries have historically dealt with growing resentment in the population has been war with another. This they hope will avoid civil war or revolution.
     
  13. Wildjoker5

    Wildjoker5 Well-Known Member

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    The thread is about "inequality", and the video is debunking your thread, in at least 5 different myths about inequality. When you are talking about income inequality, that was around the 11:20 mark. I am sorry your attention span and feelings got hurt too early and you couldn't handle the truth before you got to that section, but not being a lock step demagogue could allow you to learn some facts that might conflict with what you've been preached to all your life. But hey, if you want to keep believing the world is flat, then go a head and skip the video which shows facts, and just because those facts are different than your beliefs doesn't make them propaganda.
     
  14. Wildjoker5

    Wildjoker5 Well-Known Member

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    You already failed in your rebuttal. Democracy is paramount to the majority (51%) imposing their will on the minority (49%). Do you think the majority will vote against their beliefs because that's what the minority wants? That's why we are NOT a democracy and are a constitutional republic.
     
  15. Soupnazi

    Soupnazi Well-Known Member

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    Democracy is not the right to another person.

    Although democracy is in fact a bad idea which should never be tried.

    Equality under the law is the only moral equality and no other equality is acceptable unless you advocate tyranny and force.

    You still have not answered
     
  16. Diuretic

    Diuretic Well-Known Member

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    Prior to the Second World War Britain had a massively unequal society, probably more so than the US today. There was no welfare state, just charity and some support payments made grudgingly by government. Many low income or poor people, even those who were working, faced food insecurity. The war changed British society. It was a devastating event for Britain but it had the effect of wiping out much of the old regime. For example since food was rationed it meant it was distributed more evenly although those who could afford it used the black market. In the severely tough times after 1945 Britain became a more equal society with the benefit of the welfare state. That is until Thatcher began dismantling it. The Brits are probably sick of it by now and will hopefully boot the Tories if Labour can get its act together. No wait, sorry, England and Wales needs it, Scotland apparently has civil society operating.
     
  17. The Rhetoric of Life

    The Rhetoric of Life Banned

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    Competition helps out everybody by driving down prices and improving qualities.
    Equality and command economies does neither of those.
    It locks in a price and there is no one to compete with for business so progress doesn't happen in leaps and bounds.

    There's a reason why the Eastern bloc is poor and civil Liberties for homosexuals are absent in Russia, because Communist Countries and countries with a Communist Past are dull, repressive and backward.
     

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