As George Monbiot asks in the Guardian this morning:
Why are billionaires blocking action to save the planet?
It's obscene that the super-rich can criminalise protest, while they burn the world's resources and remain untouched by the law.
George is right, of course. It is obscene that they can do this.
And one answer is that we need to tax the rich a great deal more.
I do not think that all the problems that are created by the rich can be solved by taxing them. But doing so will certainly reduce their capacity to consume - and that is vital.
Hence, the Taxing Wealth Report 2024, that outlines the quickest and most effective ways to tax the wealthiest in the UK a great deal more.
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Instead of government the working class who produce the wealth for the rich should be made partner and get the fair share of their hardwork. Government should pass a law making it mandatory for the capitalists/ owners to share their profits with staff and workers, taxing their riches would eventually end up in financing in some unscrupulous government schemes.
How would you do that?
https://patrioticmillionaires.uk/latest-news/on-the-eve-of-the-autumn-statement-patriotic-millionaires-uk-project-a-clear-message-to-the-chancellor-tax-our-wealth-and-invest-in-britain
There are some rich people who want to be taxed more. I hope more and more join them.
Those ‘patriotic millionaires’ never quite say what they think should be done with the extra tax revenues they propose the government gets from them. Perhaps it should be a new thing not currently done by government or more of an existing thing.
If they are self-made millionaires they might actually be better at running it themselves.
As an example, consider that a certain subject is not taught in schools, and there’s too much of subjects which are not really necessary. Then set up your own school for crying out loud.
Or you think that the government run ferry service to the islands isn’t very good and needs more money. Then set up your own ferry service.
Or you think it’s extortion that non-refugee foreign nationals who’ve been here more than 7 years pay ridiculous prices (£1900) to become British. Then set up your own charitable scheme to subsidise the excess of that cost over and above what it costs a UK national to obtain their first passport.
As you can guess Jen, the patriotic millionaires do not impress me.
Your logic is as good as flat on coastal erosion – where you have buried your head in the sand and yet, based on my due diligence, appear to have responsibility for the issue.
What is apparent are three things. One is you do no research. Two is you make big claims. Three is you have a total inability to justify them.
Perhaps you ought to read more about who they are and what they do. Not difficult to find from the link I gave you.
https://patrioticmillionaires.uk/latest-news/report-out-of-touch-when-it-comes-to-taxing-extreme-wealth-the-house-of-commons-flags-behind-even-the-richest-in-the-country
I quite often have arguments with my grandson about rich entrepreneurs using their money gained by tax evasion or avoidance then setting up charities in their names and being lauded by the MSM. It’s the tax systems that allow them to do that, as well as accountants working for them to game the system.
We wouldn’t be in the mess we are in if there were enough people working to get back the tax owed, but the government doesn’t want to do that as it might affect their backers.
At the very least Patriotic Millionaires have been to parliament and tried to make the lords and commons aware of what they want. The only people who are against it are tory MPs. Can’t think why.
I know Richard doesn’t agree with at least one of their stated aims, but that doesn’t matter. They are trying to do something apart from just accumulate more wealth.
Why do the patriotic millionaires need to tell the government what to do with the extra taxes they would collect from them? They know what a mess the NHS is in, as well as our water and energy supplies.
At some level billionaires possibly feel they are an endangered species. Unfortunately their actions are pushing ever towards a point where the whole of humanity is endangered.
Billionaires SHOULD be an endangered species, since they have appropriated the wealth created by society, that is by the REAL wealth-creators = the workforce and the whole work environment provided by government and society as a whole – a massive replay of the enclosure of the commons, in the form of enclosure of the a huge portion of the wealth-generation ecosphere (as the enlightened billionaire Nick Hanauer calls it, recognising that all its parts work together organically)
Frankly, I’d appropriate back ALL the wealth they have appropriated, except for a last £1 billion – anyone who can’t “survive” on £1billion needs urgent medical and psychiatric intervention!!
Thank you and well said, Richard.
I used to work in private banking / wealth management and, soon after, in wholesale banking, often with oligarch led groups. Next year, my employer will reopen private banking / wealth management in London. (There’s a lot of hidden wealth.)
City firms often use elite courtesans, booked through intermediaries / concierge services, for clients. Such ladies are often flown first / business class or, on their own, in private jets, to wealthy clients, increasingly in emerging markets. This is called FMTY, fly me to you. It’s staggering to observe. It’s not just financial services firms. The wealthy will often arrange visits themselves. At this time of year, it’s often to warmer climes.
Sickening
A form of human trafficking
Thank you.
It is. This said, at that level, it’s largely voluntary. Many of the providers will have standards of living and sometimes education well above the UK and other median.
Its interesting to look at Old Testament Economics which aims to prevent the excessive concentration of wealth because if someone has all the money there is nothing for everyone else.
Given that resources are finite the Billionaire class are taking resources from others that need them.
There has been a lot of focus on billionaires yachts, now I served as a volunteer stoker on MV Balmoral
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MV_Balmoral_(1949)
Now in those days we had 2×600 hp Newbury Sirron main engines and 2x35kw dynamo’s – normally only one was running and we had a fuel consumption of about 0.17 tonnes/hour or 200L with several hundred passengers on board.
Now 2x600hp isnt very big by modern motor yacht standards, James Dyson’s yacht Nahlin is 2x2500hp plus a much bigger ‘hotel’ load. Simply scaling it up that gives a fuel consumption of about 800l/hour or about 2 tonnes of CO2 per hour for a handful of passengers. Given that per capita emissions from fossil fuels in the UK is about 5 tonnes, he would have blown my personal carbon emissions if he took a trip from Ilfracombe to Lundy Island and back!
So yes we need to tax their incomes, tax their energy use and tax luxury consumption
Agreed