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Poor people don't have money to invest. They really don't. People at the bottom of society in the UK (and I'm talking millions of people here) struggle to get b

Poor people don't have money to invest. They really don't. People at the bottom of society in the UK (and I'm talking millions of people here) struggle to get by. You can't invest money if you don't have money to invest. I don't think massive inequality in the UK has come about because rich people are savvy stock traders. More likely it's because our taxation system is regressive. For example, indirect taxation hurts the poor most, and the balance of taxation in the UK has shifted towards indirect taxation since the 1980s.

PlzSnow 11y ago
Most inequality in the UK is because rich people are getting much richer. But the poor people aren't getting poorer, they're getting richer too. Standard of living for poor people has increased hugely over the last 50 years.
- dharma1 11y ago
  That may be, but they still don't have money to invest
- beat 11y ago
  In the US, the standard of living (adjusted for inflation) has been dead flat or even negative for the bottom 95% or so, since 1980. Slightly over 100% of all economic growth for the past 35 years has gone in the pockets of the wealthiest few. Speaking of market distortion... And this was not true for the century or so leading up to 1980, particularly the post-WWII boom. This points to something fundamentally wrong with the economy. It's worrisome to me, because I fear the US economy having a Soviet-style collapse, a fundamental breakdown. Not a critique of the article, which was basically a bunch of self-congratulatory masturbation for the rich, but a point about how inequality is currently growing right now in the US.
- randomsearch 11y ago
  > But the poor people aren't getting poorer, they're getting richer too I'm not sure about the last fifty years, but I was referring to the last 30. Certainly in recent times, absolute poverty is greatly increasing. As more people have their welfare payments withdrawn, I think we can expect to see this increase to continue. In the UK we are dismantling the welfare state, which has resulted in over a million people using food banks annually. The poor are not getting richer.
rokhayakebe 11y ago
Poor people don't have money to invest. <insert Michael Scott thank you gif here> Also everyone creates these financial management tools for the affluent. Poor people are the ones who need financial management because they cannot afford to make certain mistakes.
herbig 11y ago
I don't think that was the argument here. The argument was that being rich compounds the inequality seen between them and everyone else, not just the poor, but including the middle class, etc.
jstanley 11y ago
I heard a good talk about the differences in spending habits between poor people, normal people, and the rich. The gist was something like: Poor people spend all the money they have. Once they've paid bills and bought food, etc., any money they have left over gets wasted on frivolous purchases like excess toys, magazines, and general cheap tat. This is easy to see: go to any council estate on any day of the week and you'll see discarded plastic rubbish all over the place. Normal people spend their money on liabilities like loans for cars, thus when they get some extra money they just spend it on getting more expensive things instead of getting wealthier. The rich spend their money on assets, so any extra money compounds into extra wealth and increases at an increasing rate. Poor people who would save the extra £10 here and there instead of spending it on frivolities would eventually not be poor any more. But, for whatever reason, many poor people don't see the utility in saving up small amounts of money to make large amounts. A lot of good could be done if more people understood the power of compound interest

PlzSnow 11y ago

Most inequality in the UK is because rich people are getting much richer. But the poor people aren't getting poorer, they're getting richer too. Standard of living for poor people has increased hugely over the last 50 years.

dharma1 11y ago
That may be, but they still don't have money to invest
beat 11y ago
In the US, the standard of living (adjusted for inflation) has been dead flat or even negative for the bottom 95% or so, since 1980. Slightly over 100% of all economic growth for the past 35 years has gone in the pockets of the wealthiest few. Speaking of market distortion... And this was not true for the century or so leading up to 1980, particularly the post-WWII boom. This points to something fundamentally wrong with the economy. It's worrisome to me, because I fear the US economy having a Soviet-style collapse, a fundamental breakdown. Not a critique of the article, which was basically a bunch of self-congratulatory masturbation for the rich, but a point about how inequality is currently growing right now in the US.
randomsearch 11y ago
> But the poor people aren't getting poorer, they're getting richer too I'm not sure about the last fifty years, but I was referring to the last 30. Certainly in recent times, absolute poverty is greatly increasing. As more people have their welfare payments withdrawn, I think we can expect to see this increase to continue. In the UK we are dismantling the welfare state, which has resulted in over a million people using food banks annually. The poor are not getting richer.

rokhayakebe 11y ago

Poor people don't have money to invest. <insert Michael Scott thank you gif here> Also everyone creates these financial management tools for the affluent. Poor people are the ones who need financial management because they cannot afford to make certain mistakes.

herbig 11y ago

I don't think that was the argument here. The argument was that being rich compounds the inequality seen between them and everyone else, not just the poor, but including the middle class, etc.

jstanley 11y ago

I heard a good talk about the differences in spending habits between poor people, normal people, and the rich. The gist was something like: Poor people spend all the money they have. Once they've paid bills and bought food, etc., any money they have left over gets wasted on frivolous purchases like excess toys, magazines, and general cheap tat. This is easy to see: go to any council estate on any day of the week and you'll see discarded plastic rubbish all over the place. Normal people spend their money on liabilities like loans for cars, thus when they get some extra money they just spend it on getting more expensive things instead of getting wealthier. The rich spend their money on assets, so any extra money compounds into extra wealth and increases at an increasing rate. Poor people who would save the extra £10 here and there instead of spending it on frivolities would eventually not be poor any more. But, for whatever reason, many poor people don't see the utility in saving up small amounts of money to make large amounts. A lot of good could be done if more people understood the power of compound interest