This video is called Poverty hits British families.
By Will Stone in Britain:
Boom for rich as we go bust
Sunday 29 April 2012
Britain’s richest 1,000 people calmly raked in record profits last year, booming to a combined wealth of £414 billion while the rest of the country endures the wage freezes and redundancies of recession.
And the cost of an entry ticket to the exclusive club rose again – if you don’t have £72 million you aren’t getting in.
The 2012 rich list released on Sunday, which campaigners said “lays bare stark levels of inequality” in the country, shows a rising number of billionaires, up to 77 from the previous high of 75 in 2008.
The asset total represents a 4.7 per cent rise on last year and surpasses the previous high of £412.85bn, reached just months before the 2008 financial crash.
Meanwhile Britain is experiencing record levels of unemployment and a double-dip recession that Labour leader Ed Miliband said has been caused by the government’s “catastrophic” economic policies.
A spokeswoman for campaign group UK Uncut commented: “This year’s rich list lays bare the stark levels of inequality in Britain.
“While the rich are wealthier than ever there are record levels of unemployment and a double-dip recession caused by government austerity measures.
“The government need to find alternatives to its cuts-obsessed agenda. There should more transparency in the levels of tax paid by these billionaires and tougher measures to clamp down on tax avoidance.”
She added that the rich have a duty to put more of their new-found wealth to good causes.
Conservative Party donor Lakshmi Mittal tops the list with a personal wealth of £12.7bn. The steel magnate, whose non-dom status means he doesn’t pay tax on his main overseas holdings, has been Britain’s richest man since 2005.
Just behind is Uzbek metals magnate and Arsenal shareholder Alisher Usmanov on £12.3bn. His own tax affairs are unknown as the government refuses to comment on the issue.
Chelsea FC owner Roman Abramovich (also a non-dom) came third with £9.5bn.
The richest woman in Britain is former Miss UK Kirsty Bertarelli who shares a £7.4bn fortune with her husband Ernesto.
Other billionaires include Virgin boss Sir Richard Branson, inventor of the bagless vacuum Sir James Dyson and JCB owner Sir Anthony Bamford, who have all enjoyed sharp rises in their fortunes.
See also here.
This year’s annual Sunday Times Rich List reveals that the wealth of the super-rich in Britain has grown by 4.7 percent, to reach a new high of more than £414 billion: here.
Bosses enjoyed a 15 per cent pay rise last year as ordinary workers continue to suffer real-term pay cuts, researched revealed today: here.
On average, high earners have a very different idea of what makes a just society: here.
Elderly people living in the poorest places get ill up to 15 years earlier than those in wealthy areas, a study shows: here.
Britain faces worst recession since 1930s: here.
The latest Sunday Times Rich List recorded a massive increase in wealth for the super-rich in the United Kingdom: here.
“There Are Marxists in India?”: Economist Prabhat Patnaik on the Global Crisis: here.
Related articles
- Austerity, but not for billionaires (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
- Other UK business news: Rich getting richer ‘good for job creation and tax’ (birminghampost.net)
- Need to Read: Forbes Rich List: Anger at the few or winners at the top and bottom? (walesonline.co.uk)
- Britain’s Super-Rich Just Keep Getting Richer (dprogram.net)
- British government against women (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
- ‘Squeezed middle’ is too cuddly a term for the harm done to British wages | Ian Jack (guardian.co.uk)
- Prentis unleashes pre-Budget blast (morningstaronline.co.uk)
- The myth of the selfish poor (morningstaronline.co.uk)
- Rant: The Government (funnymonkeydan13.wordpress.com)
- Margaret Thatcher dies, reactions (dearkitty1.wordpress.com)
John Maynard Keynes rolls over in his grave.
So does Lord Beveridge.
Aviva boss waives £1 million wage
BONUSES: The boss of insurer Aviva bowed to shareholder pressure on Monday and waived a pay rise which would have taken his annual salary over the £1 million mark.
Chief executive Andrew Moss has rejected the 4.6 per cent rise awarded in March on his £960,000 annual salary.
Investor group Pensions Investment Research Consultants had called on shareholders to vote against Aviva’s executive pay report at its annual meeting on Thursday.
Shareholders stung banking giant Barclays on Friday with a third failing to support the bumper pay packages.
http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/news/content/view/full/118434
Data: More phones than toilets in India
Monday – 4/30/2012, 2:50pm ET
FILE – In this Feb. 22, 2012 file photo, Indian squatters use a public toilet after waking up at Park No. 2 near Jama Masjid in New Delhi, India. For thousands of people struggling at the bottom of India’s working class, the Meena Bazaar parking lot and the handful of places like it scattered across New Delhi are cheap refuges in a city where many migrants can’t even afford to rent slum shanties. (AP Photo/Kevin Frayer, File)
WASHINGTON – Monday marks the beginning of Screen-Free Week, brought on by a need for people to put their phones down instead of using them at all times, such as in the bathroom.
That’s not a problem in India, and not because there’s a shortage of phones.
New data from the Indian census indicates there are more cell phones than toilets in the south Asian country of 1.2 billion people, according to a report from TreeHugger.com. This is striking news for a country where almost half of all people still have to relieve themselves in the open due to no access to clean drinking water or toilets in their homes.
However, 53 percent have a phone, and 47 percent have a television.
“Open defecation continues to be a big concern for the country as almost half of the population do it,” Registrar General and Census Commissioner C. Chandramouli tells BBC News. “Cultural and traditional reasons and a lack of education are the prime reasons for this unhygienic practice. We have to do a lot in these fronts.”
Despite what CIA cites as “significant overpopulation, environmental degradation, extensive poverty, and widespread corruption,” India plays a significant role on the world’s stage, including earning a nonpermanent seat on the UN Security Council for the 2011-2012 term, and rapid economic development.
The country’s stark spectrum of richness and poverty was brought to light last October when New Delhi billionaire businessman Vijay Mallya sought to bring Formula One, “the champagne sport,” to the area of his home country with so much deprivation.
“In every country there are the privileged and underprivileged,” Mallya said. “We have underprivileged people in our country, but that doesn’t mean that the country must be bogged down or weighed down.
“The government is doing all it can to address the needs of the poor or the underprivileged people, but India must move on.”
Follow WTOP on Twitter.
(Copyright 2012 by WTOP. All Rights Reserved.)
Pingback: Expensive British royal jubilee | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: Attila The Stockbroker on his poetry | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Tax dives while profits soar
The biggest firms in Britain are paying a fifth less tax than they did 12 years ago, a Reuters report says.
The companies paid £5 billion less in corporation tax in the last financial year than in 2000/01. Their profits leapt by 65 percent over the same period.
Bankers grab £1 million each
Some 1,500 bankers in Britain “earned” £1 million each in 2011, new figures show. They grabbed the most at Barclays, where managers trousered an average of £1.2 million.
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=30265
No end to the parties for champagne rich
While some of us may struggle to pay our bills, a receipt shows the night out had by rich “talent agent” Dexter Koh at a posh Mayfair club. Among other things he bought a Methuselah of Cristal champagne—as big as eight normal bottles—for £26,000.
That’s not the only thing he’s been doing with his cash. The PR man says that like Fifty Shades of Grey character Christian Grey, he likes to enter into “mutually beneficial arrangements” with young women.
While the rich party, new research has found that people are buying 20 percent less fruit and veg as they feel the squeeze on their wages. Shop prices have soared this year, it shows, while pay has stayed flat.
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/art.php?id=30235
Pingback: Billionaires could end poverty | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: English 17th century revolutionary Gerrard Winstanley | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: Austerity, but not for billionaires | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: Margaret Thatcher dies | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: No sycophantic Thatcher praise from British trade unions | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: Japanese billionaire wants poverty for workers | Dear Kitty. Some blog
Pingback: Crisis, what crisis? for billionaires | Dear Kitty. Some blog