British millionaires richer, millions poorer

This 2016 video is called How 62 People Are Wealthier Than 3.6 Billion People.

Number of billionaires in Britain climbs to 134

Monday 8th May 2017

Strength of filthy-rich parasitic class continues to grow to all-time high

THE number of billionaires in Britain has a hit a record level, the annual Sunday Times Rich List revealed yesterday.

A total of 134 billionaires appear in this year’s list of the wealthiest people, an increase of 14 compared to last year.

Between them, the richest 1,000 individuals and families have amassed a total of £658 billion.

At the top of the filthy-rich hierarchy are investor brothers Sri and Gopi Hinduja with a £16.2bn fortune.

They have their fingers in many pies, including oil and gas, banking, property, healthcare, IT, energy and the media.

Ukrainian-born American businessman Len Blavatnik, who owns the Warner Music Group, is in second place with £15.9bn.

Other billionaires include the owner of the world’s largest steelmaker Lakshmi Mittal and Arsenal football club stakeholder Alisher Usmanov, who also holds shares in music streaming service Spotify and holiday home rental website Airbnb.

GMB union general secretary Tim Roache said: “Theresa May promised a government that works for everyone when she stood on the steps of Downing Street last year. Instead we are seeing a bonanza for the rich on her watch.

“Wealth is concentrating in fewer hands while many are struggling to make ends meet.

“Our economy is rigged in favour of the rich, and seven years of Tory government have piled injustice on injustice. It’s time working people got their fair share.”

Communist Party of Britain general secretary Rob Griffiths said the super-rich should be made to pay a wealth tax to fund public services and also called for the nationalisation of the City’s main banks and markets.

He added: “This latest list confirms London as the world’s strongest magnet for some of the planet’s biggest corporate spivs, money launderers and tax cheats, where they can double their money without breaking sweat.”

The 20 richest people on the list are worth a combined £191.7bn.

They have increased their cumulative wealth by £35.1bn over the last year. In 1997, it took a personal wealth of £15 million to make the Rich List, whereas now a colossal £110 million is required to earn that distinction.

A report by the charity Oxfam published earlier this year showed that eight men own the same wealth as the poorest half of the world.

Times Rich List shows that austerity UK has become a paradise for the rich while workers and poor suffer: here.

Hunger affects an increasing number of children in Britain. Up to three million children in Britain are threatened with malnutrition outside term time, when they are not provided with school meals, according to new research: here.

A verdict of suicide was recently recorded at the inquest of a young worker, Jerome Rogers, who had been plagued by debt following two parking fines. At the inquest in south London, assistant coroner Jacqueline Devonish said, “It’s evident that he [Rogers] was stressed by being in debt”: here.

THE MASSIVE gap in wealth between workers and the bosses has once again been highlighted in a new report which shows that the chief executives of the top 100 companies in the country are paid on average 265 times what a worker on the minimum wage earns: here.

New research on the pay gap between the highest paid Financial Times Stock Exchange (FTSE) 100 bosses and average worker pay shows that the UK’s superrich continue to accumulate wealth: here.

US corporate profits up 13.9 percent on cost-cutting and low wages: here.

28 thoughts on “British millionaires richer, millions poorer”

Monday 8th May 2017

posted by Morning Star in Editorial

FAWNING wealth-worshippers in the right-wing press hailed a “bonanza” for Britain’s billionaires yesterday, as the Sunday Times published its annual Rich List.

The Conservative government can pat itself on the back for the revelation that our country now has a record 134 billionaires, or that the 1,000 richest people in the realm have added 14 per cent to their swollen fortunes, which now clock in at a combined £658 billion (the top 20 are on their own possessed of £191.77bn).

Truly Theresa May has been delivering for the class her party represents. Or maybe it’s all down to the hard work of the billionaires in question?

“While many of us worried about the outcome of the EU referendum, many of Britain’s richest people just kept calm and carried on making billions,” the list’s compiler Robert Watts observes.

Yes, it’s funny how much less worried about the future you can afford to be when perched atop an obscene pile of cash.

Sadly things haven’t been going so swimmingly for the rest of us.

Britain is the only major economy in which real wages fell between 2007 and 2015.

French and German workers added 7 per cent to their pay packets in this period; this side of the Channel our pay lost 10 per cent of its value.

Working people had more cheery news from the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) on Friday, when it predicted a “spectacularly poor” period for incomes over the next five years.

The average family income in 2021-22 will be 18 per cent lower than it would have been had it grown at the same rate as before the crash, the IFS calculates — a £5,000 penalty on ordinary households for living in Conservative Britain. If it’s tough for most of us, it’s tougher for the poorest of all.

The same report predicted growing child poverty but added reassuringly that overall poverty rates will remain unchanged because cuts are falling most heavily on those already below the poverty line.

That’s families queuing for handouts at foodbanks, children coming to school so hungry they cannot concentrate, homelessness rising every single year since the Conservatives walked into Number 10 and more than twice as common as it was when Labour were last in power.

All while the richest “kept calm and carried on making billions.”

The contrast between the immense wealth of those at the top of our society and the utter destitution of those at the bottom is a scandal that reeks to the heavens.

It is also the predictable and deliberate result of years of Conservative (and until 2015, Liberal Democrat) spending cuts and privatisations, while corporation tax has been slashed and income tax reduced for the highest earners.

What a relief it is then to have a Labour Party which states quite openly that it will raise taxes on the one in 20 earners who takes home over £80,000 a year in order to improve services for those who need them most.

One that — as today’s announcement of a new Index of Child Health demonstrates — will look out for the wellbeing of all our children, not just the bloated bank accounts of the 1 per cent.

Yesterday’s sycophantic press coverage of the Rich List and horrified scaremongering over a modest tax increase on the top 5 per cent of incomes shows that these issues are likely to be distorted in media coverage of the election.

What is at stake next month depends on our getting the message out.

This election is about building a Britain for the many, not the few. That means voting Labour.

http://morningstaronline.co.uk/a-0947-Keep-calm-and-make-billions#.WRDrbmfI8dU

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