MercoPress. South Atlantic News Agency
UK a most unequal country; 10% of population own over half of the wealth
The richest 1% of the UK population owns more than 20 times the wealth of the poorest fifth, according to Oxfam. That made Britain one of the most unequal countries in the developed world and contributed to the vote for Brexit, the charity said. Read full article
Comments
Disclaimer & comment rulesInteresting report. I read it last year when it came out.
Sep 13th, 2016 - 01:54 pm - Link - Report abuse 0https://publications.credit-suisse.com/tasks/render/file/?fileID=F2425415-DCA7-80B8-EAD989AF9341D47E
If people think the UK comes out bad it absolutely trashes any notion of Aegentina advancing over the past 15 years.
Doesn't surprise me. Social mobility is also poor and both those things are pretty dire for any country.
Sep 13th, 2016 - 05:51 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I came from a very poor family indeed but worked at school and to become a Chartered Engineer.
Sep 13th, 2016 - 06:13 pm - Link - Report abuse 0You need intelligence and work smarter than anybody else AND: luck.
If I can do it, anybody with a brain can do it.
Excellent news. Shows that there are opportunities for creation of wealth. No wonder the UK got to be the world's fifth largest economy, while Argentina is dealing with a four-year recession and moving lower and lower in the ranking of world economies as the Kirchnerist lies are being exposed.
Sep 13th, 2016 - 06:15 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Once CFK's false INDEC numbers got sorted out, we now have a better picture of the years of failure in the economy here:
“The revised numbers were worse than I expected,” Elypsis consultancy agency’s chief economist Luciano Cohan said yesterday. He pointed out 2009’s revised six percent GDP plunge as particularly surprising, as it meant that Argentina suffered the worst decline in the continent that year, followed by Mexico’s -4.7 percent. “Only 18 countries in the world did worse than us that year,” he said, citing statistic from the International Monetary Fund.
http://www.buenosairesherald.com/article/217141/indec-report-points-to-recession-
@3 ChrisR
Sep 13th, 2016 - 07:51 pm - Link - Report abuse 0You did it years ago and statistics show social mobility has decreased markedly since then.
Now, if someone is talented enough they can succeed even against great odds, but we are talking about more average people.
Low social mobility means talent is being wasted and people have less incentive to work hard. It also leads to an underclass who feel they have no stake in their country and are attracted to populist politicians.
The Nordic countries and Germany have much better social mobility than Britain and are richer too, as well as generally being rated as nicer places to live.
@4 Marti Llazo
There's no point creating wealth if you don't get to keep it. Despite the growth in GDP, real wages in the UK are still lower than in 2008, and show no signs of improving any time soon. If things get bad enough, people will vote for whoever claims to be able to fix things, examples being Trump, UKIP, or the K's.
Told ya...,Mr.DemonTree
Sep 13th, 2016 - 09:14 pm - Link - Report abuse 0You ain't no turnip...
El Think escandinavo...
@5 “There's no point creating wealth if you don't get to keep it.”
Sep 13th, 2016 - 09:27 pm - Link - Report abuse 0And since the EU exists primarily to ensure that the UK does not keep its wealth, freedom from the EU will now provide an opportunity to reverse the trend.
@6 Think
Sep 13th, 2016 - 10:11 pm - Link - Report abuse 0I forgot you said you were Scandinavian. Which country are you from?
Also how is social mobility and inequality in Argentina?
@7 Marti Llazo
The EU exists primarily to stop France and Germany going to war yet again. Also for ever closer union.
Anyway, you just said there are opportunities for creation of wealth and the UK has grown to be the world's fifth largest economy, so apparently the EU is not doing a very good job of stealing it's wealth.
However, the EU was trying to tackle inequality by providing development aid to poor areas like Cornwall. Leaving the EU is very likely to make things worse, unless the economy becomes so bad we are *all* poor.
(8) Mr DemonTree
Sep 13th, 2016 - 10:28 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Which (scandinavian) country my ancestors were from?...
A couple of them...
How is social mobility and inequality in Argentina?...
Fine, thanks...
#8 9 - hissing Sid won't give you a straight answer on anything. Resident in 65 Brook Street he does insist on exclusive use of his puppet. Unlike the recently resuscitated Marcos who can now magically speak proper English. Personally I could not care less about spelling and grammar but its a great way to identify the operators.
Sep 14th, 2016 - 10:22 am - Link - Report abuse 0As for Argentina a certain proportion of residents live in a different $ sphere to the middle class and Villa dwellers. There is mobility however. Collect enough cardboard and you move up.
@ 5 DemonTree
Sep 14th, 2016 - 12:37 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Yes, I qualified many years ago but that didn't exempt me from the upheavals that happen in industry over the decades. I started off as an electrical mechanical engineer looking after heavy processing plant in the glass industry.
I finished after the successful conclusion of heading up a supply project for a new major photo-optronics country wide telecommunications system. 27 nodes (switches) each capable of handling 9million individual phone conversations simultaneously via a multiplex carrier controlled centrally using Unix. The country is part of central Asia.
The career changes came about every eight years and I moved to different areas of the UK three times before leaving to retire
The point is simple: you cannot just get a job and expect nothing to change until you retire on a pension, especially if as you claim “but we are talking about more average people”. You have to try even if you are average but perhaps the lack if will to try is what makes them what they are.
The hordes of immigrants has made the problem far worse and fuelled the social upheaval that the UK is experiencing at the moment. It will only get more severe if all except those with a job to come to are not stopped from entering.
@11 ChrisR
Sep 14th, 2016 - 02:45 pm - Link - Report abuse 0“You have to try even if you are average but perhaps the lack if will to try is what makes them what they are.”
So you think the problem is that British people today are just lazier than, say, Germans? And that is why social mobility is lower?
And I agree that high levels of immigration have made inequality worse by keeping wages lower. Which is one reason many businesses are in favour of it, of course. It also provides a handy scapegoat for people who don't want to make other changes to society as suggested in the article.
@10 The Voice
So I see. I bet Enrique would say that social mobility and inequality in Argentina are rapidly getting worse, though, thanks to the new government.
(12) Mr. DemonTree
Sep 14th, 2016 - 04:57 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Fine......, social mobility and inequality in Argentina are rapidly getting worse because of the new government......., thanks.
If , according to Oxfam, the inequality in the UK contributed to the vote for Brexit, and they believe that one of the main causes of this inequality is the fact that the richest 1% in the UK owns more than 20 times the wealth of the poorest 20%, it seems to me that since inequality was one of the main causes for Brexit's approval, and that the vote of 1% of the population, numbering 634,000 people (according to the same source) could never outweigh the vote of the other 99%, one concludes that Brexit was approved by the poorest, and that they have the richest 1% to thank for it..
Sep 14th, 2016 - 05:54 pm - Link - Report abuse 0@14 Jack Bauer
Sep 15th, 2016 - 07:53 pm - Link - Report abuse 0Yep, pretty much. And most of those 1% probably wanted to stay in the EU, though certainly not all of them. Certainly the great majority of MPs wanted to stay in, but they screwed up.
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