It's growing: the gap between rich and poor in the US & UK

[ThePerceptionn]

Great article, well done. ;-)

[CMob09]

This countrys a nice little country for poor people that's why all the foreign people want to come here, we work but not back breaking work but get triple than say a Chinese person who does much more physical work !

[CMob09]

Poor people in UK have a better standard of living in the UK than say poor people in Thailand, India or poor countrys in Africa though.

[zakaslam1]

i dont do shop lifting but a know a lot of families on the dole do it regular and they earn more than me and iam working ,

[edmilfan69]

@zakaslam1 Well I live in an under-privileged region and I don't know anyone who goes shoplifting, let alone using their kids in such a manner. I never needed to steal on benefits either, even when I didn't have anything like a tv or much clothing, and had to furnish a flat (when I eventually managed to get one) out of my own money gradually. It depends on the individuals - many unemployed people are decent, and have worked in the past. Dishonest will be dishonest, those with integrity won't

[NewDragon80Remix]

@edmilfan69 I've been banned from comments so I reply here.ZeitgeistReview is a child and not democratic. It is only a marketing valuation and it is generic. Not the role, so there are exceptions. But you have to admit that ffxiii is really different from versus and there are sexuals aspect in this diversity. I think they are creating now games based on diferents target. I don't know if this is better or not, but I prefer the old style. But as you said we are free to play what we want. Peace

[zakaslam1]

dumb idoits here in the uk th dole money is 63 a week but if you do shop lifting you make that in a day , if you have kids who ar underage and cant be charge lets say 2 kids they supprisingly make 100 pounds a day if you sell the stuff

[randy109]

The basic capitalist tenet is you pay a person whatever amount that they are willing to accept to "show up" and do the job. While this works well most of the time sometimes circumstances allow the exploitation of the workers. When unemployment is low, and a prospective employee's ability is high, the employee can get more $. When the opposite is true a prospective employee may have to work for a pittance, just to feed his/her family. Trick is to "protect" labor without destroying business.

[randy109]

-continued- Government regulation can protect workers, while still being "reasonable" to business. Fine tuning this regulation is cause for much political strife. In the USA the gap is WIDE and growing WIDER every day (due partly to the current recession/depression we are suffering through). We have to protect workers while still motivating business. Capitalist business owners are NOT the enemy. They are just doing what they do! It's a cold, cruel world...

- May God Bless the Poor-

[Gosling3]

Take an example of Japan. Gap is not as bad as US nor UK. What is important is huge mass of middle class!!!

[gracewriter]

Thanks for teaching me something I didn't know. Back in the 70s I was taught the corporations were being "pushed out" by the local and federal government's taxes.

It's still little cloudy, but want to thank you for the numbers. So the whole of England could retire for the top execs. pays. That was a real eye opener.

Thanks for the videos.

[kutthroat84]

dood i want a transcript

[70road]

Ever notice that the same people who spew about hard work, don't seem to work that hard themselves!

[kieronj]

Most of wealth isnt from harder work! Its from exploitation!

[gizmosells]

Nationalization means the taxpayer is on the hook when the companies are ran into the ground. Absolute poverty what matters. Ceo makes 300 times more than lower paid worker, but if both can purchase more goods with thier dollar it benefits both. Income Gap is class war, but China is taking the west to the cleaners here.

[polygamous1]

3: n the sun's opinion is "theirs" just like parrots no more nothing to do with china as for anyimmigrants from eastern europe the rich love them they helped them lower the cost of running their own businesses why should they play a local man the going rate when they pay an eastern european a 3rd? if it didn't pay the rich they would soon stop immigration or minimize it

[madcatzy]

your such a bastard! LoL sizzygirl with pantzy glasses on! mohahahahahaha

[gordong156]

Be careful how much time you spend looking at 'sizzygirl with pantzy glasses' - it could get addictive!

[gizmosells]

Cant just the soak the CEOs here they are doing what the shareholders want them to do make money. The problem lies in goverment policies that encourage imports from China rather tha use of domestic or western suppliers to make the game fair.

[polygamous1]

1: see we are rich we pay NO tax a BBC documentary a mr green something PAID himself n family £1.2 Billion yes Billion n paid NO tax at all becasue his dear wife owns ALL the shares n she lives in monte carlo

many like him when Harold Wilson was in power n he was taxing EVERYBODY a BBC codumentary 3 part showed even the MI5 official darken face that they had a system ready for a military coup IF he won the election against Heath

thatcher reduced the tax of the super rich to 40% max n all

[polygamous1]

2: n ALL the money from the privatized north sea oil/gas telecomunication water n others that brought billions ALL went in tax reductions for the super rich

Yrt the chancelor at the time went on TV to tel the working class that each family was "better" off £1.42 n they bought it

NEVER mind that the rich were better off many 1000s a week n prices rocketed

the rich control the news media Nothing as bad as usa most blokes on the building sides read the sun mirror mail few even the telegraph

[lasercat10cc]

Thank you for this video. I have been feeling like i was on my own with regard to this seeing this growing gap, but now i see i am not. Much of the world is being led blindly by the super rich. Now the world is producing more that ever yet it's not being distributed. In a word GREED

[MikeT2005]

Supply and demand my friend. People who have very little skills are not in short demand, where people who have management experience, creative talents when it comes to running large companies, and lengthy and challenging educational qualifications are rare.

[gordong156]

MikeT2005 - Bush has surrounded himself in ex-CEOs. What do you get? The US's top 1% are now earning the largest share of national income since 1928. Meanwhile, 5 million more Americans are in poverty and US home repossesions just hit their highest in 37 years. If that's 'supply and demand', perhaps it's time to move beyond basic economics...

[MikeT2005]

This is surprising to you? It's called old wealth, private trust funds, reinvestment and smart management of money. If I had $1M tomorrow, I could probably buy a nice $700K home and still have change for a Porsche. Or I could invest it in a bank account & earn $1,180 a week, and live off about $600 a week. The difference between interest payments and what I spend means the amount I get every week grows. See how much my great, great, great, great grandson gets per week.

[gordong156]

MikeT2005 - It's also about changes in policy... most notably George Bush's tax cuts for the wealthiest 1% in society. This isn't the meritocracy you imply. It is about handing over average folks' tax dollars to rich tax dodgers.

[MikeT2005]

A tax cut is not handing money over - it's a reduction is money taken.

I live in Australia, and once I earn over $150K pa (which statistically speaking I eventually will), I will get taxed at 47c in the dollar. 47%! Do you consider that fair? What did I do to deserve the government taking near half the money I earn after $150,000? If they cut my taxes down to say 40%, that doesn't take money from anyone's pocket - just takes less from mine.

[gordong156]

MikeT2005 - I don't think income tax is necessary at all - see my video 'UN vote to end private land ownership'. Today the top 1% of US households receives more pretax income than the bottom 40%. The tax cut for them was no good. Where will the lost revenue come from - cuts in public services or extra 'stealth taxes' which take extra income from the bottom 40%?

[MikeT2005]

I take it by 'stealth tax' you mean inflation? Well inflation in the US was running at 2.36% pa. in July. That's below Australia's rate at the moment. How low do you want inflation to be exactly? 0%? Impossible. Citibank offers a 4.5% savings account at the moment - that's a real interest rate of over 2%. What are you complaining about?

[kalidgreat]

personall wealth should only be allowed to a certain level beyond that it should be taken by the state for comunity purpusess

[augieaugie2]

I would suggest insurrection is a concern in a society where envy and dissatisfaction are high, and guns are cheap and available (the US). It may be more efficient to preserve a minimum standard of living than a sufficiently powerful police force. Calculating a ratio of police cost to wage cost which yeilds the cheapest approach would be a useful exercise.

[Tony63efc]

If I am to play devil's advocate I would say that when Tesco look for a chief exec they want the best man and they have to pay the going rate. They would also point to the incredible success of Tesco and claim they must be doing something right. The same argument applies to Premier League footballers.

[gordong156]

£5 million is the going rate. 5p is the going rate. The 'going rate' is whatever powerful people can get away with. It excuses neither CEO greed nor the existence of sweat shops further down the supply chain.

[Tony63efc]

I hate sweatshops and I actively campaign for Fairtrade through my work with Oxfam. Campaigning for the badly paid makes sense but exec pay is difficult to influence except through pressure from major shareholders

[MikeT2005]

Supply and demand. If there were tonnes of pro-footballers, they wouldn't get paid squat. If there were tonnes of chief execs, they wouldn't get paid squat. If there were only a handful of manual labour workers, they would get paid alot more. Yet many countries have such poor education levels that those workers can't do much but manual labour jobs. Would raising their wages to a higher level cause unemployment?

[Tony63efc]

I think paying people on low wages more would lead to more spending. Whether this is a good thing or not depends on the level of inflation in the economy as a whole.

[MikeT2005]

Precisely. The process of raising wages needs to be managed. One of the major issues I found out about in third world countries was when money from aid and food from aid comes into the country, it creates massive problems. The increase in money supply causes massive inflation, and the sudden "free-food" means that food growers must cut their prices and often have no profit at all. Food producers stay poor and everyone else stays the same, with a full belly for a bit longer.

[polygamous1]

footballers yes chief exec. No the old boy net work educated in harrow/eaton all door open simple why u think for their NWO they want population reduction to less than a billion? they must have worked it out is how many of us they need as their slaves for them to live like kings animal farm BUT human quinie pigs this time

[kikichristy]

The truth is here.