Comments by "" (@lonevoice) on "Wealth inequality's scientific causes, and how to fix them | Peter Turchin interview" video.

UK is fifth richest country in the world yet the UK's poorest 20% are poorer than the poorest 20% in Poland. That tells us something about the inefficient wealth distribution that currently plagues the UK. The tax focus needs to be on wealth and not income.
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@edwardbrady5843 Quite right! 5th in 2022 but now pushed into 6th place by India. France will be next to overtake the UK.
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@Nickle314 Since covid it has been reported that there has been a 20% increase in the number of billionaires in the UK. The problem with the affluent is that they already spend as much as they want to and are regularly left with a surplus which they invest in assets such as shares and property etc. If they then get more then the extra goes straight into asset prices rather than the real economy of jobs, business etc.
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@freko106 The LSE issued a report by the Wealth Tax Commission which showed that a one-off 1% tax of couple’s net assets over £1 million could raise £260bn spread over 5 years. That wouldn’t even be noticed as they tend to earn far more than that on their assets.
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@NetZeroNo UBI will become essential as increasing numbers are replaced by automation. The question is whether it happens before we descend into chaos or after. At present it is the poorly educated who are affected but once it starts to take its toll on the middle classes resistance will probably increase. The wealthy can only maintain their status quo by controlling the media but they are already starting to lose their grip.
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@Nickle314 The comparison was income wealth by GDP not asset wealth per capita.
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@d1.004 I just want to see sensible government acting in the best interests of the public at large. This would be helped if we could get rid of leaders and have them replaced by a democratically elected collective, probably each independently elected by PR.
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@NetZeroNo over the past couple of centuries the West has benefited enormously from international trade and business continues to benefit. There are problems brewing however as business is finding cheaper labour and more profit by increasing the amout produced abroad, particularly in the far east. Over the past decade or so 2.4 million in the US lost their job. They are very angry and gave rise to Trump, more protectionism, make America Great Again, and far right politics. Much the same is happening here and across Europe. Politicians are not however blaming business and the super wealthy, they are blaming foreigners and its getting worse. The solution is to tax the wealthy and support the rest of the population with some form of UBI.
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@waulie_palnuts Interesting. This has been reported multiple times recently. I will have to check it out. The FT is usually a good source for getting facts straight.
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@thecrimsondragon9744 I think that most people would accept that wealth inequality is increasing. I don't hear anyone asking whether that trend will continue and what are the consequences if it does. Then if it does need to be tackled, how should we deal with it etc etc.
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@nunyabidness3075 I think that you may have misinterpreted my use of the word "inefficient". If too much money is being sucked out of the real economy of jobs, and business etc, i.e. the engine room of the economy, then that in my view is inefficient. The problem with the affluent is that they are already spending more or less all that they want to and regularly have an excess which they invest into assets such as property, shares etc. If the affluent are then given a greater share of the country's wealth then that will increase asset prices as the affluent are left with even more money to invest. So the extra wealth finds its way into asset prices rather than the real economy. This has a dampening effect on the real economy which is why I say this inequality is inefficient. We are seeing increasing asset prices, wealth inequality and real hardship in certain sectors of society and that is likely to continue. The affluent will have ownership of automation and with its continual development including robotics, more and more physical jobs will be replaced by machine. We are already seeing this on a regular basis everywhere. The solution is not to discourage wealth creation and capitalism but to recycle some of the wealth that is created through taxation and back into society and the real economy probably through something like UBI. The Wealth Tax Commission (https://www.ukwealth.tax) estimated that a one-off 1% wealth tax charge on a couple's net assets over one million could bring in £260 billion spread over 5 years. The affluent are often capable of achieving better rates of return on their investments than most people, consequently a 1% charge may hardly even be noticed by them.
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@SmileyEmoji42 I wasn't referring to GDP I was referring to the damaging effect of wealth inequality in the UK. An interesting new book by Paul Collier has just been released on this subject called "The Left Behind" which is discussed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f51urcvWmsM.
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@SmileyEmoji42 Yes. Life then was very unequal and dire. Average life expectancy was about 40 years.
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