We are wealthy and why it matters

"How many of you scrolled down to the bit were you put in your income to discover your position in the world's wealthy?"

I had missed that. It turns out that even someone on the UK national minimum wage is in the top 8.5% of the world's richest people.

It's exactly what I said on this forum a few months ago: anyone in this country who owns a house and a pension is in the top few percent of the world's richest people. The rich are us, not them, because Britain is one of the countries who are hogging most of the world's wealth.

Wealth isn't just a car, or a holiday, or stuff to waste, it's potable water, food, housing, sanitation, warmth, healthcare, education, retirement etc.

I think we have lost sight of one the points in the article which in essence is saying that most people are envious of the people they perceive to have more wealth than them and never consider the millions who have so much less than them. How many of you scrolled down to the bit were you put in your income to discover your position in the world's wealthy? We live on a pension as do many on here and it said we are in the top 2.8%. It does go on to ask you to donate to worthy causes.

Totally agree with that jingle [wondering what the unemployed ex steelworkers would make of the article ]...

So what about families on or below the poverty line. Are they supposed to think, "I'm not starving like some in Africa are" or, "my kids aren't as cold as the migrants' kids"?

I think that article was written on a full belly and from a warm and comfortable room. Not all in society today live like that.

It is bloody virtue signalling.

Oh yes! And I had it in my head!

soon nothing new about IS. Only a few hundred years ago the rulers in these islands were keeping the masses down in the same way. Think beheading and hanging, drawing and quartering.

There is another thread about buying 32 presents for a GC! Definitely a case of want rather than need.

It was John Bunyan, jingl (1628-1688)

www.bartleby.com/296/140.html

Well I really don't get where you are coming from re your "loop" comment, soontobe
Nobody is claiming awareness of the discrepancy between the perception of wealth in one society and that in another is a new phenomenon, just because something is an eternal truth(jingl's quotation) , does not mean comment today is invalid.

I suspect you may not have read or understood the article properly.

I agree about ideas going round, and a good thing too, especially when they are good ideas, then they are available for each generation.

I agree jingl post 13.40pm
I am beginning to feel that the whole world is actually on a loop. And things we had thought of/decided on/chosen 30/40/50 years ago, are all now coming around again, and portrayed, as some bright new thought/idea.

Think wars/fashion/wallpaper/economics etc.

Though I do think IS is a bit of a new phenomena[spelling]

[I dont read many of a certain poster's links, but I do read most other peoples' links, thatbags, including yours]

I have been asking for a long time why various business people, footballers, government ministers etc. need such high salaries in order to attract them to the job. So many times we are told that we have to keep up when it comes to high salaries or we cannot attract the right people to jobs. That only holds true if the other CEOs etc. have these high salaries and bonuses - it is all relative and people think that if someone else is worth £x then so are they.

But what the heck do they find to spend it all on? What is the point of it? It all just snowballs. I find it offensive and depressing and essentially nonsense. These people truly have more than they need; as do most of us in the west, including me.

Our income would look very weedy in comparison with many, but we truly are rich - I am never struggling for food, and whatever we need we are able to buy. We do not need much, is the crux of the matter.

If you have a lot of money then you find things that you need that have developed into necessities, but which really are not.

We are rich in family, countryside, companionship, artistic and musical activities - our quality of live is excellent (barring health problems). We do have more than we need because we have some savings. There are very few people in the west who do not have all they need (but maybe not all they want).

No, I don't think it is virtue signalling, jings. I think it is just pointing out reality.

I mean - no one has thought of that before have they?

"I am content with what I have
Little it be or much.
And Lord, contentment still I crave
Because Thou savest such."

I can't remember where that came from, but it's old.

Is that article an example of virtue signalling.

I think it might be.

I'm sorry you have been confused, soon. I took the thread title from the article that the link in the opening post goes to. Did you read it? If not, might I suggest that you do? And then perhaps we'd be on the same tack

Oh dear, did you actually read my post about relative wealth, soontobe?
You ask "what is the definition of wealthy?"
That is the point
Poverty is the reverse of the coins to wealth so it is hard to discuss one without the other. If you were Lady Mary "posh paws" Crawley, your definition of "wealthy " might be different from someone much poorer than you or indeed someone much richer!
So I don't think you should be so nit-picking about thatbags's choice of thread title or the content of her posts.

Of course there is Elegran, but I have now become so confused about the thread, link and posts, that I am staying away!

You don't think that there is any othe kind of wealth, then? - family, friends, environment, knowledge, security, opportunities? I didn't take thatbags OP as just meaning money, and if you read her subsequent posts, she didn't mean it in that narrow way.

But thatbag's subject heading, and thatbag's op is discussing wealth. The concept of wealth, not the concept of riches or the concept of being thankful/grateful, or the concept of poverty.

But if she wants to discuss something else or anyone else does, then fine. But I thought it was wealth that is being discussed.

Perhaps best if I leave this particular thread.

Oh soontobe I could not disagree more with that!!
How dissatisfied are many people with their homes/ car/ clothes /partner/ jobs /looks?
That is what underpins our whole acquisitive commercialised society and is the raison d'être of advertising!

Maybe not you, maybe not me, but a heck of a lot of people look around and want what that guy's got, or resent others' good fortune, riches, or looks.

If we truly got what we deserved what would that be like?

I think your interpretation of the word "wealthy" is founded on material wealth. Think riches instead, think of what we mean by the opposite poverty and then try to look at those concepts from the point of view of someone in the third world, a migrant or refugee, or a homeless down and out.

Surely all of us appreciate what we have?

Your post of 9.24am thatbags, is at odds with your subject heading in my opinion.
The 9.24am post compares poverty to every other standard of living. But your subject heading talks about wealth and every other standard of living.

I am not at all sure of your angle, as there are many many shades in between.
And you yourself[I think it is you] often talk about how other countries are getting wealthier.

I am .

Absolutely. It is not about one car or two cars,owning a house or renting.

The school I retired from runs a biennial exchange with a school in India. The school in question is actually a very middle class one with the sort of outlook that many of us would find old fashioned, if not downright Fifties, but the staff are lovely people. Our kids, when they go out to India, find the poverty around them an eye opener, yet as I said, by Indian standards, this is a middle class school and its pupils come from aspirational families. When they visit us in the UK, the teachers' eyes are out on stalks at the equipment, IT resources, books, facilities etc of our "bog standard" comprehensive and cannot understand why our kids take it all for granted . And wonder why many of our kids do not appear to value their opportunities, which in India could mean the road out of poverty.
It is relative isn't it? Once you get away from the notion of absolute poverty, some people will always feel hard-up compared to those who have more, whether it is a little more or much more.

"Keeping up with the Joneses" says much about our human nature.

I totally agree with the article but how many of us are going to give/donate what we don't need,use or is totally surplus to our style of life? not many I expect. If it is to make us totally aware of how wealthy and lucky we are, then I take that point entirely,but wealth and luck come in many forms, health, family, education etc and we are not really able to change that as individuals apart from challenging governments and trying to influence a change in everyones thinking.