Isn't Epstein really "The Billionaire Problem"

Wrong again Maizie, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs all started with nothing but a good idea and built their businesses from scratch.

Making money is easy, hanging on to it is the difficult side of business, it's not even about making your first million. It's about having a good idea and convincing others to lend money to you, then double up every year or two.

MaizieD-"I have a problem with the fact that the pursuit of personal enrichment by any means has an adverse effect on the people that person employs to attain those riches; when the benefit is all on the side of the employer who takes as much money as s/he possibly can from the enterprise (not only in excessive profits but also by tax avoidance) while keeping their employees on low pay and poor conditions of employment.

The employer/employee relationship is symbiotic; without the employer the employee has no paid employment, without the employees the employer has no product to sell. But recognising this and behaving fairly s requires a standard of morality which those in naked pursuit of wealth don't possess"

This is typified by Jim Radcliffe, worth estimated 17 billion, resides in Monaco tax and avoids the UK tax regime entirely by departing UK to live in a tax haven. He will also pay no UK inheritance tax on any property in UK etc. His UK low paid employees may be claiming UC. Radcliffe has already secured UK state and EU funding to help his business empire stay afloat (and increase his profits and personal UK untaxed wealth) is currently seeking more UK state funding to continue to keep his companies afloat and enrich himself further. Does your ideology stoop this happening? What changes would you advocate to prevent this happening? Or it it more likely the case as David49 suggests that only a unified tax regime for eat good of all will achieve this and thats a pipe dream?

DaisyAnneReturns

Wealth creates monsters www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1vFgUi4frU

This is another from Barry Ferns and, as usual is looking at the socio and behavioural economics of inequality. If you are short of time these are the "chapters"

00:00 - Introduction: The Elephant in the Room
02:04 - Part One: Power Rewires the Brain
03:30 - Part Two: The Empathy Gap and Isolation
05:19 - Part Three: Moral Licensing
08:13 - Part Four: Structural Impunity
10:50 - Part Five: Manufacturing Vulnerability
12.54 - Part Six: The Epstein Economy
15:53 - Stand-up Comedy Relief

Time to teach Noblesse Oblige.

AI Overview
Noblesse oblige (French for "nobility obliges") is the concept that high rank, wealth, or power entails a responsibility to act with generosity, honor, and social duty toward the less fortunate. Originating from the aristocracy, it implies that privilege must be earned through responsible behavior, protecting the weak, and public service.

MaizieD

The thing about SME's is that they don't create billionaires or even high figure millionaires, do they?

It seems to me that a lot of the differences between business owners, the fact that many are content with a comfortable living and fulfilling their entrepreneurial potential while others are driven solely by the desire to make more and more money might be accounted for by their innate psychological make up. While research is uncovering things like lack of empathy and an overwhelming desire for wealth for wealth's sake (pleonexia) one wonders how much of this is a result of accruing wealth and how much is innate.

I have no problem at all with business as such, with the creation of economic activity, with the selling and buying of goods and services.

I have a problem with the way that excessive wealth drains money from an economy thus impairing the real function of money, which is to enable economic activity.

I have a problem with the fact that the pursuit of personal enrichment by any means has an adverse effect on the people that person employs to attain those riches; when the benefit is all on the side of the employer who takes as much money as s/he possibly can from the enterprise (not only in excessive profits but also by tax avoidance) while keeping their employees on low pay and poor conditions of employment.

The employer/employee relationship is symbiotic; without the employer the employee has no paid employment, without the employees the employer has no product to sell. But recognising this and behaving fairly s requires a standard of morality which those in naked pursuit of wealth don't possess.

Like you say, unless the wealth is inherited Billionaires start small like Jim Ratcliffe for example (as he seems to be in the news at the moment) end up living in Monaco with a company registered in Luxembourg paying minimal to no taxes.

Anyone who is comfortable will have money squirrelled away whether that be in ISA’s, pension funds, property etc.

Business owners want to be profitable and increase the wealth of themselves and the business.

I suppose it’s where the line is drawn, how many millions are folks allowed to accrue before they turn into billionaires 🤷‍♀️

That question and answer is far beyond my pay grade.

MaizieD

Oh dear.

What is the source of billionaire's wealth?

Assuming that they start off in modest circumstances (I.e. it's not inherited) where does the money they accumulate come from?

The money comes in several ways.
1) They have a good idea, and build up on it and manufacture it, and gradually expand their sales and production. Dyson is an obvious example of that. He, of course, did a runner and lived in Singapore. He has returned to this country as a Billionaire, too late for any tax ruses.

2) They go into the city and become master money manipulators, or possibly venture capitalists and become rather good at it, so that people follow them and are willing to invest in them, so they set their own investment company up. and they are as clever with their money as they are with other peoples. Crispian Odey falls into this group. The main moive of people like this is money . if they cannot do it here they will depart for the USA

3) Then there those who make it through massive approved corruption. This is the field that Russian Oligarchs, among others fall into. The not what you do but who you know brigade working with corrupt governments. I am sure Peter Mandelson's friend, Oleg Deripasky, falls into that category. You absolutely have absolutely no control over how these people get their money.

4)there are the fraudulent ways of making money. The money invested and growing by magic with smoke and mirrors, pnzi schemes and their like.

5)In there are US there was a woman called Elizabeth Holmes who set up a company called 'Theranos', which claimed that it had developed a machine to do blood tests using a pinprick of blood rather than a whole armful. Amazingly lots of bigtime experienced investors, millionairs and billionaires, fell for her scam. She is currently serving a prison sentence and has to repay about US$400 million to investors.

I am sure there other ways of becoming billionaires that others can add.

The thing about SME's is that they don't create billionaires or even high figure millionaires, do they?

It seems to me that a lot of the differences between business owners, the fact that many are content with a comfortable living and fulfilling their entrepreneurial potential while others are driven solely by the desire to make more and more money might be accounted for by their innate psychological make up. While research is uncovering things like lack of empathy and an overwhelming desire for wealth for wealth's sake (pleonexia) one wonders how much of this is a result of accruing wealth and how much is innate.

I have no problem at all with business as such, with the creation of economic activity, with the selling and buying of goods and services.

I have a problem with the way that excessive wealth drains money from an economy thus impairing the real function of money, which is to enable economic activity.

I have a problem with the fact that the pursuit of personal enrichment by any means has an adverse effect on the people that person employs to attain those riches; when the benefit is all on the side of the employer who takes as much money as s/he possibly can from the enterprise (not only in excessive profits but also by tax avoidance) while keeping their employees on low pay and poor conditions of employment.

The employer/employee relationship is symbiotic; without the employer the employee has no paid employment, without the employees the employer has no product to sell. But recognising this and behaving fairly s requires a standard of morality which those in naked pursuit of wealth don't possess.

I can see MaizieD’s point of view, extreme wealth can be an instrument for control and coercion. It could be an instrument for good, medical research, philanthropic support etc.,

I can also see it from the view of a business owner, who has worked for years to build up a company from an idea to a profitable SME.

When would the powers that be step in and say hang on you are making too much money you have to slow down your business now or you will become a billionaire.

Taxes on businesses registered in the U.K. are collected regularly with penalties for late payment.

It is the multi nationals with headquarters registered off-shore that will get round any new or existing tax legislation, they pay their specialised accounts ££££ to do so.

I cannot see a worldwide tax agreement in the offing any time soon…

Oh dear.

What is the source of billionaire's wealth?

Assuming that they start off in modest circumstances (I.e. it's not inherited) where does the money they accumulate come from?

Anything is achievable with a unified taxation system for the good of all but that's a dream, it's not just billionaires anyone with wealth can relocate to a low tax country. Celebrities and high earners do just that now.

Tax them on the way up - the UK could have high income or property tax, which means most goods are produced overseas, and any local startup is handicapped.

It's a dream give it up

I think that’s a pretty good assessment M0nica

MaizieD

*MOnica*.

I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT TAXING BILLIONAIRES. So why do you keep going on about them?

I am talking about preventing them from becoming so wealthy in the first place.

Thats the point. You cannot stop them becoming billionaires because they will all have decamped to other more tax advantageous countries and become billionaires there.

All you will do is drive all those in this country with a high entrepereneurial drive into the arms of more welcoming countries, making us a country with no resident industry, only the subsidiaries of these successful foreign companies and their British (but not domiciled in the UK) owners.

We will become like so many countries like Bangladesh, Vietname, the home to the euivalent of garment manufacturers with their foreign owners opening and shutting factories to meet their central needs, except that for Bangladesh and Vietnam, this is a stage in their rise to more solid industry, the India route, for us it will be a stage on our way down towards becoming a backward under-capitalised under-invested country no longer able to afford a welfare state.

Your ideas however worthy will only work if every country in the world adapts them, and they certainly are not going to do that, other countries will just make hay from the companies founded by British entrperneurs leaving Britain.

Will the last one out , please turn off the light, Oh no, don't worry the bulb is broken and we cannot afford a new one.

DaisyAnneReturns

I know keepingquiet. I think I must have been unclear in my post because you seem to be attributing a very different argument to me, to the one I was trying to make.

I thought the argument you were making was that Trump ought to be sectioned. I apologise if I misunderstood.

MOnica.

I AM NOT TALKING ABOUT TAXING BILLIONAIRES. So why do you keep going on about them?

I am talking about preventing them from becoming so wealthy in the first place.

I know keepingquiet. I think I must have been unclear in my post because you seem to be attributing a very different argument to me, to the one I was trying to make.

DaisyAnneReturns

Sorry, pressed the button by accudent. What they do have in common is:

Reduced behavioral constraint
Amplified reward sensitivity
Decreased correction signals
Increased self-confidence

In one case extremes lead to deprivation of liberty. In the other, where it should lead to deprivation of liberty, it doesn't. That was the point I was making.

The point I was making is that he should have been locked up for the various and proven crimes he has committed, and not because he has a mental disorder.

Patients with mental illness are rarely deprived of their liberty, as you say. The vast majority seek help and treatment voluntarily.

In very extreme cases, if someone is at serious risk to themselves or others then they may indeed be sectioned, not to deprive them of their liberty, but in their own interests, of protecting them and others from serious harm.

When sectioned they receive treatment for their conditions, and are not just locked up in prison cells until they have done their 'time.'

The other problem is that there really are very few of these exceedingly rich individuals in any one country. So even if you took every penny they earned away from them, you would probably get more revenue by just adding one penny to standard income tax. Also much of what they own is capital assets, from which they earn an income. Take the assets away and they have no income or assets to tax.

But most of all, Billionaires do not base themselves in countries with punitive tax systems, so once you impose one, you uickly find that there is no one in the country rich enough to feel its 'benefits'

I think that the majority of billionaires are probably pretty ruthless - paying employees less, using all sorts of underhand methods (both legal and illegal) to avoid paying taxes, and being generally unconcerned about anyone but themselves and their immediate families.

So, I don't think those tendencies arise when they become billionaires but are characteristics present in them from the outset.

I think most people, if they had such enormous - almost unimaginable - wealth - would want to do something really significant for individuals, organisations and countries who are struggling. There are several cases of "ordinary" people who have won just a few millions who immediately want to give back to society - helping their local areas, charities, etc, etc. Generally, they have no wish to keep amassing more and more wealth.

But being extremely rich is not just about what you can buy but how you can influence people, politicians and governments to do what you want. So I think it is mainly about the love of power.

M0nica

David49

MaizieD

You haven't read the Taxing Wealth Report, either, David.

I have read Murphys tax report and my conclusion is that for idealogical reasons it could be done but wouldnt raise much extra tax and discourage enterprise.

David, the problem with MaizieD is that she supports an economic model that says that countries/central banks can print as much money as they like as all expenditure is essentially governed by money. My senior mind means I have forgotten what it is called, which is a nuisance, as I could do with a uick reision course.

I obtained a degree in economics, a long time ago, the old fashioned sort that believes that printing lots of money gets you nowhere except to hyper inflation. Hence her jibes at my lack of economic knowledge.

My problem with all these alternative systems is that they forget that they are used and abused by ordinary people, some honest, some dishonest and others, downright avaricious on an Epstein scale. Changes in economic systems comme through changes in society, not by just moving from a financial game of snakes and ladders to financial Ludo.

I haven't got a degree in anything all I learned is that if you want 2+2 to equal 5 you have to be creative and work for it, for many decades the UK has not been creative, it has been selling off assets for short term gain. Borrowing more each year to fund social benefits to court votes, the value of sterling falling a the process.

There is only one state that makes Maizies economics work that is China, because there are no democratic elections the population cannot challenge government policy, proper economics can work, infrastructure can be upgraded and the wellbeing of the population improved.

Ultimately if western democracies continue to prioritize social spending over growth lifestyles will decline year by year until it equals China, we are already well on the way to equaling Korea.

Sorry, pressed the button by accudent. What they do have in common is:

Reduced behavioral constraint
Amplified reward sensitivity
Decreased correction signals
Increased self-confidence

In one case extremes lead to deprivation of liberty. In the other, where it should lead to deprivation of liberty, it doesn't. That was the point I was making.

Trump isn't mentally ill you are right keepingquiet, or st least dont believe he is manic. But then, I don't believe I said he was.

Mania is a medical condition.
Power-driven behavior enabled by wealth is usually a social-neuropsychological effect.

However,

David49

MaizieD

You haven't read the Taxing Wealth Report, either, David.

I have read Murphys tax report and my conclusion is that for idealogical reasons it could be done but wouldnt raise much extra tax and discourage enterprise.

As Murphy has an r economics degree, has run his own businesses and is a trained accountant I think his figures are probably OK. They don’t look low to me. What would you see as enough ‘extra tax’?

Did higher taxes on businesses ‘discourage enterprise’ in the pre Thatcher era? I don’t know. Can you help me on that?

^ David, the problem with MaizieD is that she supports an economic model that says that countries/central banks can print as much money as they like as all expenditure is essentially governed by money. My senior mind means I have forgotten what it is called, which is a nuisance, as I could do with a uick reision course.^

That is a real distortion of what I am saying, MOnica. The amount of money a state can issue is constrained by the availability of resources on which it is to be spent. There would be no point in the state issuing money to finance construction, of roads or houses, for example if there were no materials available for use.

The utter obviousness of this makes your objection to it quite puzzling. Why shouldn’t a state finance what needs to be done? It did it easily post WW2 when it set up the NHS and nationalised industries.

I’m baffled by this ‘..central banks can print as much money as they like as all expenditure is essentially governed by money’ Certainly all expenditure requires money, or a money equivalent, such as long dated treasury bonds, but ‘governed by’? What does that mean?

I would have thought that your original economics degree/training would have been Keynesian based, but perhaps you caught the beginning of the Friedmanite capture of the anti state right wing tendency which triumphed with Reagan and Thatcher and which has brought us to where we are now with extremes if poverty and wealth taking us back to Dickensian times…

mum2three

People need to face reality. Men like sex.....men want unattached sex......older men want sex with young girls. Those with money are prepared to pay for what they want and people like Epstein are willing to give them what they want. There is nothing new in all of this and I suspect, that if a member of the royal family were not involved, this case wouldn't be getting so much attention.

Yes, that is true, but it does not mean that they should be allowed to get away with it, nor that young vulnerable girls should not be protected from them.

I think the publicity it is getting would be the same whether AMW is involved or not because thanks to the 'MeToo' movement and the courage of girls who have reported exploitation, society is far more aware and sensitised to it. As women get more pwoer they will be more likely to satnd up and speak up - and they have been doing just that.

Once upon a time every woman feared being accused of witchcraft. Today most men fear beyond anything being described as apardophile, because if you are caught, that is almost literally the end of your life. Job gone, family gone, home gone, unemployable, unable to take part in any activity if people know what you were convicted of.

Yes, some men do it regardless, actually, mainly men who are not rich and famous and who are convinced they will not be caught. But nowadays, most will sooner or later, providing they do absolutely nothing online, no emails, no online grooming, nothing in writing, in other words as long as they avoid all the obvious means of communication, including the dark web because sooner or laater some one will catch up on you.

mum2three

People need to face reality. Men like sex.....men want unattached sex......older men want sex with young girls. Those with money are prepared to pay for what they want and people like Epstein are willing to give them what they want. There is nothing new in all of this and I suspect, that if a member of the royal family were not involved, this case wouldn't be getting so much attention.

Sad but true mum2three.
I think that it is the industrial scale of it that has shocked people. also that this was a conveyor-belt of young teenagers , many from disadvantaged backgrounds.
We don't know , but think it possible that pre-teens were involved.
If the US really released all the papers and video footage rather than a censored selection, more of the guilty would be exposed.
Someone cynically but I fear accurately has observed that Epstein's shoes will already have been filled .

David49

MaizieD

You haven't read the Taxing Wealth Report, either, David.

I have read Murphys tax report and my conclusion is that for idealogical reasons it could be done but wouldnt raise much extra tax and discourage enterprise.

David, the problem with MaizieD is that she supports an economic model that says that countries/central banks can print as much money as they like as all expenditure is essentially governed by money. My senior mind means I have forgotten what it is called, which is a nuisance, as I could do with a uick reision course.

I obtained a degree in economics, a long time ago, the old fashioned sort that believes that printing lots of money gets you nowhere except to hyper inflation. Hence her jibes at my lack of economic knowledge.

My problem with all these alternative systems is that they forget that they are used and abused by ordinary people, some honest, some dishonest and others, downright avaricious on an Epstein scale. Changes in economic systems comme through changes in society, not by just moving from a financial game of snakes and ladders to financial Ludo.