Inequality and the 1% (9781781689943) by Dorling Danny

Author:Dorling, Danny
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lightning Source Inc
Published: 2019-08-26T00:00:00+00:00

Pudelek

Luxembourg, tax haven and home to Amazon.com

There are many good signs that the times are changing, but also some indicators that a fightback has already begun. In 2013 one ‘wealth management firm’ reported that it had ‘established an internal university to train our advisors on recent tax, legal, financial, and regulatory innovations’106 – implicitly signalling an intention to avoid taxation. Big landowners, including the richest of farmers, own the most expensive land. This group is specially protected by the Coalition government. Just as the UK government went to the European Court to try to protect the incomes of bankers from EU legislation capping banking bonuses, it has also opposed limiting the amount of subsidy any farm can receive from Europe to €300,000 a year.107 Cameron’s government does not want the richest farmers to have their annual incomes capped; it wants to ensure they receive enough money from Europe as income to remain part of the 1 per cent. Of course, the richest farmers and landowners say they need this subsidy just to scrape by.

The distribution of ownership of commercial real estate, of land, and of all property that is not its owner’s main home is almost totally skewed towards the very rich. We are often told that ‘pension funds’ control much of our wealth; but most people do not have private pensions, and the vast majority of the money held in such funds will benefit just a very few rich pensioners in the future. The richest fifth of all households hold the smallest share of their wealth in the form of their main residence – just 50 per cent for the richest fifth of Europeans – whereas almost 30 per cent of their wealth is held as other real estate, leaving 20 per cent in other forms such as stocks, shares and gold.108 As noted above, in the US the richest hold an even lower share of their vast wealth in the form of their main residence.

The current ‘quantitative easing’ policies of central banks have had the effect of making the rich richer. The Financial Times, quoting the chief executive of the finance and insurance firm Legal and General, has described the policy as ‘designed by the rich for the rich’. Even the Financial Times has now insisted that enough is enough.109 Quantitative easing has been described as printing money to prevent prices falling when wages fall and the economy slumps. However, if it were that simple then the money should at least have been evenly distributed among the population. A progressive government would have given more to those who had least – especially since all of the money would then have been spent, rather than hoarded, and might have then boosted demand (see the illustration on the previous page).

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