Excellent reasons to hate the wealthy

[laklak]

Croquet ain't just for rich folk these days.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extreme_croquet

[cronus]

Since they whipped $£700 billion out of thin air to bail out the credible thankrupt banks and put concrete over the toxic ones....wealth as been a debatable issue in terms of cash, and all that goes with it. This show, this global clowns circus, been running on nothing but air for a decade, hence trump.

[Rum]

The 'thin air' of which you speak is in fact 'austerity', frozen wages, low interest rates, government cutbacks on everything from road building to welfare. The crash cost individuals big time - a bit skimmed off the top of everyone's potential wealth.

[Scot Dutchy]

The 1% pulled the wool over everyone's eyes. There is no justification of the inequality shown in the US and UK. This is what they want to preserve with Brexit in the UK and Trumpism in the US. The trouble in the UK is there are very few kilometres left in the British economy which is why so many want to get out as soon as possible only to protect their own private fortunes.

[pErvinalia]

Given regulation hasn't stopped the second bubble becoming larger than the first. Could be bad equations in the fiscal software? I made a bad formula one time. They can easily be mistaken for credible information. It's the quants. Backroom boys who took down the global economy.

What are you babbling about now?

[JimC]

It's fascinating babble, that almost makes sense...

If you take enough mushrooms...

[PsychoSerenity]

The 'thin air' of which you speak is in fact 'austerity', frozen wages, low interest rates, government cutbacks on everything from road building to welfare. The crash cost individuals big time - a bit skimmed off the top of everyone's potential wealth.

Except there was never any need for that. Austerity is and was a political choice not an economic necessity. Many economists say it is entirely the wrong approach. In the same way that money was created out of thin air to buoy up the financial markets it could have been also used for public investment into infrastructure and services, keeping people employed while the private sector was reluctant to do so. There was never any reason for it to be a zero-sum game, where most of us have to do with less to "pay off the debts". The Tories just sold that story of an economy as a household to the country under the guise of "fiscal responsibility" because they wanted to cut back the state for ideological reasons.

[Scot Dutchy]

Austerity was the wool pulling bit. It was never required.

[Rum]

I agree with you. For the Tories it was a happy confluence of an economic crisis and the opportunity to execute Tory ideology with an 'excuse'. The effect has been the same of course.

[Scot Dutchy]

Or literally a Golden Opportunity

[rainbow]

Well I got mine from good honest hard work, and probably own the biggest hut in the village. We used to have running water but they diverted the stream.

[laklak]

I got running water. A couple of the wives run down to the water hole every day.

[Strontium Dog]

Austerity was the wool pulling bit. It was never required.

We've never really had austerity. We still spend more than we bring in. Some austerity.

[Scot Dutchy]

Austerity was the wool pulling bit. It was never required.

We've never really had austerity. We still spend more than we bring in. Some austerity.

Not on the poor though.

[PsychoSerenity]

Austerity was the wool pulling bit. It was never required.

We've never really had austerity. We still spend more than we bring in. Some austerity.

That's not what austerity means. You're describing a budget surplus. Which is a stupid thing for most governments to try to achieve unless it's balanced out by trade because it means taking more money out of the economy that is put in causing deflation or a shrinking economy. Austerity refers to measures like spending cuts and tax increases supposedly in attempt to reduce a budget deficit, that depending on how they are implemented can have serious consequences for many people's lives, because again while the government may still be putting more in than taking out, they are putting less in relative to previous years.