RE: Shareholders4 Feb 2025 09:02
Edzi. I doubt that I can be bothered responding to you any longer. You draw entirely the wrong conclusions from everything I post. I have absolutely NO problems with anyone who makes a success of their life as long as they do not make it at the expence of other people. I am in the camp of Charles Dickens and not Karl Marx there although he at least understood the problems that arise from cut throat capitalism. I do expect that everyone who has made a success returns some of those proceeds to the society that enabled them to do it (by way of public service) by paying their taxes. None of my children or grandchildren work in public service by the way and both my wife and I were the first in our families to get degrees. We probably would not have had the same opportunities today because of the punative costs of doing so. Without that supply of well educated people the type of businesses that are needed in the UK to start up or fill the jobs to make them successful would not exist. To give you a small example out of many. If you troll along to Manchester ( the fastest growing tech centre in Europe) you may see a building that was once the tallest in the city (before recent developments) housing the Hilton Hotel. It was designed by an ex pupil who studied in my department. He now lives in the penthouse of that building and heads a major firm of architects, I have ABSOLUTELY no problem with him making piles of cash from his enterprise, assuming of course that he payes his taxes. I could relate similar stories many times over and am still in correspondance with many of these students. The people I have no time for are those who see others labour as just another commodity to be used and discarded at will. I hope you do not fall into that category but many do which is why workers need unions to provide some insurance against poor treatment. There is a very interesting and highly acclaimed book (by all political persuasions) by Yanis Varoufakis called "Talking to my daughter about the economy". Many will just say he's a communist and they will be correct but his explanation as to how a capitalist economy works is probably one of the simplest and best described that you will find. His conclusions as to what to do about it are of course his ownand not my own. It's complicated and I know that most people just see black and white as you seem to do Edzi. Unfortunately I can't make you see grey or even colour. All people who strive to make the world a better place are needed and that that includes both entrepeneurs and those providing the ideas or workforce for them and the social conditions in which they might thrive . What we do not need are those making huge amounts of money without the checks and balances to ensure that that they do not become become a danger to society,imposing the kind of fiefdoms upon us that we discarded at the end of the middle ages. We only got rid of those through trade and knowledge. It was called the Renaissance.