'Brexit boom' gives Britain record 134 billionaires

[GennGreymane]

https://www.theguardian.com/business...imes-rich-list

Britain’s has more billionaires than ever, as the super-rich reap the benefits of a “Brexit boom”, according to this year’s Sunday Times Rich List.

There are now 134 billionaires based in the UK, 14 more than the previous highest total. Fifteen years ago, there were 21.

The annual rich list showed that the wealthiest 1,000 individuals and families in Britain have combined wealth of £658bn, up from £575bn last year, despite fears that the Brexit vote last June would plunge the economy into a fresh turmoil.

“While many of us worried about the outcome of the EU referendum, many of Britain’s richest people just kept calm and carried on making billions,” said Robert Watts, compiler of the rich list.

Srichand and Gopichand Hinduja are the richest in the UK, with a fortune of £16.2bn, up from £13bn and second place in 2016’s list. The brothers live in a £300m mansion overlooking St James’s Park in central London. Sri, 81, and Gop, 77, first topped the rich list in 2014 and have made their fortune from a business empire started by their father in Mumbai in 1914.

Today, the Hinduja Group employs more than 70,000 people has global investments in a range of sectors including oil and gas, property, media, and banking. Current projects include the transformation of the Old War Office in Westminster into a luxury hotel.

Gopi said last year that Brexit could be beneficial to the UK and India. “There will be a greater focus on India and the emerging markets, and, among the emerging markets, India will be the favourites.”

Equality campaigners warned that the jump in the number of UK billionaires showed that Britain’s economy was not working for everyone. The Equality Trust said the £83bn increase in wealth among the richest 1,000 people over the past year could pay the energy bills of all UK households for two and a half years, and would be enough for the grocery bills for all food bank users for 56 years.

Wanda Wyporska, the executive director of the trust, said that in the fifth largest economy of the world, an elite was sitting on mountains of wealth. “The super-rich continue to streak away from the rest of us, while the poorest see their wealth shrink. This is an economy working for the few, not the many. Record numbers of people visited food banks last year, millions are locked out of a decent home, and two-thirds of children in poverty are in working households.

“We know that inequality damages our economy and society, and makes it harder for ordinary people and their children to get on. With the general election fast approaching, our politicians need to decide the sort of country they want to build. One where we can all prosper, or one where we’re picking crumbs from the super-rich’s table.”

This year’s rich list was released on the day Labour revealed plans to raise taxes on those earning over £80,000 a year.

The Queen topped the first Sunday Times Rich List in 1989 but she was ranked 329 this year with £360m. In recent years, she has not made the top 300 because the newspaper no longer counts the royal art collection as a personal asset.

The threshold to make it on to the richest 1,000 list rose to £110m this year, double the threshold of 2009. Back in 1997, £15m of personal wealth was enough.

While the wealth of the mega-rich rose overall, some saw their fortunes dwindle. Sir Philip and Lady Green slipped 12 places to 41 as their wealth fell by £433m over the last year, to almost £2.8bn, following the collapse of BHS that triggered a bitter public row.

Green finally agreed to pay £363m to rescue the BHS pension scheme in February, 10 months after the department store chain collapsed with the loss of 11,000 jobs. He owned BHS for 15 years until he sold it to Dominic Chappell, a former bankrupt, for £1 in March 2015.

Mike Ashley, founder of Sports Direct and owner of Newcastle United football club, dropped nine places to 54 after his fortune fell by £270m to almost £2.2bn. Ashley’s leadership of Sports Direct came under close scrutiny after a Guardian investigation exposed the poor treatment of warehouse workers.

The singer Adele enjoyed a surge in wealth of £40m, taking her to £125m, while new entries included the Scottish DJ Calvin Harris and EL James, the author of Fifty Shades of Grey.

The Duke of Westminster, 26, tops the young rich list with £9.5bn. He is head of the Grosvenor family, whose land and property empire spans Britain, Europe, Asia and the Americas.

[Noomz]

It'll trickle down some day. Any down now. Probably.

And don't you dare ask them to contribute their pointless amount of wealth! They need to buy a second yacht!

[kasuke06]

It'll trickle down some day. Any down now. Probably.

And don't you dare ask them to contribute their pointless amount of wealth! They need to buy a second yacht!

So people who get rich should just hand it out to everyone else? WHY? That style of thinking makes no sense. if you "redistribute"(lets face it. you want to play robin hood and steal it to give it to the poor) then you just create an unsustainable welfare state because once you do it, no one will ever want to be wealthy again, who would want to be successful when you're just going to get torn down?

[GennGreymane]

So people who get rich should just hand it out to everyone else? WHY? That style of thinking makes no sense. if you "redistribute"(lets face it. you want to play robin hood and steal it to give it to the poor) then you just create an unsustainable welfare state because once you do it, no one will ever want to be wealthy again, who would want to be successful when you're just going to get torn down?

Except economies seem to be set up in the opposite. But since its the opposite, its okay despite the fact it does not really work too well.

[Captain N]

Except economies seem to be set up in the opposite. But since its the opposite, its okay.

Oh c'mon Genn you know how that rhetoric works. The barely-haves getting on their knees for the ultra wealthy because someday they're going to be just like them!

[Arewn]

So people who get rich should just hand it out to everyone else? WHY? That style of thinking makes no sense. if you "redistribute"(lets face it. you want to play robin hood and steal it to give it to the poor) then you just create an unsustainable welfare state because once you do it, no one will ever want to be wealthy again, who would want to be successful when you're just going to get torn down?

Redistribution in the form of better wages is not a wellfare state. It's bringing the value of work done more in-line.

Do you actually think millionaires work SO hard and are SO skilled that they actually deserve their wage, relative to someone who makes, say, 80k a year?
Impossible.

[kasuke06]

Redistribution in the form of better wages is not a wellfare state. It's bringing the value of work done more in-line.

Do you actually think millionaires work SO hard and are SO skilled that they actually deserve their wage, relative to someone who makes, say, 80k a year?
Impossible.

Skilled? Quite possibly. It takes quite a lot of social skill to manipulate people who would gain by your fall into giving you ultimate power and convinced that you know what's best for them.

It's a different set of skills, one that you personally believe are worthless.

[Orrin]

So people who get rich should just hand it out to everyone else? WHY? That style of thinking makes no sense. if you "redistribute"(lets face it. you want to play robin hood and steal it to give it to the poor) then you just create an unsustainable welfare state because once you do it, no one will ever want to be wealthy again, who would want to be successful when you're just going to get torn down?

Because the amount of work everyone does is not as disproportinate as amount of money everyone gets out of it. Noone tells that company owner sohuld be poor, but bigger part of the pie must be given. Otherwise we see what happens - middle lass shrink and richest become more and more rich. In the end sci fi premise will be true- companies wil own us all and it was we who gave them all this power power by working for them

[Deleted]

In this world you don't get what you "deserve" - because we have no good way of deciding that, no god or government or corporation that can optimally decide what every human being "deserves"

In this world, instead of that, we have a system where you simply get what others are willing to pay you

Facebook makes billions because people want what it offers and have the choice to buy it in the market - so Zuckerberg is a billionaire

What Zuckerberg "deserves" is something else

[Akka]

In this world you don't get what you "deserve" - because we have no good way of deciding that, no god or government or corporation that can optimally decide what every human being "deserves"

In this world, instead of that, we have a system where you simply get what others are willing to pay you

Facebook makes billions because people want what it offers and have the choice to buy it in the market - so Zuckerberg is a billionaire

What Zuckerberg "deserves" is something else

If we have to blankly accept that what we get isn't about what we deserve, then what is the moral imperative to not simply grab a weapon, go kill someone and take his money ?
After all we don't care about who deserve what, right ?

[PC2]

Producing more millionaires and billionaires than other countries is a great thing. There is no reason to think the most equal countries are the most economically prosperous overall.

[Queen of Hamsters]

The greed of the few undermines societies if allowed, yet manchildren of MMO-C keep acting as if they're personally involved with the richest few and have a moral obligation to defend them.

[Garnier Fructis]

In this world you don't get what you "deserve" - because we have no good way of deciding that, no god or government or corporation that can optimally decide what every human being "deserves"

In this world, instead of that, we have a system where you simply get what others are willing to pay you

Facebook makes billions because people want what it offers and have the choice to buy it in the market - so Zuckerberg is a billionaire

What Zuckerberg "deserves" is something else

True, nobody can decide what people deserve. Thankfully, we can decide what is best for the economy, and letting the top horde all the wealth is not it.

[Captain N]

But they do tend to be the happiest.

And according to this they are ALSO some of the most prosperous economies....

http://www.prosperity.com/rankings

[GennGreymane]

True, nobody can decide what people deserve. Thankfully, we can decide what is best for the economy, and letting the top horde all the wealth is not it.

I have a feeling their retort will ignore subsidies, and all the good stuff.

[Queen of Hamsters]

But they do tend to be the happiest.

Yeah... A happy population which feels as if there are possibilities for the future and they won't be poor just because their parents were poor. It does wonders for allowing children and young adults routes towards innovation and fulfilling themselves.

This whole idea that "people need to be poor and live in squalor because otherwise they won't have motivation to get rich" is clearly not working. It's just that some countries are so brainwashed into believing the "You're poor but feel grateful that we're allowing you to be poor and strive to get better!!"- sentiment...

[PC2]

And according to this they are ALSO some of the most prosperous economies....

http://www.prosperity.com/rankings

Except it's missing specific equality metrics. You know the first column is economic "quality", it's not a measure of equality.

[Queen of Hamsters]

True, nobody can decide what people deserve. Thankfully, we can decide what is best for the economy, and letting the top horde all the wealth is not it.

But that billionaire individual NEEDS his second 1.5 billion yacht!!

[zebreck]

So people who get rich should just hand it out to everyone else? WHY? That style of thinking makes no sense. if you "redistribute"(lets face it. you want to play robin hood and steal it to give it to the poor) then you just create an unsustainable welfare state because once you do it, no one will ever want to be wealthy again, who would want to be successful when you're just going to get torn down?

I don't want to take what they've got (though a universal haircut to invest in infrastructure is a very appealing idea) I want to restructure the tax code to ensure that the only safe investment is payroll. Not stock manipulation, not foreign prospecting, payroll. You either pay people enough to sustain economic demand, or you pay the government a surcharge to do it for you. Nothing is unfair about that, we're re-arranging the economic landscape to encourage the rich to use their absurd wealth in a way that sustains rather than fundamentally undermines the basis of the economy. Nobody loses here, except maybe those occupying the niche of $50,000 shoes and such.

[Azadina]

I'm sure that's a comfort for people like farmers who will go out of business, once EU subsidies stop coming in. "well, atleast we have couple new billionaires!"