http://news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/front ... 694094.stm The figures say it all, really. Population: 311 million. Number of people living below the poverty line: 47 million

http://news.bbc.co.uk/panorama/hi/front ... 694094.stm The figures say it all, really. Population: 311 million. Number of people living below the poverty line: 47 million

I saw the programme and could've lamped that Republican who kept insisting that trickle-down was the only way to help "these people".

They'll all be dead before anything but shit trickles down their way, you fool!

Contrary to '80s thinking, I see higher taxes for the wealthy as the best way of lifting people out of poverty. The argument goes that top earners (so called wealth creators per Thatcher et al) need incentives to work harder. More logically, if they were taxed at 80% on very high earnings they may be more likely to employ and pay more if their personal incremental gains were modest? Then we look at who the high earners are these days. Generally, they are not wealth creators but directors / CEOs (ie managers) of large companies and banks. People who buy up entrepreneurs business, destroy their dynanism and make money out of those businesses not by innovation but by cutting jobs.

All in all, the risk taking (ie personally on the line) entrepreneurs deserve high earnings but simple, non -risk taking managers do not. The problem we have is the wrong people are getting high, easy rewards.

Bugger me, something's happening if I too am now agreeing with Dally.

When I hear banks and other institutions saying they have to pay the best to get the best. No they fooking don't, there will be legions of equally skilled people willing to do the job for a damn sight less than the current going rate. They'll rarely get the chance though because the club is pretty exclusive and if you don't come from the right family or garduate from the right university, you ain't getting in.

Contrary to what some on here may believe, I have absolutely no problem with true entrepreneurs earning top dollar, as Dally said, they have taken risks with their own money and they deserve the rewards. The shysters who gamble with other people's money and then expect the country to bail them out when they balls it up, should be strung by their bollox from every lamp post.

The problem I have with the theory of "trickle down" economics is it is curiously blind to the existence of capitalism outside of the west. Most of the world is capitalist - and most of the world is poor. I mean, if wealth really does trickle down to the bottom of the tank then why is it that in places such as capitalist Indonesia, or capitalist El Salvador, or capitalist India or capitalist Argentina (during the nineties) where the gloves are really off (labour unions beaten back, few restrictions on corporations and capital movement, crushingly low wages) we see enormous and growing poverty? In India the situation is now practically off the scale with enormous unrest amongst the poor. I'm not suggesting things were a bed of roses before the introduction of neo-liberal economics and trade restrictions but you simply cannot compare the city slums today with those of twenty or thirty years ago.

The usual response is "corruption". But I think you're on thin ice arguing half the world is corrupt whilst the West is pretty much blameless. You only need look at the billions that went missing amongst competing Western corporate interests in Iraq to realise corruption is endemic to all societies.

The US could, with the stroke of a pen, go a long way toward lifting people out of poverty without raising taxes so much as a cent. For a start it could cut military spending - which is massively disproportionate to all of the world's armies (possibly outside of the top 3) put together . It could also overhaul its grossly inefficient medical system which is leeching money away by the trainload.

Poll after poll shows that the overwhelming majority of Americans are in favour of cutting military spending. But when was the last time you saw THAT question mooted as a serious alternative on ANY of the major American networks?

So what do the "risk taking" Appalachian coal-miners, SE. Asian pearl divers and Chilean sulphur gatherers (whose LIVES are on the line) deserve?

They get paid to do the advertised job. They take it or leave it (even if the latter is a tough option). They could, of course, become entrepreneurs though.

It's ok. I was just checking what value you place on life vs the production of money.

I mean, I'm not sure why the guy at the top deserves substantially more than the people who do the real work producing tangible utilities.

But then I suppose if you pay someone a million pounds a year for long enough he'll ultimately find reasons to deserve it.

A thread, where, I think, I agree with every opinion put forth!

Without sounding all hippy, why should there be a 1% with a majority of the cash whilst the other 99% have to settle with much less or worse still nothing.