Wealth of the 1% of Europe
Wealth of the 1% of Europe
Wow, one of the few times I get to be proud of lil ol’ Belgium.
I often joke with family that we live in the best country in the world by default. Not because it’s a paradise by any stretch of the imagination but because the rest of the world went to shit faster than we did.
So far…
All of these are absurd.
And why we can’t have nice things.
I suppose it’s the same everywhere… but each time Sweden gets amnesia and votes in the right wing we get raped:
M: “Hey let’s give away XXX to the private sector and let them rape the country. It will generate prosperity for everyone!”
Swedish voter: “What a great idea, why haven’t we done this sooner?!”
We aren’t much better off over here, don’t fool yourself. Don’t make the mistake of buying into the same empty promises of “yes it sucks almost everyone is poor and virtually nobody makes it out, but if i do it right I will” - no you won’t.
Chances for literally winning the lottery are higher than being a hard, honest worker playing by the rules and making it big.
Textbook whataboutism.
I can’t change what other countries fail to provide for their people, nor is it my responsibility as a random citizen. And it certainly has zero bearing on my economic outlook in Germany, do you want to tell me I should shut up and take it because random third world country #637 has issues with rape and murder?
Bruh.
Just like it not your responsibility what your neighbour has, what your parents had, or what your children will have.
So, all that out of the way: what exactly is missing in your life - without looking around you. You talk about “making it big”, in your other post. What’s too small in your life? And how would something bigger make it better? A million in the bank? How would that make your life better? Would you eat more? Heat up your house to 69 °C just because you can? Buy a Bugatti? That will take you from point A to point B just like any other car, or a train.
You refuse to compare our insanely high standard of living to the rest of the world. Why do you seem to compare it to the situation of others in Germany? Why do you care?
Are you trying to defend our insane Income and wealth disparity, low social mobility?
I am fairly well educated, but I will never be able to afford a house, or even a livable apartment, not to mention providing for a family. The only way that happens is if the economy collapses or systematic changes are enforced. Why should I not complain about that?
Actually you can
Democratic socialism is still socialism (It’s a bit broad to explain what it exactly means as it can range from wanting to achieve socialism through elections to not considering capitalist democracy as democracy and wanting to revolutionize into an actual democracy). That’s not the thing Nordic countries have. Nordic countries have social democracy, which is a form of capitalism where the government puts emphasis on social programs.
Social democracy can look great, because you can end up with a welfare state like the nordic countries did. But it’s not really trying to get rid of capitalism, it only tries to alleviate the problems capitalism causes.
…wikipedia.org/…/Wealth_inequality_in_the_United_…
The 1% is not as telling as the 20% by comparison with 34.9% versus 86% respectively.
Nah, it’s just incredibly common amongst wealthy Britons to use schemes such as having your own personal Charity in one of the Channel Islands that pays for all your life and owns all your assets, so it looks like that person isn’t at all rich.
Also the UK maybe uniquelly in the World has a Non-Resident Tax Status (for tax avoidance) which has nothing to do with the country one actually lives in, so a person can live in the UK and still declare him or herself as such and pay zero tax on income from abroad (and if you’re rich it’s pretty easy to set up a company abroad to channel all your income through).
Some of these schems had becom so prevalent that the Tories cracked down on the small fry (mainly self employed middle class) use of them too to avoid tax, but making sure ot was still fine for the rich (for example, Non Resident Tax Status now requires a year payment of 60k, so it doesn’t make sense for somebody making, say 100k a year but it still does for those making millions)
In the land of the World’s Money Laundromat most rich people avail themselves of the very abundant specialists in setting up schemes to make it look like they don’t actually own any wealth, especially because it’s risk free since none of the two main parties has any interest whatsoever in cracking down on tax evasion and avoidance by the wealthy.
Here in Portugal we specialize in making rich foreigners even richer (with things like Golden Visa and a crazilly overinflated housing market that’s even causing some of the qorst birthrates in Europe to become even worse and which mainly makes money for foreign “investors”) hence most of “our” 1% aren’t even local or resident in the country.
Also and not at all specifically for Portugal, the real rich can and do use transnational accounting tricks to look like they’re in fact very poor (such as the “poor” owner of IKEA who didn’t even paid tax in Sweden because he offically owned nothing, though a Foundation in Luxembourg which just so happenned to own IKEA through a complex corporate structure, paid for his life of luxury) so what you see in this chart is mostly not the trully rich but rather the upper middle class.