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15 minutes ago, ECCOnoob said:

Yes of course he earns millions. He owns the company.  He put in the investment, he founded it and he took the risks which resulted in a highly successful global organisation which employs 840,000 people.

 

Those people are not "paid peanuts" as you say, they are paid what the market rightly or wrongly dictates their job role is worth.  It goes back to the point I made earlier, in this free society of ours - any one of those lower paid employees can set their own path for advancement.  They can forge their own career with whatever skills to aim to earn the most money they can.  

 

I don't think there are many people who enter the job market and really choose to be in the same lower level position from day one to retirement.  Everybody has some considerations of advancement either in the same organisation or by choosing to take that risk and go and find a job elsewhere or even start their own business.

 

Yes of course there will be always people who are cruelly overlooked or suffer unfortunate circumstances halfway through their career path or simply can't make it due to ill health but that is a way of life for a lot of things.

Yep, his company, his rules (like no unions for example) and his choice to keep hold of all that money and pay his staff not alot (don't get me started on his treatment of self employed delivery drivers - who aren't treated as well as other self employed drivers at other delivery companies). Compare him with, say, the head of Richer Sounds. Successful, ethical, wealthy.

 

I don't really begrudge either (bazos a bit) and certainly wouldn't restrict their opportunities. I question bezos motives. At least bat**** musk is pushing for human advancement and exploration.

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8 minutes ago, tinfoilhat said:

It's down to taxation. I wouldn't limit earnings though.

 

How much is enough for you? Would you stop at a billion? 10 billion? 

I would agree with you on taxation. There are too many holes in the law but in that case I don't understand the criticism at the people earning the money - the criticism should be aimed at the governments not doing enough about it

 

As for your second part I don't see the reason for a cap.  Personally I wouldn't stop at all.   I would aim to earn whatever I can earn until I choose to either stop working or its all spent.

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3 hours ago, tinfoilhat said:

It's down to taxation. I wouldn't limit earnings though.

 

How much is enough for you? Would you stop at a billion? 10 billion? 

Isnt that what they do? They earn loads of money and then they start to give it away.

As of 2018, Bill and Melinda Gates had donated around $36 billion to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation . Since its founding, the foundation has endowed and supported a broad range of social, health, and education developments including the establishment of the Gates Cambridge Scholarships at Cambridge University.

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3 hours ago, ECCOnoob said:

As for your second part I don't see the reason for a cap.  Personally I wouldn't stop at all.   I would aim to earn whatever I can earn until I choose to either stop working or its all spent.

James Dyson recently became the UKs richest man, he has also set up a charitable foundation.

Dyson complained that China benefits from stealing foreign designs and flouting of product copyrights; why not allow any UK firm to make Dysons too, make copyrights cease to exist once they have made a billion.

I know that is an over simplification, but he has made enough money.

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19 minutes ago, El Cid said:

James Dyson recently became the UKs richest man, he has also set up a charitable foundation.

Dyson complained that China benefits from stealing foreign designs and flouting of product copyrights; why not allow any UK firm to make Dysons too, make copyrights cease to exist once they have made a billion.

I know that is an over simplification, but he has made enough money.

Patents already expire after 20 years so people do have limitations on how much they can make before everyone else can just copy their ideas.

 

To add on a financial caps as well would just kill off any incentive to develop.  Why on earth would any company spend sometimes millions or tens of millions on developing and testing and launching their product only for their earnings opportunity to be stifled.

 

Also who are you  or anyone else to judge that someone has made "enough money".   What is this definitive line that seems to be crossed here.  What if that billionaire is creating mass employment and huge contributions to a nation's economy.  Does all that just get tossed aside because they have reached a certain level? 

Edited by ECCOnoob

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12 hours ago, tinfoilhat said:

That's not far off. Unless you do a job purely for the love of it, or the thrill of it, people earn to get stuff. For most it's food, housing and maybe holiday, for the rich it's - presumably- many holidays and perhaps the ability to work less (or stop working) and still have a nice life. And of course to buy more stuff, bigger stuff - the second or third homes, the flash cars and a yacht. That's pretty easy for people worth hundreds of millions. After that, I'll admit I'm a bit lost. Bazos pays his workers peanuts and still accumulates millions- he isn't on his own - he isn't financially limited in any way so it must be a quest for power.

He also pays some of his workers a lot of money - Amazon is the largest cloud computing company in the world. You don't pay your global team of cloud engineers, developers and support staff peanuts unless you want them to leave.

8 hours ago, El Cid said:

James Dyson recently became the UKs richest man, he has also set up a charitable foundation.

Dyson complained that China benefits from stealing foreign designs and flouting of product copyrights; why not allow any UK firm to make Dysons too, make copyrights cease to exist once they have made a billion.

I know that is an over simplification, but he has made enough money.

Because some products cost over a billion to develop in the first place; why would anyone bother if by the the time you've sold enough product to make a return on your investment you give it away to your competitor who has no outlay to recoup and can sell it cheaper?

 

With this model in place, you'd have no innovation in the world. Drug patents exist for this very reason.

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21 hours ago, muddycoffee said:

It depends how you count being "a Millionaire". (Assets value + Lifetime earnings) would put quite a proportion of the Local population in that bracket.

£25k (Average) x 40 years means most people now will earn that anyhow over a working career.

I used net asset value which is the usual reference point

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On 31/05/2020 at 15:04, carosio said:

Yes, you can't prosecute anyone whose actions are legal.

But only the wealthy can afford the fees of the top notch accountants who can seek out and implement the loopholes. Might be legal but moral??????

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7 hours ago, catmiss said:

But only the wealthy can afford the fees of the top notch accountants who can seek out and implement the loopholes. Might be legal but moral??????

They're not always loopholes. In answer, this is a quotation by Lord Clyde, a senior Scottish judge:

 

"No man in the country is under the smallest obligation, moral or other, so to arrange his legal relations to his business or property as to enable the Inland Revenue to put the largest possible shovel in his stores. The Inland Revenue is not slow, and quite rightly, to take every advantage which is open to it under the Taxing Statutes for the purposes of depleting the taxpayer's pocket. And the taxpayer is in like manner entitled to be astute to prevent, so far as he honestly can, the depletion of his means by the Inland Revenue"

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On 31/05/2020 at 12:18, makapaka said:

I don’t think people hate people for being rich.

 

if my neighbour won a million on the lottery I’d be pleased for him.

 

the dislike of lots of rich people is where they arguably become rich at the expense And exploitation  of others - which is unfair.

 

Some of the names mentioned above fall into that category.

 

 

You're spot on there  That sums up my feelings too.  

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On 31/05/2020 at 15:04, carosio said:

Yes, you can't prosecute anyone whose actions are legal.

Not quite so. But you may have meant that you cannot successfully prosecute someone for actions/omissions which are lawful.

After all, every prosecution is against someone for actions/omissions that are allegedly unlawful.

The Court's decision will be whether the accused is guilty or not.

That sometimes depends not only on proof of the actions/omissions but also 'mens rea' (= more or less, whether the accused's actions met the required degree of intention or culpability).

 

Example- the crime of theft, under the Theft Act 1968: a model of clear and concise wording.

This involves:

a. three actions, or at least factual elements; and

b. two intentions.

 

Here's s1(1) in full but vertically, with my additions [A1, A2, A3 and I1,I2]:

 

Basic definition of theft.

(1) A person is guilty of theft if he

dishonestly [I1]

appropriates [A1]

property [A2]

belonging to another [A3]

with the intention of permanently depriving the other of it [I2];

and “thief” and “steal” shall be construed accordingly.

 

See http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/1968/60/section/1

Edited by Jeffrey Shaw

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