This private education that your parents paid for, did it include basic English language by any chance?

Because if it did, they were robbed

Do you really think Oxfam would publish a report at Davos claiming what they do if someone at the back of the class could simply raise their hand and suggest it is just a coincidence the money is held in a tax haven because they also have "strong banking and accounting systems in place"?

Do you really not think they did some research before they made this claim?

I mentioned the gap between the elite and the rest and why this is a bad thing it has become so large. The Oxfam report was specifically about the fact (and the effects of) a mere 85 people have so much wealth and with respect to tax havens that companies and individuals have $18.5tn stashed away.

Sure soccer players get obscene amounts of money but even they aren't in this list or who the report is directed toward.

My point is that as Mintball mentioned while this wealth is sat there doing nothing the poor and disabled suffer in this country and elsewhere and we have Osborne saying it is this section of society he is gunning for post 2015.



It's not the same but it is no justification for what is happening to genuinely vulnerable people. It is the excuse all right.



But you object to the level of benefits people legally receive as according to you it does not incentivise enough. You disagree with something set by a freely elected government in power yet are saying because tax havens exist for the same reason that is just tough luck?

You can't have it both ways.

You are also reiterating the trickle down mantra once again. They contribute in some way so it is OK they hoard $18.5tn in a tax haven. Why is that acceptable when it could be so much better employed in the economy?

Why are they hoarding it? To what purpose?

As to the fact these places exist being due to laws set by government you do realise that part of the problem is attempts by government to change these laws are met with huge resistance that people who might be set to lose their housing benefit or facing the bedroom tax simply cannot muster against the same governments?

The attempts to get tax laws changed to make International companies like Amazon liable for tax on earnings here have been going on for years for example but face a huge amount of corporate lobbying against it. This does not seem particularly democratic to me.



There is a difference between incentivising people to work as a principle and how you go about it. A living wage would incentivise a lot more people if you think the differential is the issue. What this has to do with the overall point though I am not sure.



Benefit scroungers impact you far less than the "Tax Gap" does. According to HMRC that was £35bn in 2011-12. In contrast the government puts benefit fraud at $1.5bn.

Why are you so disproportionately annoyed at those committing benefit fraud compared to those who give us a £35bn tax gap?



They aren't using it. That is the point. They are hoarding it. If they didn't we'd all be be better off. I really do not think we are talking about sensible amounts of cash reserves.

Is this you?



Because you're trying to move the goalposts – and not for the first time.

Just as you have also, in this thread, dodged questions and points – yet again – by just launching into one of your usual bits of spiel about 'well, we can't all be equal'.

Most here have not and do not talk of 'equal' in the way you're using it. They talk of 'fairness', which you consistently avoid. If you don't believe in fairness, perhaps you should just come straight out and admit it.

As for "principles': are you still the same person who whinges about 'benefits scroungers', citing a relative of yours as being one – who you have allowed to continue to be a 'scrounger' because you haven't actually reported them?

Very little. Which is rather the point.

Indeed, you said

It's 'utopia'.

And so you see no reason to work to change that? You have no problem with your fellow citizens needing to use foodbanks, for instance?

Are you familiar with the word

You constantly 'deflect' – your introduction of the subject was just such an example.

They're you're "issues".

Mind, it's hilarious and utterly illogical. Apple are the industry standard, as I have previously explained, so in your little world, I should refuse to use the industry standard and find some computer that is über ethical (it probably doesn't exist) and probably lose work in the process, possibly to the extent of then needing to apply for benefits – which would please you no end, because then you could whinge about that.

I live in the world as it exists

You waited for the police to act?

Tut tut.

There's plenty of research out there suggesting that lack of opportunity and poverty are two factors in increased childbirth. Perhaps there's a reason that the well-to-do and those with good educations and with careers rarely have large numbers of children?

Perhaps, in a 'fairer' model of society, fewer people would be so inclined to have so many children.

That, and proper sex education and, one would hope, a decline in the sort of religiously-inspred attitudes that laud large families and damn contraception, abortion and, often, much in the way of the sort of opportunities for women mentioned fleetingly above.

OK BP in 2012 they had residual cash after tax of 19bn this included invested 23bn in capital projects - what do you think they should do with that money? When they have given all this money away how do they fund another Gulf of Mexico clean up. They pay huge dividends too which benefits loads of ordinary people through pension funds

These big companies generate huge sums of cash just through their ordinary activities Apple had 147bn of cash and that is after they paid $9bn in taxation.

These companies have to put the monies somewhere and like you with you ISA or share save scheme they are looking for the most tax efficient way of storing these monies

On the difference between benefits and working, I have consistently said remove employers NI from all low earners - say anyone earning <17k and pay it to directly to the employee. Even the government has woken up to the ideal it is the net that matters not the gross.

I've had a read of the article, and it isn't clear on how it measures "wealth"
Reading the thread, it seems we're assuming it's cash.
I'm not sure that's really the case though, and any measure of wealth would usually include assets. So if, for example, Bill Gates spend $10b on a yacht, he's still classed as having that $10b as part of his measure of wealth, but you would also think in spending that $10b it has also "trickled down" to the yacht maker, their workers and suppliers and their staff etc.

Why don't you understand the difference between how much a company generates, where it keeps it and what it does with it compared to what Oxfam is complaining about?

The Oxfam report does not adopt the naive position you want to imply.

Of course large corporations generate large amounts of cash. It is what they do with it and where they keep it for tax purposes that is the issue.

As to Apple they have been criticized by numerous economists and analysts for sitting on the cash. They even had one large investor insisting they did a share buy-back so his investment would increase in value.

However, the fact Apple have a large cash reserve and this is frowned upon by many who are fully paid up members of to the capitalist system only lends weight to what Oxfam are saying. It certainly doesn't detract from it and your argument we should all stop using Apple products is pretty childish (mind you I personally only own one Apple product, an Apple TV and that will be being replaced by a non-Apple product soon).



You are deflecting the issue again and that idea won't work anyway as explained previously.

Why have you not answered the question as to why you are more bothered about £1.5bn of benefit fraud than a tax gap of £35bn?

I don't know how many yachts the owners of Wall Mart have but it has been well documented recently that their workers in the US have had to resort to food banks as has been their low pay. Given what the report says about half the worlds wealth being held by such a tiny minority, of which the Wall Mart owners are part, what more evidence do you need that their wealth isn't trickling down and the trickle down effect is a fantasy invented by the right to justify their continued control of and hoarding of Capital?

What do the owners of Wal-Mart do with the wealth they're hoarding? Is it cash stuffed in a mattress?

In [iThe Wal-Mart Effect[/i, Charles Fishman discovered – to his surprise – that five years after a new Wal-Mart tin box had landed in any area, local poverty levels had increased.

Pay their employees better – which will boost local and national economies as well.

And change a policy of driving down prices, year on year, with the concomitant effect of driving down quality of goods and/or driving companies out of business or abroad – which again will boost local economies as well as the national economy.

Deflection - coming from an expert here - not one word on BP and the trickle down benefit of the dividends and taxation they pay out!!

I asked you what these companies should do with these monies - not an answer

I asked you how these companies are supposed to pay for business disaster such as a Gulf of Mexico or a downturn in business if they haven't got these cash reserves - just like the banks didn't have sufficient reserves, simple we all suffer.

I answered your question about benefit fraud and tax avoidance about 4 post ago - you like Poloball must struggle with reading. Those who avoid tax do at least employ people and pay dividends so they do may a contribution to society as a whole, benefit fraud only takes from society as a whole - is that simple enough for you to understand?

On the minimum wage you said it would not bring the level up to the agreed living wage - that is not the same as saying give the lower paid a 14% salary increase would increase the incentive to work.

No it is your turn to answer some of the questions - start with the trickle down effect of Mr Gates boat - something you just dodged yet again.

Sal, talking of "deflection", why do you never answer any questions dealing with the ethics/philosophy of such issues?

You never, for instance, explain why you don't think that a fairer society would be a good thing and should be worked for. You simply dismiss the mere idea.

Or do you believe that it might be a good idea – but it isn't going to happen so why bother trying?

But behind your stated view of a fairer society as being simply a fact of life, there must be a philosophical basis for the apparently concomitant belief that there's no point trying; one that explains why it is not only impossible to change things, but why one should not try. What is it?