I'm afraid there are some pretty chunky half-truths in there. The Sunday Times Rich list is not the best basis on which to judge anything, I'm afraid, not least from the fact that most of it is guessed.
I would like to see the analysis of how much of that alleged £155bn of wealth has been made and how much is income Vs wealth. My guess is as follows:
Mr Meacher picks 3 years against which to base his analysis no doubt because the massive drop in asset prices in 2008 has meant a big bounce back following that. This merely reflects the fact that most of the people on the list are owners of companies and property, and since the value of their companies and property dropped massively in 2008, they have since recovered. This is hardly a dramatic tale of how the rich manage to prosper in the bad times.
It is also pretty important to note that many of those who feature on the Sunday Times Rich List are not actually British or are Brits abroad. The top of this year's list was as follows:
1. Lakshmi Mittal and family, steel: £12,700m
2. Alisher Usmanov, mining and investment: £12,315m
3. Roman Abramovich, oil and industry: £9,500m
4. Sri and Gopi Hinduja, industry and finance: £8,600m
5. Leonard Blavatnik, industry: £7,580m
6. Ernesto and Kirsty Bertarelli, pharmaceuticals: £7,400m
7. The Duke of Westminster, property: £7,350m
8. David and Simon Reuben, property and internet: £7,083m
9. John Fredriksen and family, shipping and oil services: £6,600m
10. Galen and George Weston and family: retailing: £5,900m
It is a nice bit of politics from Mr Meacher, but playing around with numbers to poke the government in the eye doesn't really help with the real issue, which is how do you pay down a debt without crippling the economy. That is not easy, and I didn't notice Mr Meacher offering a solution other than asking people to sell their companies to pay off the UK government's debt.
I'm afraid there are some pretty chunky half-truths in there. The Sunday Times Rich list is not the best basis on which to judge anything, I'm afraid, not least from the fact that most of it is guessed.
ReplyDeleteI would like to see the analysis of how much of that alleged £155bn of wealth has been made and how much is income Vs wealth. My guess is as follows:
Mr Meacher picks 3 years against which to base his analysis no doubt because the massive drop in asset prices in 2008 has meant a big bounce back following that. This merely reflects the fact that most of the people on the list are owners of companies and property, and since the value of their companies and property dropped massively in 2008, they have since recovered. This is hardly a dramatic tale of how the rich manage to prosper in the bad times.
It is also pretty important to note that many of those who feature on the Sunday Times Rich List are not actually British or are Brits abroad. The top of this year's list was as follows:
1. Lakshmi Mittal and family, steel: £12,700m
2. Alisher Usmanov, mining and investment: £12,315m
3. Roman Abramovich, oil and industry: £9,500m
4. Sri and Gopi Hinduja, industry and finance: £8,600m
5. Leonard Blavatnik, industry: £7,580m
6. Ernesto and Kirsty Bertarelli, pharmaceuticals: £7,400m
7. The Duke of Westminster, property: £7,350m
8. David and Simon Reuben, property and internet: £7,083m
9. John Fredriksen and family, shipping and oil services: £6,600m
10. Galen and George Weston and family: retailing: £5,900m
It is a nice bit of politics from Mr Meacher, but playing around with numbers to poke the government in the eye doesn't really help with the real issue, which is how do you pay down a debt without crippling the economy. That is not easy, and I didn't notice Mr Meacher offering a solution other than asking people to sell their companies to pay off the UK government's debt.