More Multi-millionaires than ever!

Written By: - Date published: 11:59 am, January 16th, 2017 - 98 comments
Categories: capitalism, class, class war, quality of life, Steven Joyce - Tags:

More extremely rich people. It’s a good thing! It must be, because over the years, headlines in various outlets and referring to various countries have uncritically reported the rise in the number of millionaires or billionaires as though it’s something to quietly celebrate. Underlying the bullshit is the subtle suggestion that if you just work hard enough, make good decisions, be more enterprising or innovative, then you too can enter the halcycon realms of the 1%. It must be possible if the number of millionaires and billionaires is on the rise! Forget that 1% is 1% is 1%. Such annoying arithmetic details are for school kids.

NZ has 20% more people worth over $50 million today than it did in late 2015. Rejoice!!

Or don’t rejoice. Instead, question why the two wealthiest NZers have more wealth than the combined wealth of 30% of us, and see if you can figure out at whose expense their wealth might be coming. Or get agitated over the fact that over 1/3rd of those 252 individuals who are ‘worth’ more than $50 million paid tax on declared income of less than $70 000.

But nah, that’s the politics of envy,  let’s not. Let’s instead, forget about how many people are working their arse off just to earn their poverty. Let’s shut our eyes to the cut backs and funding cuts across swathes of our society. We can all be rich, rich, rich!!!

Let’s fall in behind Steven Joyce proclaiming that it’s inevitable that some people will be more successful than others and that there will always be inequality, but what’s important is that everyone has the opportunity to get ahead in life

It might be laughable if it wasn’t so risible.

98 comments on “More Multi-millionaires than ever! ”

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  1. Draco T Bastard 1
    16 January 2017 at 12:07 pm

    Why do we allow this?
    Why should some people be allowed to own our resources and thus be able to force our people into poverty?

    • Gosman 1.1
      16 January 2017 at 12:11 pm

      How is someone owning a resource forcing you in to poverty?

      • Draco T Bastard 1.1.1
        16 January 2017 at 12:16 pm

        Because it allows them to control the resource.

        Fairly obvious really.

        • Gosman 1.1.1.1
          16 January 2017 at 12:25 pm

          You haven’t answered the question. How does a farmer owning land to grow crops on make you personally poorer?

          • adam 1.1.1.1.1
            16 January 2017 at 12:41 pm

            So the wholesale ownership of finite resources in fewer hands is freedom in your universe, how Gossy?

            • Gosman 1.1.1.1.1.1
              16 January 2017 at 12:45 pm

              Again with this idea that somehow resources are running out and therefore we have to start rationing everything. That is simply not correct. Any shortages are generally the result of artificial constraints not because the World is running out of useful and usable resources. Even farm land is not in short supply.

              • adam …
                16 January 2017 at 12:55 pm

                It’s not the seventies were are not arguing peek oil.

                See how easy it is to misrepresent argument gossy? I can do it too.

                What I said, as a second time is necessary because you are being obtuse as always. We live in a finite world, space and resources are not the argument, it’s who owns them —- that dwindling number of individual who own significantly more than anyone else.

                The fact you can’t see that is actually a worry, I thought you were a Capitalist libertarian? Most of the libertarians I know, know the dangers of monopoly. You seem blissfully ignorant, have you read wealth of nations?

              • katipo …
                16 January 2017 at 1:47 pm

                It’s not just ownership of resources that’s the issue, it’s when greedy owners/consumers of resources avoid accounting for the true costs they have created e.g. through producing greenhouse gasses, generating waste, contaminating waterways & exploiting workers etc.

              • Draco T Bastard …
                16 January 2017 at 2:24 pm

                Any shortages are generally the result of artificial constraints not because the World is running out of useful and usable resources. Even farm land is not in short supply.

                See, that is pure delusion.

                All resources are limited – especially considering that we don’t recycle. And farmland is most definitely running out – quite a lot of it is actually washed down rivers by the poor farming practices that our farmers use and the clear cutting of forests.

                Much present farmland isn’t really farmland as it’s simply not suitable for farming on.

                We have this delusion that we can simply cut down forest and farm and everything will be alright. Reality is proving that wrong already in decreasing soil quality and climate change.

              • Paul Campbell …
                17 January 2017 at 8:03 am

                Sure they’re making more prime Auckland real-state every day right? A new Rangitoto going off daily? the constraint is that there are things already on that land, while one might argue that that is an ‘artificial’ constraint it’s not because it’s thy very act of using the land that causes it to be unavailable

                Usable farm land is in short supply only if you assume that farmers have a right to discharge as much waste into our streams as they like. In reality the existing farmers have already polluted the local environment past the point that we can tolerate, banning the addition of more pollution is not ‘artificial’ it’s common sense

              • Tricledrown …
                17 January 2017 at 11:11 am

                So how come drought’s are dropping production world wide gooseman.
                More people less land.
                Monopolization of resources is stopping competitive free trade.

          • Draco T Bastard 1.1.1.1.2
            16 January 2017 at 2:19 pm

            Because it deprives those who have need of those resources.
            Because it allows, under the present system, for that farmer to demand even more for those resources making them richer and everyone else poorer.

            This is the real, physical economy that we’re talking about here rather than the delusional monetary one that economists and RWNJs want to believe is real.

            • Brutus Iscariot 1.1.1.1.2.1
              16 January 2017 at 2:25 pm

              Except if you turned that farm over to the benes down the street, productivity would tank and the nation wouldn’t be able to feed itself, let alone export.

              Sort of like what happened in Zimbabwe.

              • Draco T Bastard …
                16 January 2017 at 2:36 pm

                What a load of bollocks.

                What happened in Zimbabwe was that the farmland got turned over to the corrupt villains at the top rather than the people who were actually working it. You know, people who didn’t know how to farm and didn’t give a shit about the people now deprived.

                This is what really happens when workers take over:

                Emerging out of a decade of rabid privatisation, the leaders of Argentina’s recovered factory movement advocate a different way of doing business. Among the most important principles are equal employee ownership and horizontal management. At MacBody, for example, executive positions are rotated every two years and everyone receives the same salary at the end of the month.

                “When you’re used to wearing blinkers for 20 years, then it’s not always easy to start making decisions for yourself”, admits Díaz. On the plus side, he says his job is now more flexible and varied. “We all exchange tasks, so one day I can be working on the cutting table, another I might be going to the bank and another I could be on the road selling our products.”

                • Brutus Iscariot …
                  16 January 2017 at 2:40 pm

                  Instead of vilifying those successful in life, you should actually try to emulate their success and then use that wealth to do some good (like the charitable efforts of Bill Gates).

                  • Bill …
                    16 January 2017 at 2:47 pm

                    Or instead of lauding thieving selfish bastards (as many rich people are) as somehow “successful”, maybe you should have a sit down and think about what real success might look like? (Hint: it’s not a bank account or ledger containing an integer followed by many zeros)

                  • Draco T Bastard …
                    16 January 2017 at 2:53 pm

                    I don’t consider those stealing from others to be successful.

                  • One Two …
                    16 January 2017 at 4:45 pm

                    Pointing to Bill Gates as a positive example , illustrates the level you operate at

                    So as you are under no illusion..

                    That level is, low!

                  • Paul …
                    16 January 2017 at 4:48 pm

                    Bill Gates saved a lot more by not paying his due in taxes than he gave away.

                  • Venezia …
                    16 January 2017 at 10:44 pm

                    “Emulate their success” at:
                    – paying very little if any tax?
                    – walking all over the rights of workers who generate that wealth?
                    – lying & cheating in all sorts of ways?
                    – ignoring the health and safety of their workers?
                    I am old enough to have known fine examples of all these features in people greedy to make more and more money, who had/have lost their moral compass, and then deride those poorer than themselves.

              • Bill …
                16 January 2017 at 2:43 pm

                And that will be no more or no less the case if the land was turned over to the dentists, the accountants, the lawyers, the factory workers, the judges… farming is something that people do successfully off the back of accrued knowledge.

                But nice piece of lamentable “bene bashing”. 🙄

                • Brutus Iscariot …
                  16 January 2017 at 3:52 pm

                  Bashing the rich is just as lamentable.

                  Your Cullen-style “rich prick” bashing has proven to go down like a damp squib with the electorate. They’re no more or less moral than you, but the petty vindictiveness with which the likes of you and Draco approach the situation is as reprehensible as Marie Antoinette’s “let them eat cake”.

                  • Bill …
                    16 January 2017 at 4:09 pm

                    Oh, I only don’t have any time for the rich who are “thieving selfish bastards”. I know rich people who are decent human beings.

                    As for “thieving selfish bastards” being no more or less moral than me…fuck right off.

                    And you do know (the sweet fucking irony of it!) that Marie Antoinette’s supposed utterance came from her ignorance and not her contempt for humanity, yes?

              • Red …
                16 January 2017 at 7:53 pm

                Dope would be cheap

              • Tricledrown …
                17 January 2017 at 11:16 am

                Zimbabwe’s colonization enslaving the black indigenous population caused the problems associated with decolonization.
                Farming is recovering a indigenous people are learning how to farm the land that was occupied by white settlers.

          • HDCAFriendlyTroll 1.1.1.1.3
            16 January 2017 at 2:49 pm

            All farmland should be collectivised like in Stalinist Russia and Maoist China. You remember don’t you? There was so much food to around everyone lived like kings!

            🙂

            • Draco T Bastard 1.1.1.1.3.1
              16 January 2017 at 2:57 pm

              Why would we do that?

            • adam 1.1.1.1.3.2
              16 January 2017 at 4:02 pm

              Ah, when you can’t win an argument via logic, call everyone a member of the regressive left.

              Sheesh HDCAFriendlyTroll, are you really that stupid?

              Do you think people can’t see how authoritarianism both left and right is bloody awful?

              Who here argued for authoritarianism?

              I think you just did a Godwin, pretty sure at this stage we can include Mao and Stalin in the same group as Hitler.

            • Manicsmith 1.1.1.1.3.3
              16 January 2017 at 5:29 pm

              Typical strawman argument. No one here is arguing for any sort of Stalin/communist collectivized forms. Could easily counter point any of those as being right-wing dictators monopolizing all for themselves.

            • Tricledrown 1.1.1.1.3.4
              17 January 2017 at 11:20 am

              Just like is happening with unfettered Capitalism where more and more land is becoming unproductive.
              River destroyed by industrial farming and Tourism bringing unwanted destructive pests.
              Capitalism kills to.

          • Red Hand 1.1.1.1.4
            16 January 2017 at 7:54 pm

            To Gosman at 1.1.1.1 Some Indian farmers are poorer because their land has been taken to grow biofuel crops.

            http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/06/20116711756667987.html

      • Paul 1.1.2
        16 January 2017 at 12:45 pm

        Are you for real?

  2. Gosman 2
    16 January 2017 at 12:10 pm

    Why does someone elses wealth have to come at the expense of anybody? If I provide something that everybody wants and are willing to make me wealthy to acquire it for themselves then no one is being screwed over.

    • Clump_AKA Sam 2.1
      16 January 2017 at 12:17 pm

      You won’t radicalise me fish

    • Bill 2.2
      16 January 2017 at 12:17 pm

      There is a pie. The pie is ‘this big’. The pie does not grow on trees. The pie is finite. Accruing wealth is basically securing a bigger share of the pie.

      See if you can work it out (I’ll help you).

      If your slice of the pie is very large (disproportionately large), then the pie that remains for everyone else is that much smaller due to your really big piece having been carved off.

      Geddit?

      • Gosman 2.2.1
        16 January 2017 at 12:24 pm

        Therein lies the failure of left wing politics. An economy is not a pie that somehow needs to be divided up and if one person gets more then another gets less.

        • adam 2.2.1.1
          16 January 2017 at 12:38 pm

          I love how when you lose a argument Gossy, you go for abuse. The failure of ‘the left’, who is this left you speak of?

          Coupled with a deliberate misrepresent of an argument.

          Any chance you could offer up a real argument? Too soon?

          • Gosman 2.2.1.1.1
            16 January 2017 at 12:41 pm

            I didn’t offer up the whole ‘The economy is a fixed pie and therefore if someone gets more then someone else must get less’ puerile argument. It was Bill. Take it up with Bill if you want to discuss this in more detail. I find the lack of thought behind it tiresome.

            • adam 2.2.1.1.1.1
              16 January 2017 at 12:47 pm

              What lack of thought, the 1 paragraph to describe complex ideas of a finite economy.

              You on the other hand, go straight for belittle and not try to explain your reasoning at all. You have not offered a rebuttal, just abuse, do better.

              Because reading how you responded with shows you have no idea what the pie analogy means. It’s not about that all, but I’ll let you see if you can work it out. Here is a hint, finite resources.

              • Bill …
                16 January 2017 at 12:57 pm

                Maybe I should have added something about possession and control of the wealth generating ingredients that contribute to making an ever bigger pie in a finite world, and pointed out that the pie, no matter how big it becomes, remains finite, and that the inequitable divvying up of the pie at best stays proportionately the same no matter how big the pie is.

                But anyway. Gosman just got banned for the day. So no need to engage with that level of deliberate nonsense any more today.

              • In Vino …
                16 January 2017 at 9:52 pm

                I would add that Gooseman consistently fails to put the importance of society and its health above the importance of the economy. He still seems to believe that failed dogma of the 80s – ‘Let’s get the economy right first, then we can afford spending for social health.’ Goosie’s policies cause the rich to get richer, and society’s health to deteriorate. Anything leftish that promotes the health of society overall will be pinpricked by Goosey postulating dumb situations – such as ‘Explain to me how Mary getting a bag of jellybeans causes Jack to fall down and break his crown.’ He wastes our time – please extend the ban.

          • HDCAFriendlyTroll 2.2.1.1.2
            16 January 2017 at 2:51 pm

            The pie is infinite.

            Good enough?

      • BM 2.2.2
        16 January 2017 at 12:25 pm

        I would have thought fractional reserve banking makes the pie infinite?

    • Draco T Bastard 2.3
      16 January 2017 at 12:19 pm

      Why does someone elses wealth have to come at the expense of anybody

      Because that’s how it is. in reality. Wealth is the physical resources that the nation has and is needed to house, clothe and feed people. If a few people own all of it then everyone else must have none of it.

      • Clump_AKA Sam 2.3.1
        16 January 2017 at 12:22 pm

        That’s worth a comment. Might use that some time

        [You yourself said some time last week that you only came over here to see how long it would take you to be banned. Your comments are routinely or habitually irrelevant. It took until now for some-ones patience to run out. Six months] – Bill

      • Brutus Iscariot 2.3.2
        16 January 2017 at 2:01 pm

        Wealth is far from being just a physical resource.

        • Draco T Bastard 2.3.2.1
          16 January 2017 at 2:32 pm

          No, it’s not.

          Or, to be more precise, the value is how well the limited physical resources that we have are utilised to provide for our society. Our present system is designed to make a few people rich while depriving everyone else with that deprivation then used as a goad to make those few even richer and everyone else thus poorer.

          This is not the best outcome. In fact, it’s the worst.

          • Brutus Iscariot 2.3.2.1.1
            16 January 2017 at 2:34 pm

            Well, the top two NZ’ers cited there don’t have tens of billions of dollars worth of farmland, their net worth is most likely tied up in the value of their companies (that they created from scratch).

            • Draco T Bastard 2.3.2.1.1.1
              16 January 2017 at 2:47 pm

              that they created from scratch

              No they didn’t.

              They may have started them but it was the workers and the community that got and kept them going. Without the workers they’d still be limited to what they can do themselves which is very little. Without that ownership they wouldn’t have access to the money that they’re stealing from the workers.

              Without that theft they then wouldn’t have the wherewithal to buy shares other companies and thus steal from even more people.

              Make businesses all worker coops and watch how fast those ‘rich’ people become very poor.

            • Bill 2.3.2.1.1.2
              16 January 2017 at 2:53 pm

              These companies the two gents you wish the conversation to revolve have. What do they produce or what socially useful service do they provide? Do they primarily produce money for their own good selves? Or do they primarily produce something else altogether?

    • Red Hand 2.4
      16 January 2017 at 8:08 pm

      To Gosman at 2. Not everybody wants junk food, but enough people do want it to make providers very wealthy at the same time “screwing over” the health of the consumers, while the health budget (not the junk food providers) foots the bill.

      http://www.forbes.com/pictures/gfji45lje/junk-food-billionaires/#25561b8cb238

      Rosenheck R. Fast food consumption and increased caloric intake: a systematic review of a trajectory towards weight gain and obesity risk. Obes Rev. 2008; 9:535-47.

      Jeffery RW, Baxter J, McGuire M, Linde J. Are fast food restaurants an environmental risk factor for obesity? Int J Behav Nutr Phys Act. 2006; 3:2.

      Pereira MA, Kartashov AI, Ebbeling CB, Van Horn L, Slattery ML, Jacobs DR Jr, et al. Fast-food habits, weight gain, and insulin resistance (the CARDIA study): 15-year prospective analysis. Lancet. 2005; 365:36-42.

    • Tricledrown 2.5
      17 January 2017 at 11:35 am

      Making a profit while destroying the environment is theft.
      Wealth becomes hoarding to obtain power to control others.
      Wealth monopolization money from Oliagarch’s is used to undermine democracy .
      If we had a democratically elected World govt.
      Resources and wealth would be shared more equally.
      That’s why the selfish right want to disband the likes of the UN and EU.
      Islam is feared by the right wing because being super wealthy is looked down on.
      ie harder for a wealthy man to get to heaven than a camel getting through the eye of a neadle.
      The wealthy don’t like Democracy don’t like poor people having an equal vote.
      The wealthy don’t like poor people having opinions.
      Hence you Gooseman the whipping boy trolling the lefts website trying to spread cynical lies and BS.

  3. Keith 3
    16 January 2017 at 12:30 pm

    Meanwhile National woefully under fund education, waste money on Charter Schools, have eliminated adult education and dictate/pick winners in their warped opinion of what subjects will be partially subsidised at university.

    Somehow, someway Mr Joyce still thinks dumb arse comments like that are somehow supposed to sweep this annoying little issue under the carpet.

  4. Ad 4
    16 January 2017 at 12:36 pm

    Current real estate boom making a million kiwis worth a million on paper minus their mortgages: eyes spinning dollar signs.

  5. Whispering Kate 5
    16 January 2017 at 12:51 pm

    How two houses sold five times in four days – how healthy is an economy when this goes on – today’s Herald – and two investers made a heap of dosh doing it – no wonder the wedge of pie is getting smaller by the day. Left to our own devices us human beings just run amok and like little children need regulations to keep our mischief and excesses in check. There will be tears before bedtime at the rate this economy is running out of control. Joyce can babble on all he wants, the man is an idiot and a liar about NZ and everything being under control.

    • adam 5.1
      16 January 2017 at 1:11 pm

      Whispering Kate, I’m not sure there is much control in the economy at the moment. They are trying desperately hard to help corporations make money on one hand, and on the other going hard out to squash any form of penny capitalism that working people might be doing.

      English as finance minister was quite brutal on penny capitalism, from trying to tax it, to making villains out of people engaged in it. It’s been a hard 9 years.

  6. Whispering Kate 6
    16 January 2017 at 1:33 pm

    It never makes sense to me, Governments are always wanting more tax and more revenue to fund their pet schemes. Nothing makes a Government happier than wallowing in mud off the poor taxpayer. Where they are trying to net in this wealth is not a bottomless pit so why on earth aren’t they going for the wealthy people and capturing the tax off them as well. The Government seems to struggle year in year out getting less and less off low-waged people who only pay low-waged tax, people on benefits who pay their tax but its commensurate with the pittance they receive and there is all this wealth floating around which they could be drag netting in.

    I realise these wealthy are buddies of the Governments of the day but Governments can be mean bastards as is shown on a daily basis and have no conscience so I can’t see it being such a difficult thing for them to do – morale of this story everybody is happy, society becomes civil once again and they have money to play with in their grubby hands and can stay out of debt.

    That’s in a real world.

  7. Puckish Rogue 7
    16 January 2017 at 3:50 pm

    First day back commenting and an article is published that’s designed to bring out the envious

    Good times 🙂

    • adam 7.2
      16 January 2017 at 4:08 pm

      Oh poor me I’m so envious, sheesh no wonder we can’t have a conversation with you lot, you drop cliches faster than people can squeeze out a fart.

      • Puckish Rogue 7.2.1
        16 January 2017 at 4:13 pm

        As opposed to the viewpoint that if someone is rich (depending on the definition which seems to change daily) then they must be a bad person

        • adam 7.2.1.1
          16 January 2017 at 4:18 pm

          More cliches, sheesh Puck, clear out the cobwebs mate.

          You the only one making that judgement, so you think rich = good?

          • Puckish Rogue 7.2.1.1.1
            16 January 2017 at 4:29 pm

            No, I think rich = rich and good = good and that the two are separate

            • Paul 7.2.1.1.1.1
              16 January 2017 at 4:31 pm

              You spend a lot of time defending the actions of the rich.
              By their actions you shall know them….

        • Bill 7.2.1.2
          16 January 2017 at 4:21 pm

          Who said that material wealth was a de-facto indication of ‘badness’?

          Acknowledging that our market economy increasingly advantages a shrinking number of people and questioning why we allow it to continue – refusing to dance a jig of celebration for the good fortune of extremely wealthy individuals…how is this the stuff of maligning all materially rich individuals?

          • Puckish Rogue 7.2.1.2.1
            16 January 2017 at 4:27 pm

            The general impression of some (not all) is that if you have wealth then you must be bad because someone else is poor and that, somehow, you should be able to split the difference and no one should be poor

          • Tony Veitch (not the partner-bashing 3rd rate broadcaster 7.2.1.2.2
            16 January 2017 at 4:43 pm

            “We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have both.”

            Louis D. Brandeis

        • Tricledrown 7.2.1.3
          17 January 2017 at 11:45 am

          PR we want everyone to be rich enough to feed clothe house educate themselves.
          When people hoard vast sums of money that prevents others becoming rich enough to enjoy the basics.
          Then use the power that huge wealth creates to prevent others getting even the basics in life.
          Trolling to spread cynicism trying to undermine opinions with your Pathetic Rhetoric
          Is what you are paid to do.

    • Whispering Kate 7.3
      16 January 2017 at 9:03 pm

      Puckish – if everybody was on a decent living wage and a roof over their heads nobody would give a shit if there were obscenely wealthy people -contrary to what you may think most people do not want to be obscenely wealthy -they just want to be able to pay their accounts, have a decent holiday once a year, feed their kids, all those normal things that normal people want, not the excessive greed that the 1% drive for. There are people like me that could afford to have a pretty nice home in a pretty exclusive area, it would bore me to death living with money grubbing folk living alongside me. Give us a break, we are not envious just staggered at the huge gulf in equity which is prevalent in in his country. It will come to tears in the end, extremes in anything are not healthy – logic tells us this. Get off our backs and stop defending the wealthy as if it is the ultimate for living – it is not and the people who post here find it repugnant to the extreme.

      Go play trains on another site.

  8. Cinny 8
    16 January 2017 at 5:52 pm

    There are those who measure wealth in monetary value.

    We all agree that we need money, because money is a measure of wealth, but money is not wealth, it is merely a man made measure of wealth an invention, like a ruler or a measuring tape.

    Wealth is our planet as well as energy and intelligence, it is not money.

    Almost all human beings have our intelligence and energy used to increase the wealth of others

    Being alarmed at the wealth of these two people, is not jealousy,
    it’s sympathy for those who are enslaved     in a system


    So what if money was no object…..?

  9. Richard@Downsouth 9
    16 January 2017 at 6:19 pm

    Trickle down theory doesnt work

    Minimum wages makes the economy better

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CKCvf8E7V1g

  10. Wayne 10
    16 January 2017 at 8:35 pm

    Just to take the point about the two wealthiest New Zealanders. Both made the bulk of their money overseas, Chandler in Russia and Singapore as an international financier. No doubt he benefitted from the helter skelter situation in Russia 15 to 20 years ago.

    But neither of them made their money in New Zealand, so the example though dramatic says nothing about wealth inequality in New Zealand.

    Now taking the broader group of those with $50 million or more (though of course we don’t know their debt situation). A large percentage of them will be in Auckland. Given that property prices have gone up by more than 20% in the last couple of years,why is this in any way a surprise. Many of these people own commercial property, expensive houses, etc. You don’t have to own very many commercial properties to have $50 million in assets, never mind a house worth $5 to $10 million.

    In doing so how have they made any else poorer?

    I guess this is a question of perspective.

    As a general rule the right (and centre-right) do not believe that the success of rich people makes other people poorer. We consider the facts/evidence points the opposite. That in a modern moderate market economies everyone gets better off. New Zealand being a case in point. For the last 5 years average incomes have grown faster than inflation, due to the success of the economy.

    At least some, perhaps most, on the left think that rich people make people poorer. While I acknowledge that the Scandinavians have a lower wealth spread than say Australia and New Zealand, they are still market economies with lots of rich people.

    The failures basically exist in countries which are not market economies. In such economies there is not a huge gap between the wealth and the poor. But all of them have done less well than market economies. East and West Europe provided the test case from 1945 to 1990. Without exception Eastern Europe got relatively poorer. And worse, to enforce socialism, you basically have to stop people having economic freedom and choices. Such a state is not compatible with democracy, they have to be police states. Because in democracies people consistently choose market economies of one type or another.

    So there will always be a significant wealth spread in market economies. It can be moderated, but as experience shows, with no greater control than Scandinavia.

    • Paul 10.1
      16 January 2017 at 8:41 pm

      As a member of a government that facilitated the transfer of cash from the poor to the rich, before you comment, you need to apologise.

    • Tricledrown 10.2
      17 January 2017 at 11:54 am

      Chandler lost most of the money he made in Russia .
      They told him to fuck off and stop plundering.
      Now he is doing the same in Africa.
      Hart made his initial capital through insider trading buying asset’s off local bodies is Dunedin City councils Waipori power producing Dam at insider prices buying it for $25 million $50million under value.
      Then selling 3 months later for a profit of $50 million stealing off the rate payers of Dunedin.
      Now Hart is monopolizing the international packaging market.

  11. Paul 11
    16 January 2017 at 10:02 pm

    Talking of multi-millionaires, here’s a story of New Zealand’s oligarchs from 2012.
    Read it and weep.

    These people were facilitated by Lange’s government.

    Gibbs
    “Gibbs is so enamoured of Austrian neoliberal economist Friedrich Hayek that he has HAYEK as his personalised number plate. “
    Gibbs, who as chief executive of Forestry Corporation in 1986 had chainsawed staff numbers from 7070 to 2770, wanted Telecom staff cut to 6500.

    Also mentioned …..
    Farmer
    Richwhite
    Fay

    The comparisons between them and the Russian oligarchs are many.
    Both sets are traitors to their country and its citizens: they deserve to be in prison for a long time.

    http://www.nzherald.co.nz/business/news/article.cfm?c_id=3&objectid=10824121

    • Bill 12.1
      17 January 2017 at 9:23 am

      Yeah, the rich don’t create poverty, they’re a symptom of it.

      Capitalism throws up a coterie of (in relative terms) wealthy peeps off the back of its most successful product – widespread poverty.

      ‘The west’ bled the colonies and threw some crumbs from that exploitation at its own population resulting in many of the poorer people in the west being comparatively rich in relation to most colonised populations.

      Those crumbs might only have been thrown because elites feared the prospect of the USSR being perceived as a positive example by its own populations.

      Then the USSR collapsed and the crumbs got fewer as ‘the west’ realised it could bleed its own poor by shifting production ‘off-shore’ and by subjecting its own population to the kind of structural adjustments that it had formerly only foisted on ‘the south’. …essentially ‘the west’ moved its colonial project to the doorsteps of its own populations free in the knowledge that no threat of ‘good examples’ (however flawed) existed that might ‘tempt’ or inspire the ‘great unwashed’.

      • Tricledrown 12.1.1
        17 January 2017 at 11:59 am

        We have this plundering mentality pushed by Nationl.
        Water Shipley and Collins stealing water for Free for massive profit’s.

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