Have you ever noticed something in its absence?

Very good food for thought, thank you all! I try not to hate Trump and the horse he rode in on. What he does, otoh, is impossible to forgive. So far.

Aw screw it!

I've written about half a dozen drafts that disappeared up their own rectums somewhere along the lines, then just finished a draft I was happy with when my browser locks up and dies, but the draft was not saved.

So the TLDR version of a much more eloquent, if browser-killing post, is that while I might be lucky enough to live in a part of the UK where multiculturalism has worked, and where people of different backgrounds and faiths manage to rub along without violence or ghettoisation, you don't have to go many miles in any direction before you come to a town where it's failed, and they're fractured along ethnic, racial or religious lines.

While I'm saddened by Brexit, and by Lord Dampnut's election, and by normally sensible people like Mark Rutte doing a Trump in public, and by the continued existence of Front Nationale as a political force, I'm not surprised. We have allowed division and disunity to enter our society, and we have disempowered everybody... absolutely everybody... from talking about it without shrill voices from the back of the room pointing and screaming, "Arrgghhh, RACISTS!"

Simply vilifying Muslims isn't the right answer. (And Lord Dampnut's travel ban is first degree stupidity). Neither is being over-sensitive and banning necessary discussion because it "might" be racist.

Most, in my experience, don't actually care that we're not Muslim/Christian/Hindu/etc and aren't in the conversion business, so long as we don't care that they're not Pastafarians and try to push our views onto them. Same as any other human I've ever met. But we do need the ability to talk about the Anjem Choudarys of this world, who want to ruin it for everyone. We also do need to be able to talk to the socially-conservative parts of our own societies to understand what they need to be comfortable with the new normal - and make no mistake, increased mobility of peoples is the new normal - without the incredible arrogance we've displayed over the last 20 years. "Suck it up, Little Englanders" won't cut it any more.

The world was moving towards the borderless utopia I dreamed of as a child before Brexit woke me up, so I didn't pay attention to the Little Englanders. Now it's not.

So guys, how are we going to fix this?

Ah, sadly the nature of this crash was that javascript execution had stopped some time before, without me noticing. So no saved drafts at all...

Need to find a tin of air and give this poor old laptop a cleaning. It's a bit warm.

I see wealth redistribution is a recurring theme in your posts and while it would sound like a brilliant solution, in practice there are only very limited ways in which it can work. I read, some time ago, a very long and very detailed thought experiment on what would happen a government confiscated a nation's entire wealth and rebooted the economy, with everybody starting with an identical sum of money.

Brutally paraphrasing the essay, essentially the "money would soon find its way home," because some people understand the rules of money, while for others it slips through their fingers like water through a sieve.

So for wealth redistribution to work, it has to be continuously redistributed, constantly refilling the bottom - this is the nature of the Nordic model economy - but it cannot ever be completely equal otherwise you can never establish the cash cycle that gets people doing the things that need to be done to keep everyone warm, fed and watered. It would also have to be pretty much a worldwide phenomenon, as with enough wealth, borders are merely an inconvenience.

Maybe wait 'til the robots take over...

What I really want to see on my ballot paper, when I go into the polling booth and see listed on the page a selection of sociopaths, narcissists, racists and single issue campaigners, is an entry at the bottom of the form marked, "none of the above." That's what I'd do first.

Then I'll continue making the robots.

Some countries offer "none of the above" on their national ballots. Don't know how well this works. I do know that our country MUST have all paper ballots--counted in public.

The oligarchs at the top never give up power gracefully. Their over sized egos tell them that they worked for and deserve nearly all the money available. So a FAIR redistribution of wealth might start with a job for everyone who wants one and is fit to work. There's plenty of work that needs to be done.

So what happens to the people who don't want to work, or through poor life choices are able bodied but stupid? Or have decided that the job you offer isn't the one they want?

At what point do we say that the idle poor are just as parasitical on society as the megalomaniac rich?

There are things we could do to bring down fat-cat pay. We could postulate a ceiling level of income, and tax any income above that at 100%. We could follow the US example, and make all Britons liable for UK tax, wherever they reside, so preventing people from simply hiding in Monaco. We could legislate to force a limit on wage inequality between the highest and lowest.

But those are bad solutions. The biggest thieves of the lot are central government, and making them responsible for controlling the rich is the very definition of putting the fox in charge of the hen house. In the first instance, anyone earning over the threshold will be tempted to leave the country. In the second, anyone earning over the threshold will also be keen to relinquish their nationality. The third is the least bad, but may have the result that the company reincorporates wherever such a rule is not enforced, or may fail to tempt executives that are actually good, but expensive, to these shores.

If it is to change, then we as shareholders are going to have to elect directors with the bravery and power to set a downward expectation on executive pay, and do so consistently, worldwide. I'll do that right after I've fed my unicorn.

To paraphrase a little of your post "Making the central government responsible for controlling the rich." What the US has now is the rich are controlling the central government. And the billionaires appointed by Trump to his cabinet make this even more apparent.
Those in power will do less than nothing to redress the grievances of the little people. The oligarchy stopped listening or caring long ago.

So, is there any practical course for the man in the street to start changing this hideous state of affairs? All that comes to mind is massive peaceful public disobedience. This requires conviction and courage that aren't easy to come by.

Indeed, what deal is that? As Alan Grayson the Democratic Congressman from Florida once said about the Republican "health care plan," "If you are healthy--stay healthy. If you're ill, die fast."

Actually no, that was not my argument at all. But I do see how I failed to develop my argument properly.

On "money finding its way home:"
Some years ago, flush with cash from a previous overseas role, I made a fantastically stupid financial decision. Having a bank account stuffed with more money than I'd ever seen before, we believed that the hard times were over, we could relax and start enjoying life a bit more. The old TV became a new TV. The new TV came bundled with a Blu-Ray player, and it would be such a shame not to use it, wouldn't it? The house wasn't really in our kind of area, but hmm, it's not really in good condition after being empty so long, so why don't we move to a rented place while I fix it up? Hmm, wouldn't it be nice to have some new sofas, and oh, hey, new laptop and...

... fast forward a couple of years, and I'm trying to work out by what magic I can both eat and pay all the bills.

And in this regard, I resembled the overwhelming majority* of the population who, when they suddenly come into money, go shopping.

The habits of not buying the latest toys, of living on less than what you earn, and of using the excess to buy the means of production rather than the product itself do not come naturally to all but a few.

The point of that statement was this:

if we took today's society, with today's people, and did nothing but strip "the rich" of their wealth and give it to the poor then, because people are people, and most people are fools when it comes to money, after a decade or so "the rich" would probably have most of their money back. Why? Because they buy the business and not the product.
* One of the UK debt charities produces a report on earning, saving and spending patterns. I'll try to find a link in a later edit as the hotel internet isn't great, but the evidence is there - regardless of age, race or income, very few are willing to live within their means, save and invest.

On the "parasitical poor"...

I realised when I wrote this it was provocative - and didn't disappoint

It is absolutely right that we have a social welfare system to catch people when they fall. None of us ever really know if or when life is going to go wrong for us, for us to be without work or become too ill to work. So having a system in place to catch someone, support them and help get them back into work if they are able is a core part of our society. And I'm incredibly glad we have it, as the ultimate insurance against an uncertain future.

But there is always a certain level of abuse - and in the UK, at least, the degree to which the system was gamed was such that in some estates, the last person to hold down a job was Dave-at-number-32's grandfather. Bearing in mind, this is the UK, where we have free healthcare, free education, and multiple overlapping benefits that as 2010 dawned equated to better than the national median income if applied well.

So my question was an honest one, aimed at a good statement. Cloasters stated, "So a FAIR redistribution of wealth might start with a job for everyone who wants one and is fit to work."

In effect, and with my UK-centred view, "now that the national minimum wage has eliminated the value of a 'reserve labour force' to capitalism as there is now a floor on labour price, how about giving all those good ol' boys and girls a job instead of letting them rot on the dole?"

Great idea, I wholeheartedly agree! So what about the people who, when finally offered a job, say that while they've been born in an NHS hospital care of the taxpayer, educated to age 18 care of the taxpayer, then supported throughout their adult life by the taxpayer while contributing nothing, really don't want the job after all? Is that fair? Is that something society should tolerate? If the complaint about the rich is that they're people who take but never give, is it not hypocritical not to act on that at whatever level of society it's found?

No idea where you got the idea of warehousing wealth from, D~... um, what do you mean?

...and why Robin Hood wouldn't be so successful today
In 2013 or thereabouts, something weird happened in London. On the streets, in the bars and cafés, and many offices, the musical sounds of French became more common. The same happened in cities in Germany, Italy, not so much Belgium as half is already French-speaking, and Spain. What happened was that France's Hollande government introduced sweeping tax reform specifically targeting "the rich." It was intended to raise a significant tax windfall for France and help fix her untenable national deficit, as well as providing much needed funds for investment into various social projects.

What actually happened was that almost everyone affected by the new tax was also skilled enough and wealthy enough to leave. So the did, en masse. The tax harvest dropped significantly and the policy effectively failed. Similar things happened when the UK (albeit briefly) introduced a 50% tax rate on incomes above £150k per year. (The national median wage at the time was £26k per year).

I commented earlier that increasing mobility of the people is here to stay. Nowhere is that more true than for the rich. You have countries actively competing for the rich to become domiciled in their nation, so it's no longer true that you can hike the top rate of tax and expect to receive it. Residence and even nationality are becoming commoditised - my wife took a British passport because it was useful, not because of love of Britain. I keep mine for the same reason. Similarly, there are US citizens prepared to rescind their US nationality just to avoid your tax laws.

The idea of stripping the rich worked in the days when you could hold them still long enough. Sorry, Marxists - the 20th century happened. Rich and poor alike can be on the opposite side of the planet in 12 hours now.

Why I'm not a fan of modern Robin Hoods...
Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs sends a nice little letter every year to every single taxpayer showing how much of their tax, both in percent terms and cash terms, got spent on what. The single largest expense is on "welfare," excluding pensions, at 25%. (Pensions are another 13%).

Now I'm what Labour candidate Ed Milliband described as one of the "squeezed middle." I am too poor to afford the trickery that minimises tax bills. I am too rich to seek government support, even if I were the sort of person that would. So I have a giant target painted on my back labelled "cash cow."

Whenever someone talks up a plan to punish the rich, it's not going to be the rich that pay. They'll abscond, or hive their wealth off into a trust or corporation, or whatever else they can do. They won't pay. The poor receive, but do not pay. Who has to find the money?

People like me. And we're milked dry already...

... is not correctly paraphrased. I was saying that the rich ARE the central government.

It's about time the US funded presidential campaigns from the treasury, subject to an equal cap, and not from private donations and lobbyists. Otherwise all you get is richest man wins. As we've just seen.

I see you one ideal and raise you one reality. The UK offers free education - even free adult education in English and Maths if these are deficient. While the Thatcher government managed to decimate council housing stock, there is a very expensive benefits system in place to put people into privately-owned accommodation instead. Vocational opportunities? Those adult education centres again. When I walked into the local centre to ask about English lessons for my wife, it was almost empty. Or there's always the OU, which will give hardship bursaries to anyone who wants to learn but can't pay.

Guess what? It wasn't until the previous coalition government took a scythe to the unemployment benefits and starved people into work that they actually wobbled their butts out of Primark and into the offices and schools.
What I would do...

In reality, I have no idea.

I mentioned above that I was well down the road to poverty some years back. In casting around for ways out of my predicament, I found a UK-based forum on all things money, including how to escape the debt cycle - the information in there saved me from making an even bigger mistake. Then via the wives' network, a friend of mine learned of our predicament - now he's a smart chap, who does understand the rules of money. After a decent dressing-down over a couple of beers, he left me with a reading list, and I was finally enlightened...

The rules of money turn out to be very few and extremely simple. The only maths a man needs to understand them is that of a ten year old, and yet, as soon as we stick a £ or a $ in front of the number, all reason leaves our little ape brains and we treat it as if it's magic. It doesn't have to be so.

There's something about having some savings behind a person that makes them walk a little taller. They can tell their boss that the design is wrong, or that the product is bad. When "The Man" comes in at 5:30pm on a Friday and demands they work overtime, they can just flip the bird and leave.

And you can only get to that point if you understand the basic rules of money. Money is just a tool, but one that needs training to use well. So many people lead precarious lives, one missed pay cheque from disaster, because they haven't learned these basic principles. If they did, then the ability of "the rich" to use money as a weapon would be greatly diminished.

So I stayed on that financial forum to help out, one sob story at a time. They're "in front of me" so I might as well...

(Last paragraph edited as it went a little off-piste).

The rich ARE most certainly the central government. Seems I misunderstood a bit of what you posted, sorry. When "the Man" demands something in America his will will be accomplished. What's left of our "welfare state" is nearly in tatters. Trump's gang are on their way to destroying those tatters.

It took me years to understand what the Cone Heads of Saturday Night Live of many years ago really meant when they said "consume freely."

What's the number now? Something like 83 people have the same wealth as the bottom 50 percent of the whole planet. That's more than three billions of poor people. Hard to argue that goodness exists in those 83 "people" with numbers like this.