Rishi Sunak (the UK chancellor) and his excuses

Rishi Sunak, regarding the UK's current cost of living crisis, has been reported as saying.

[T]he toughest part of this job is not being able to do everything that people would like you to do because we’re already borrowing quite a large amount of money, and I don’t think borrowing lots more would be sensible.

Why does he imagine he needs to borrow?  There's plenty of money out there.

The top 1% of the UK's population has the same wealth as the bottom 60% combined (i.e most of us).

The top 10% have almost half of all wealth (something like 47%).

In stark contrast, the bottom 50% of the UK's population have about 7% of all wealth (so the top 50% have 93% of all wealth).


I therefore simply have no sympathy for this "we have no money" line or references to "magic money trees".  This is an emergency. He is morally obligated to make the distribution of wealth ever so slightly more equitable so that people don't go hungry or cold (and sometimes both).

Absolute wealth or relative wealth

Jus' thinking. Which would people prefer:



a) To get paid £100,000 a year for a specific job whilst everyone else earned £50,000 a year.



b) To get paid £200,000 a year for a specific job whilst everyone else earned £400,000 a year.



I think people would tend to say "b", but in reality would feel happier with "a".



To be better off than others gives people satisfaction, but to earn less than everyone else is not good for one's self esteem. Of course, ideally, we ought to be solely interested in our absolute wealth.

Becoming rich is largely a matter of luck

Just read the following webpage:


If you’re so smart, why aren’t you rich? Turns out it’s just chance.



I think people have no idea how much our lives are ruled by randomness.
One may often need certain qualities to become rich, but out of all
these people who have such qualities, only a small percentage of them
will become rich, and that through sheer luck.

Inequality in the USA.

People
in the USA who are more wealthy than between 80-90% of the rest of the
population are roughly as well off as they would be if all the wealth
were distributed uniformly. So I find it curious that so many
people belligerently defend this state of affairs. What does this tell
us about their intelligence and morality?

England where I live is pretty bad, but not quite as bad as the USA.