Do you take any interest in published rich lists?

Lark

Lark

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This last week in the UK rich lists were published and I was wondering if anyone takes an interest in such things? If you do would you say that the actual, reported rich list is THE rich list or only the conspisciously rich list? I mean, do you think that there are richer people or that the real ranking can not be known because individuals and groups engage in sophisticated misreporting or unreporting of their wealths and assets in order to avoid taxation, influence personal credit ratings, postpone debtors or engage in some other sort of perfidious mendacity?

What interests you the most about the rich list too? Is it the individuals, ie if they are celebrities or have celebrity status because they are rich, or is it what constitutes or qualifies as wealthy or riches in your given society?
 
Lark said:
This last week in the UK rich lists were published and I was wondering if anyone takes an interest in such things? If you do would you say that the actual, reported rich list is THE rich list or only the conspisciously rich list? I mean, do you think that there are richer people or that the real ranking can not be known because individuals and groups engage in sophisticated misreporting or unreporting of their wealths and assets in order to avoid taxation, influence personal credit ratings, postpone debtors or engage in some other sort of perfidious mendacity?

What interests you the most about the rich list too? Is it the individuals, ie if they are celebrities or have celebrity status because they are rich, or is it what constitutes or qualifies as wealthy or riches in your given society?
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Is the rich list the income of the richest people?

I'm not so much interested in that...but I do take glee in other lists that outline what people make. Our university recently made this public- and last week I relished in seeing what my advisor makes!
 
say what said:
Is the rich list the income of the richest people?

I'm not so much interested in that...but I do take glee in other lists that outline what people make. Our university recently made this public- and last week I relished in seeing what my advisor makes!
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More like the fortune five hundred lists in the US, they were valuing individuals and the celebrity chef Jamie Oliver is valued or has a monetary wealth of something like 240 million.
 
Lark said:
More like the fortune five hundred lists in the US, they were valuing individuals and the celebrity chef Jamie Oliver is valued or has a monetary wealth of something like 240 million.
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But Jamie Oliver saves children from obesity...and he's so darn cute! So I'm okay with him making that much :D

Honestly- I don't really care what people make...as long as I'm happy!
 
I find this sort of thing amazing because it can reflect how differently different social classes think about money, I went into a service station the other day while waiting on some friends and there were newspapers on the stand, one had front page news about how a terminally ill guy in his early twenties had raised 3 million in the closing weeks and months of his life for cancer charities following his diagnosis as being terminally ill, next to it was a news paper suggesting that a pharmacorps execs stood to make a 60 million bonus, that's bonus, that's not even what they earn, on a merger with another US firm.

If you've got people earning sixty million as a bonus then I'm afraid that raising three million for charity does not seem the same some how. Its great that something has been raised, it no doubt does make a difference, however it does illustrate how little a contribution it could be for some people to make a similar denotion themselves personally without feeling any "hurt" from it.

It was also an interesting coincidence that the guy was raising the money for a cancer research charity and the bonuses being highlighted were those of pharma corp execs, you know not entirely unrelated fields.
 
say what said:
But Jamie Oliver saves children from obesity...and he's so darn cute! So I'm okay with him making that much :D

Honestly- I don't really care what people make...as long as I'm happy!
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I would not describe myself as envious of others money or status but I find it interesting.

I remember reading about someone in the US fortune fivehundred who was already obscenely wealthy and was caught committing some serious fraud and theft, when questioned as to why he could possibly have been motivated to do this when he and his family all lived such plentiful existences already he stated that he could not believe he was two places behind someone else in particular and was so shame faced as a consequence that he was prepared to think about doing almost anything to change that. Mad huh?

Jamie is welcome to his money, besides I dont really see him being one of these eejits who's tax evading and dodging at any possible opportunity and short changing everyone else in the country, he's not like a politicians who has made a career out of defending his own personal wealth from taxation and screw the country either.

Did you ever see a movie called Brewster's Millions? I love that movie, love the premise, watched it when I was a kid and think I loved it ever since.
 
Also the lifestyles of the rich and shameless are kind of intriguing too, did you see Paris Hilton's place as featured in that movie The Bling Ring? It was so narcissisticly strange I couldnt believe it and wondered at the sort of life you'd be living if you had your personal portrait picture on cushions in your front room, it seems tacky and poor taste or a little infantile but then I kind of have sympathy for rich people because of the unreality I think their wealth and status could confer on them too, like the Pulp song Common People.

There's other stuff which just sounds awesome but also totally whack, like the guy who out stripped bill gates for a while who was supposed to play lazer tag over his sprawling estate in harrier jets, can you imagine that?! Guy was like some real world version of Iron Man's Tony Stark!

Or even just the "mundane" insanity purchases of celebrity actors who can afford to gift islands to their virtually child brides, wasnt it Nic Cage who did something like this? Its madness!
 
I wouldn't pay too much attention to the rankings; the people who are really at the top are too discreet to appear on such lists....they don't want to be on the radar of the public
 
Yeah, there is a ridiculous amount of hidden wealth...entire nations whose business is being a tax haven.

These lists are bollocks.
 
I also don't think wealth is always measurable in money or income.
 
say what said:
I also don't think wealth is always measurable in money or income.
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Yes definately!

Old money has ways of protecting its wealth...they know paper money is historically not safe
 
muir said:
Yes definately!

Old money has ways of protecting its wealth...they know paper money is historically not safe
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Oh for sure!! I think the 'rich list' is trying to indicate 'power' and equate more money to more power - but as we all know this is not true!

It would be interesting to make up a list of the most 'powerful' people, and then do a factor analysis to see what factors contribute to power! *nerdgasm*
 
say what said:
Oh for sure!! I think the 'rich list' is trying to indicate 'power' and equate more money to more power - but as we all know this is not true!

It would be interesting to make up a list of the most 'powerful' people, and then do a factor analysis to see what factors contribute to power! *nerdgasm*
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'nerdgasm'....i want one of those!

Yeah as with all these things the old journalist maxim ''follow the money'' applies

We need to look at who has compiled the list, who is publishing the list, who owns the publication, what do we know about them and their political leanings etc

We are told that when we analyse historic documents we should always acknowledge there will be a bias and to try and factor that into our analysis of the source material

The rich lists of today are the historical material of tomorrow and should be seen to have the same inevitable bias

Why would someone publish a rich list? Do they have an agenda? Do they want to missguide the public as to the reality of the true distribution of wealth etc
 
Cornerstone said:
Yeah, there is a ridiculous amount of hidden wealth...entire nations whose business is being a tax haven.

These lists are bollocks.
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Well the UK/London has pretty much become a treasure island and its totally screwed the capacity of the government to make and implement any kind of policy at all.
 
Lark said:
Well the UK/London has pretty much become a treasure island and its totally screwed the capacity of the government to make and implement any kind of policy at all.
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Yup and media is another aspect of the game that big money wants to control

So they control the publishers of the rich lists
 
This is what I have to say about it
[video=youtube;GxdZHXS8DN4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GxdZHXS8DN4[/video]
 
The problem is that we're not producing anything any longer. We're not the ones making stuff. The money we have are just trading hands from one person to the other person, it doesn't increase for us any longer. What that means is that the amount of money isn't going up any more. So there's a big pool of money. Wouldn't it be nice if everyone had an equal slice of the pie? Well, that's not how that works. The money that are in circulation are, mostly, going to the biggest companies that produce the stuff that they tell us we need along with the stuff that we really need. The biggest companies are run by the richest people, and in the end their slice of the pie is a lot bigger than the vast majority of the people.

I don't mind capitalism as long as there's a not-so-invisible hand preventing what we have now - very few banks that control most of the financial market, 3-4 big music and movie companies and 1-2 jewelry and electronic companies. A part of the principle of capitalism is the prevention of monopolies. Today we have companies so huge and so aggressive that they crush any and all opposition. To me, that's not capitalism. That's an oligopoly. Oligopolies suck. What they do is drain the middle class and the poor of the money that they have, place the pool of money in the hands of the few people at the top, and leave most everyone else in low-paying jobs and crushing debt.

So back to your question, should we be interested in published rich lists? I don't know. I let out a depressed sigh when I see them. They're published because they make people happy and encouraged to go out and fight for their own wealth and fortune. Unfortunately that wealth and fortune is getting harder and harder to come by.

One last thing - I was watching an ad for a gambling website earlier today and I couldn't stop thinking who the people behind it were. I checked their website, and it was vague about the owners. Then I finally found a company, but they were owned by another company, and that company was owned by another company, and in the end I wound up at the website of a massive bank. I wonder how many of the founders of any of those companies made their start-up money through gambling ...
 
Published Rich Lists are a good tool to use when its time to publicly hang people.
 
[MENTION=5601]vandyke[/MENTION]

Money is going up but the value is going down.

Also things are still produced by large companies, but the produced items aren't worth anything to a lot of rich folks. For example a farm might produce a lot of grain, and somebody makes a long contract for it to the farmer, basically agreeing to buy it when it is ready, but then they turn around and sell a short contract because all they want is the money. They never even take delivery of the grain, they've already sold it before it was even harvested.

[video=youtube;TClcxy4Ku28]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TClcxy4Ku28[/video]
 
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