People in the UK work for Amazon and other Bezos owned companies @Fat Controller and Musk has Tesla, Starlink, Neuralink and X AI. I'm quite sure the base rates for "unskilled" workers are below what I call a living wage even if they're better than the govt minimum wage levels.
But neither Bezos or Musk live in the UK, so how would you propose that Rachel from accounts extracts money from them? She could apply taxes to their businesses, but we all know that would only end up being passed on to us as consumers.
Tax money where it is made. If Bezos makes a million pounds from Amazon purchases in the UK, tax it here. Simple enough. His business benefits from the road networks, emergency services, community services, education system, employment laws, etc, so he should pay tax on profits made here.
So, given that the inference was to 'tax the billionaires'... we aren't actually capable of doing that, are we? Amazon etc already do pay whatever tax they are legally bound to pay, so the only way we could get more out of them is to apply some sort of further levy - - which would immediately be passed on to the consumer and wouldn't touch the bank account of the billionaire at all.
It would require some international negotiating and decent governments will have to try it. Bezos, Musk, McDonalds and many more pay their workers even less in the US than over here and they don't have job security, paid leave, sick pay or health care. There are some deep imbalances and inequalities all over the world but greedy businessmen and corrupt politicians and officials need a united front to put right.
Dale Vince from Stroud owns Forest green rovers, Ecotricity and he donates to Labour and he donated £10,000 to his local MP
Whilst I agree that there are deep imbalances, it is pure fantasy to believe it would ever be possible for countries to work together on it. Think about it - let's say we're saying that we are going to hit them with a 65% tax because they are wealthy... France, Spain, Germany etc all agree.. then along comes Poland and goes "Nah, we won't bother doing that - come to us lads, we will only tax you 35%" This is where the politics of envy falls flat on it's nose - as soon as someone elsewhere realises that a good quantity of not very much is much better than next to nothing of an awful lot... that soon becomes nothing of an awful lot.
Don't be so negative @Fat Controller People may surprise you one of these years tho maybe not for a while yet. After all, it was grass roots movements that grew in power and momentum and gave us in the west universal suffrage fo rmen of all classes, then votes for women, ended children working in mines, factories and as chimney sweeps, made sure each child had schholing to 14, ended the US slave trade (tho not elsewhere, sadly), gained the shorter working week, paid holidays, the right to roam. The EU, like it or not, has come together from a simple post war trade deal between Italy and Belgium to become the European Coal and Steel Community and now encompasses 27 member states including countries which were more often at war than not (France and Germany) and others from the communist block yet now they work together with common rules and workers' rights without squishing innovation and enterprise. Nobody ever thought that smoking, drink driving and not wearing seatbelts would ever be the focus of general opprobrium but they are now as we learn more about how harmful they are. One day, being a billionaire at the expense of your workforce will go the same way and they'll all be like Carnegie who used his fortune to build libraries to give other poor people the chance to learn and grow. In 2010 Bill and Melinda Gates and Warren Buffet founded the Giving Pledge and now has 250 signed up in 30 countries. It's slow but it's moving.
Ireland got there first, I don't know what it is at the moment , but it used to be just about the lowest in the EU certainly lower than the UK.
Bit of a tangent (and maybe a giggle for some...) - I had my very own "Whaaaatttt" moment this morning, although admittedly it was followed by some sweary words too... At silly o'clock this morning, I got up as I usually do and proceeded to the smallest room for a pee. As our daughter is away at her boyfriends and Mrs C was already downstairs making coffee, I was able to do this in my birthday suit. Still not quite awake, after having a pee, I moved to the sink (as you do) and this is where I differed from my usual routine... see, we have both a bottle of handwash and a soapdish with a nice bar of soap on it sitting on this sink; as a general rule, I am more inclined to use the handwash, however this morning I chose to use the soap. When I went to rinse my hands off, the soap that I had lathered around in my paws refused to rinse off and felt quite greasy... so, in my half-awake, confused state in only half light (I hadn't bothered to put the bathroom light on, instead pinching the photons that were coming from the bedroom), I thought that I must need more soap to shift whatever I'd managed to get on my hands. This made it so much worse as the greasy layer just got thicker and thicker. I had to use my nose to switch the bathroom light on and then could see my hands that looked as though they'd been encased in some sort of soft wax - and yes, they were bloomin' waterproof too! Bang out of options, I had to shout Mrs C to come upstairs and bring the Fairy liquid - - she, naturally, questioned my sanity wanting Fairy liquid bringing up, but I was insistent. Copious amounts of Fairy liquid (other brands are available) and hot water and I finally got my hands back. Thankfully, before I started, I had already lobbed the offending bar of soap into the bin, thinking it must be contaminated by something. It took me a good 10 minutes to tumble what had happened. At the weekend, I had filled that sink with hot water and added citric acid, and plonked the showerhead into it to descale it and let it soak awhile. Whilst it was soaking, and I was otherwise cleaning bits, I managed to knock the soap dish, complete with bar of soap, into the citric acid solution. I just fished it out and plonked it on the back of the sink, and thought no more of it. Then it came to me this morning - right from back at school, O-level chemistry class... soap is made from tallow/animal fat or similar and of course lye water which is the alkaline byproduct of soaking wood ash in water. The citric acid must have neutralised the alkaline component of the soap, thus basically being the process of reverse saponification, leaving me with a bar of soft tallow/fat/wax/grease of some sort, that I had gone on to liberally lather around my paws! I turn 50 in a matter of a couple of months or so and think this is the one and probably only time that the process of making soap in school has ever been of any use to me and even then, only to ease my confusion....
