You also forgot to mention that the £155bn was only a recovery from the wealth lost in a single year 4 years ago.

what do you think of this? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Local_currency#Historical_local_currencies

When we exclude intra eurozone trade, greece probably has a reasonable trade balance.

Thank you for your helpful comment. I do of course well understand the difference between the budget deficit (the difference between tax revenues and expenditure, currently about £125bn) and the national debt (the stock of liabilities that has accumulated over time, currently around £1tn, but expected to rise to about £1.4tn by 2014-5), but I agree that the way I made the point on my website on 29 April could be read as misleading. My point was that the gains made by the richest 1,000 persons in the UK, just 0.003% of the population, in the last 3 years – £155bn – were so stupendous that it was enough, and more, to pay down the entire UK budget deficit. Nobody could seriously take it that it would happen in this way, and of course I was not suggesting that. It was simply a way of illustrating the sheer magnitude of the gains of the ultra-rich in an economic context when everybody else was being subject to unprecedented cutbacks, yet they themselves were hardly being taxed at all on these colossal gains.

In terms of practical politics, I would make three points. First, it is clearly practicable, and desirable, to require the very rich to make a fair and proportionate contribution to resolving the country’s current financial crisis, and as I stated, they could be charged capital gains tax or an annual wealth tax on their net wealth or their gains over a certain period. For example, as I stated, charging 28% capital gains tax on their gains over for illustrative purposes the last 15 years (£315bn) would raise about £88bn, equal to 70% of the current UK budget deficit.

Second, if this general policy were being pursued, it would not of course be confined to just the 1,000 richest persons, though they themselves alone have total wealth of £1tn. The richest 1% in the population (those with incomes over £3,000 a week) number 307,000, and they own some 22% of total wealth. A graduated wealth tax could therefore raise serious amounts of revenue for the Exchequer.

But my third and main point is that, as my regular blogs on my website have repeatedly demonstrated, I have never suggested that taxing the super-rich should simply be used to fill the gap between tax receipts and expenditure. I have always proposed that the way to cut the deficit was not by prolonged austerity, but by public capital investment to generate jobs and growth, and that this should be funded either by quantitative easing (channelled through a new National Infrastructure Bank, not the current Big Five) and/or proper and fair taxation of the super-rich. That is the real way to deal with the deficit.

It seems to me that the relationship with Murdoch’s transnational empire probably mirrors all the relationships with private healthcare corporations now taking over the NHS. An argument that I put in:

http://think-left.org/2012/05/10/what-does-leveson-tell-us-about-the-tories-and-their-plan-to-wipe-out-state-services/

Without transparency and legal accountability, the electorate are effectively at the mercy of a sanctioned coup d’etat.

One key problem is ignorance about how the financial system works. If BBC Economics Editors and Business Editors do not understand how money is created and how Banks work, then everyones knowledge is dumbed down to an incompetent level.

BBC standards have appeared to reduce dramatically in the last few years.

The BBC is no longer a benchmark of excellence for other Broadcasters. Their educational service “The Learning Zone” is supposed to help teach the younger members of our population how the World works. Instead, they portray misinformation as if it were based on facts and reality when it appears that the Presenters just make it up as they go.

If the BBC cannot communicate correct information to the public then what use is it except as Entertainment without adverts ?

Example one:
Stephanie Flanders explanation of QE stated that “The Bank of England creates money at the press of a button, as only a Central Bank can”. The “as only a Central Bank can” was removed from the explanation in a subsequent reworking of it after the BBC realised that Private Banks create money all the time.

Old Version:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-16974497
(with “as only a central bank can”)

Revised Version:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-15492115
(with “as only a central bank can” phrase removed)

Example Two:
Robert Peston’s clip “How do Banks Work”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/learningzone/clips/how-do-banks-work/11880.html
This wrongly assumes that Banks act as intermediaries between Depositors and Borrowers. This is aimed at A-Level Economics students. Robert Peston frequently comments on Banking and Finance in the Business World but does not seem to understand how a Bank works. How can we rely on the BBC for accurate information if they don’t understand how things work?

The BBC is portrayed as an authority on the truth – this is very dangerous as they clearly get their facts wrong.

Nicholas Shaxson has written a book called: “Treasure Islands”.

It’s about Tax Havens. It’s not about where drug dealers and dictators hide their ill gotten gains, it where most large and respectable corporations hide their profits inorder to avoid paying their fair share of tax. The Government then takes the flack when they have to make cuts to public services and put VAT up to 20%.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqhcMAE1ekA

Guernsey Registered Office Search:
https://www.greg.gg/webCompSearch.aspx?r=0&crn=&cn=B&rad=StartsWith&ck=False
Have some fun with this – you can search for big name UK and American Investment Banks on this site.

The whole purpose of offshore now is to evade Taxes. It use to be portrayed as a way of preventing double taxation by a company operating in two different tax jurisdictions. When a large corporation holds onto it’s profits and reduces it’s tax, it does not do this inorder to pay it’s staff more. Bob Diamond is an example of this. Barclays can be found several times on the Guernsey Register. Not only are Barclays avoiding (legal term) tax, they are helping their clients “Avoid” Tax. Is the financial Crisis a smoke screen as to the real reason Taxes are going up and Public Services are being cut?

Heres the counter argument for Tax Havens:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTfZADGK6TY&feature=endscreen&NR=1

I guess it’s like a Crack Cocaine Dealer who sold his product to school children arguing that if the Laws were changed to make it legal to sell Drugs to School Children, he would not have to break the Law anymore.

An interesting paper that the IMF wrote a few years ago is titled:
“Does Corruption affect income inequality and poverty?”
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/wp/wp9876.pdf

The IMF says – well… yes it does.

Bob Diamond was to be paid £8.2 million. Average Financial Services Salary is £34,000. That’s a ratio of 241 times the average financial services wage.

Is Bob Diamond a different species to the rest of us. Has he cured Cancer, found an alternative to Oil, solved World Hunger and Disease? Can he perform Brain Surgery ? No ?

His suits are nice though, perhaps they cost several million pounds. He obviously has to look smart to create that feeling of stability amongst his clients.

Would Diamond be paid millions of pounds if his product wasn’t able to be created out of thin air?
Would Barclays be in a position to “bet the ranch” on investments if it could not rely upon Deposit Insurance provided by the Government through taxation?

Rover cars actually were producing good products at the time they went out of business. Barclays does not produce anything except dreams and debt and yet – even though they are technically insolvent (if everyone went to Barclays now and demanded their deposits in cash), Bob Diamond is getting annoyed about his salary being less than £8.2 million.

Our financial system is propped up with tax payers money (due to deposit insurance and loss of income through seigniorage) that the telephone number salary deals are an indicator of how corrupt Society has become.

I will be writing to Mr Milliband and my own mp Chris Williamson urging them both to pursue this, to publicise it and to campaign to make the wealthy pay their fair share.

Thank you for your work in making this issue known to me.