40% Rise in Millionaires on Merseyside

Bandit | 13.08.2003 12:34 | Liverpool

How could this happen when there are so many people struggling in the region

THE number of millionaires on Merseyside has soared by 44pc in the last year, the Queen's bankers revealed yesterday.An astonishing 3,257 millionaires now live in the region, according to the research conducted on behalf of world-famous bankers Coutts & Co by data experts Experian.Coutts disclosed the results of their millionaire research on the day it signed a lease for its first base in Liverpool, at Princes Dock.Last night, a spokeswoman for Coutts said: "There has been a significant increase in the number of aspirational millionaires in Merseyside in the past year.Meanwhile in the 20 poorest areas of the country, Liverpool has 9 areas. The population of the city has actually got poorer since Objective money was given to it.Any ideas how these people are making their money?

Bandit

Comments

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just capitalism working normally

13.08.2003 13:02

It happens through the normal operation of the 'free' market. The natural tendency of capitalism is that wealth accumulates; the rich get richer while the poor get poorer. And this happens across all communities and countries.

I could go into the microeconomics of this but I'd need flipcharts and marker pens, and it's really pretty tedious in any case... But you don't need all that, just look round the world.

The 'free' market is not fair. Taxes, minimum wages etc are all efforts to use the power of government to make things a bit fairer. But ultimately we need a new system, based on (dare I say it? yeah) People Not Profit.

Here endeth the preaching! ;-)

kurious

smack barons

13.08.2003 13:54

Liverpool second smack capital of europe, after Ballymena and Dublin.

cleo

Bullshit about Crack Capital

13.08.2003 14:17

Dont know where you get the figures from about Liverpool being a crack capital? As regards Crime Rates Liverpool is 44th in the country. Machester, Birmingham, London, Glasgow etc etc has a much bigger drug problem than Liverpool.
I get your point though - about the millionaires - but I wonder whether drug barons would declare the fact they are millionaires.

Bandit

local mafia

13.08.2003 14:42

Typical mafia strategy. Make a fortune from drugs then invest the dosh in so called legitimate business dealings. Property development is increasing in the area and you do have to ask where all the money is coming from.

helmut icicle

Bullcrap about min-wage, power

16.08.2003 02:41

First, be clear about who the min.wage is "fair" for.... it is a fact that the Govt. subsidises crap jobs, vis. -employer pays such crap wages that people would walk unless the Govt. tops it up. And 4 pound-odd?-there's 'micro'economics for u!

The Government has no power -it only exploits (or murders)
--for the wage to be fair we need to use our own power -or perhaps that's what u. meant?
.............
GDP rises, but it can rise from things like personal debt or house prices.
Everyone can see the luxury appartment blocks springing-up, so Property and Debt
are a huge chunk of what gets 'developed'- or re-generated......

Companies, Investors(Companys invest too) -All want Returns: Profitability
Govt. works with these -
ie- against us

better wages is a reform, but if it really threatened (rarther than consolidated) profitability(of the few) -out the window it goes, unless we force the issue...not just Nationaly/Localy -that system works internationaly; we have the power -if only we knew it
.............
no power? try getting rid of the govt. -all of them

Jamy

Capitalism Can Work Very Well

26.08.2003 20:39

The reason for the creation of additional wealth is because of rising property values as a result of the City finally being seen as a place in which people want to be - it is shaking off the negative perceptions and increasing demand is driving up prices.

As for the nonsense about rich getting richer and poor getting poorer its just not true - companies can now borrow funding based on this increase in value and release money for investment - it is only by people investing ie opening up or expanding industries that jobs are created and we all prosper and dont languish in self pity on the scrapheap of the dole.

Lets hope we get many more millionaires in Liverpool as it is a good and healthy thing - we only need worry when they stop investing and keep the economy turning with the invisible hand that Adam Smith told us all about so long ago.

Mr Capitalist
mail e-mail: pgw_liverpool@btopenworld.com

Invisible Hand

29.08.2003 20:57

There has been a downturn economicaly, scince about 1973 -they call it a 'crisis of profitability'... so when a 'peripheral' area which has been in decline -ie diciplined (by the market, the'dole-heap' or whatever), see,- eg.factories couldn't profit so much as before so the owners start just investing (often overseas -cheaper wages, perhaps), cut wages, talk hypocritically about 'shareholder value' and in some cases simply sell-up, sacking the workers...
An area like Liverpool/Merseyside is just such a peripheral area.... so, when such an area has been in decline long enough, wages and property prices are relatively low, unemployment high.... indebtedness (as burden) high, investors may beginn buying property for the best value they can find (ie-cheap), sit on it then sell it (at a profit)... Most ordinary people here can't do that but as money is 'generated' perhaps they can get more low-payed (subsidised, often casual) jobs providing services for this new influx of ...... capital (investment), people, companies and other economic actors ('factor mobility' as it's called in the E.U)....
Lets put it this way - local people are increasingly marginalized, because for them the market (employment, property, transport, water and other public services) is for them -a disaster....
We're marginalised -according to Adam Smith's "vile maxim of the masters of mankind: all for ourselves and nothing for other people" and in the third-world, the legacy of his "savage injustice of the Europeans" and in all cases, how the interests of merchants and investors were/are "most peculiarly attended to" _An Invisible Hand... so much for free trade.... nope; high returns, by hook or by crook: Smith didn't like it and neither do I

Jamy