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hoefla
I'm rich in some ways, not in others.
I'll freely admit my salary makes me rich... in fact I filled in this https://ifs.org.uk/tools_and_resources/where_do_you_fit_in to try and determine what my top n% is, and it said: "you have a higher income than around 99% of the population" and "In conclusion, Your income is so high that you lie beyond the far right hand side of the chart" - this is based on me being a sole income household compared to it actually comparing to multi-income households. I earn a lot.
But... salary != wealth.
I come from no money, no inheritance, no family gifts, a much harder slog to earn every penny of a deposit for a mortgage, etc. I work with a colleague who is in his early 20s and has a higher disposable income than I do because his grandparents gifted him a house (one of their 2nd/3rd rentals) on his 21st birthday... an inheritance tax avoidance I guess... and so I in my late 40s have less disposable income than him in his early 20s.
I am definitely rich. But there is also a very large inter-generational middle-class that is far richer in other ways. My colleague wouldn't count himself as rich, he doesn't... but definitely he is, in fact almost everyone I know is rich as these are not the circles I move in I guess, this is what my peers earn, etc. I still remember shivering in an underpass sleeping rough, but it's irrelevant really... I've achieved social mobility as politicians call it, and moved from street to flat to home, from work to career. Judged solely on my last payslip I am off the scale, but it's a poor thing to judge anyone by... if I had a child I couldn't afford private education for them.
I'd love to see more people become rich in my lifetime... i.e. higher salaries for others, less tax on that salary.
So how to fund the country? I'd also love to see more of the asset value of wealth be redistributed... i.e. land tax that erodes large estates and holdings, increased capital gains tax on assets, etc.
Income is the one way to help change people's lives... tax everything else (inc private schools).