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Richard Branson

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Deskdiary | 19:46 Fri 20th Mar 2020 | News
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This is very left wing for me, but given the extraordinary situation we're facing, if a business owner has three thousand eight hundred million in the bank (£3,800,000,000) doesn't he have a moral obligation to pay his staff during this period rather than expecting them to take unpaid leave?

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8134363/Richard-Branson-billionaires-facing-fury-asking-staff-unpaid-coronavirus-leave.html

"On Wednesday in the Commons a Tory MP set out how easy it would be for Sir Richard too pay his staff.

Richard Fuller, who represents North East Bedfordshire, told the Commons:

Mr Fuller said: 'To the point of leaders not doing the right thing I think the experience of Virgin Airlines has been raised, that the owner, or partial owner of Virgin Airlines has suggested that they should take eight weeks of unpaid leave.

'And I decided to look and see how much would that cost.

'Well eight weeks at the £94 statutory sick pay would cost £754 per employee. There are 8,571 employees in Virgin Airlines.

'So if all of them took eight weeks' unpaid leave that would be a cost of £6.4 million.

'Sir Richard Branson's net worth is £3.8 billion dollars. If he's able to get 2 per cent interest on that money for eight weeks, he will earn the equivalent of £9.9 million.

'So I say, Sir Richard Branson, give up your interest on your wealth for eight weeks and pay your employees yourself their unpaid leave.'

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But is his net worth cash in the bank or invested?
He’ll sit on his Island thumbing his nose, I suppose.
His 3.8 billion dollars won't be in the bank. it probably a very much out of date valuation of his business. Given the crisis affecting the travel business and airlines I think a more up-to-date valuation would be nearer.... zero.
And who is getting 2% interest. If his money was invested in the stock market it would have fallen about 30% in the last few weeks
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Irrelevant.

It's easy to liquidate assets.
I wouldn't have minded though if the chancellor had announced a temporary hike in income tax rates from 20% and 40% to say 25% and 45% for six months- but I think the money raised would have been insignificant compared to the cost of current measures
Anyway, won't the chancellor's announcement today have an impact here?
Not a good time to liquidate assets, it would leave the company weaker once this is over and then more jobs would be at risk.
>It's easy to liquidate assets.
Does that include Virgin's planes? How much are they worth? How much are his shares worth?
Compare the leftie luvvie weird the beard Branson's laying off his staff or making them "take holidays", with the much maligned Abramovich, and Gary Neville. Both of them from the leftie despised world of football. Guess what their response to the crisis was? Why, they threw open their hotels to accommodate health workers free of charge to save them the travelling expenses, and kept on all their staff. Paying them from their own pockets and paying all the food and laundry bills for the guests without recompense. Neither of them are "socialists" but do highlight how the flag waving socialists and virtue signallers operate. Shame on Branson. Would you trust him? Another one of them, hiding in plain sight.
Branson by the way is worth £4.05 BILLION. This is personal wealth, in the bank money, not company assets , his filthy lucre. A true socialist indeed.
Mr Branson has been cited already as someone who is judged by some on here as 'responsible' for the financial welfare of the employees working for companies in which he is involved.

I asked then, and it bears repeating - at what level of personal success does an individual become responsible for the individuals who indirectly work in organisations with which he or she is involved?

And who makes the decision as to who is responsible, and who decides the financial level where that responsibility starts?

If you want to make moral judgments about strangers based on envy at their success created through their own skill and endeavors, make sure you have the moral right, and all the information.

If you don't have those factors in place, and none of you do, then you don't get to ponder Mr Branson's moral responsibilities about how and where he spends his money.
They will be getting a reduced wage, not a blanket 8 weeks with no income.

(will try to find the link, read it somewhere a few days ago)
then you don't get to ponder Mr Branson's moral responsibilities about how and where he spends his money.



Well, I have just pondered that very thing. What a rapscallion I am.
from www.standard.co.uk
"Staff will be asked to take eight weeks unpaid leave over the next three months, with the cost spread over six months' salary, to drastically reduce costs without job losses."

https://www.standard.co.uk/news/uk/virgin-atlantic-flights-cut-coronavirus-latest-updates-a4388436.html
you could say that to all the very rich coffee shops companies why pick out Branson and i suspect his company has assets of the amount your have stated not his personal bank account
togo
tell me how you know anybody's personal bank account apart from your own
//According to the Sunday Times Rich List, Richard Branson has a net worth of just over £4.5 billion, ranking him at 34th richest in the UK.

The businessman owes his fortune to a number of different ventures all bearing the Virgin name. And as chairman of the Virgin Group, which makes around $21 billion a year from global revenue, Sir Richard has cast his net wide in the pursuit of entrepreneurship and his bets seems to have paid off.//

Other sources are available if you now how to look.

https://www.standard.co.uk/insider/alist/rich
I detect that it's because Branson (like Lineker) often takes a leftie luvvie viewpoint that those with strong right wing views are happy to single him out whereas they normally would not expect people who have earned wealth or inherited it- eg Trump- to give it away. I wonder if anyone here knows how much tax Branson pays and how much he gives to charity?
I'm not a fan of Branson by the way and I think in general there is a case for the better off to pay back some of their wealth now through higher taxes or through voluntary taxation and by preserving jobs for as long a spossible until we ride out the storm hopefully

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