This Covid Pandemic Has Had Some Winners And Some Losers

[Hymie]

$3.7tn – Decrease in earnings of world’s workers during 2020 due to coronavirus crisis, according to research by the International Labour Organisation

$3.9tn – Increase in wealth of world’s billionaires during first ten months of coronavirus crisis, according to research by Oxfam

(from the same page in Private Eye as my last post)

[ladybirder]

You can be a billionaire here and you would still get the SP.

[bednobs]

er, you were the one who brought it up NJ! i just agreed that the majority of ABers were probably o benefits (therefore income onot affected but outgoings down)

[New Judge]

//You can be a billionaire here and you would still get the SP.//

Yes. But unless you had made additional voluntary contributions you would receive the same amount as somebody who had contributed the absolute minimum and less than somebody who had contributed nothing. Find me another "Pension" scheme where that would apply.

[pixie374]

How is that different from universal credit, say? You would get the same whatever you had or hadn't put in. But if you had extra savings, you would have more. (Up to a limit, I think).

[New Judge]

//er, you were the one who brought it up NJ!//

er...no I didn't. (Go back to 16:23).

Sorry, I'm in a cantankerous mood. :-)

[New Judge]

//How is that different from universal credit, say? You would get the same whatever you had or hadn't put in.//

It isn't. But Universal Credit is not called a pension.

[pixie374]

Nobody said that, nj. Just that a pension is a benefit.

[New Judge]

The so-called State Pension may be. Genuine pensions are not. They involve receipts from a fund into which the recipient has contributed, with there being a relationship between the receipts and the contributions. The State Pension scheme is not a pension scheme.

[eve1974]

Wow! Interesting. Money makes money ... always

[Spicerack]

I thought I read that UC will replace pensions & pension credit and even out the amounts received. Something to do with women who took (or had to take) career breaks to raise their children (that would be practically all women back in the day) losing out in the pension stakes.
I think you needed X amount of NI contributions to qualify for pension credit.
Could be wrong, I'm trying to remember an article I read years ago.
What I do know for sure, is not all poor people 'deserve' to be poor.
And not all rich people deserve to be rich.

[pixie374]

And it isn't all extremes either. Not everyone on benefits will be life-long. People get made redundant, changes in circumstances and so on, which aren't their fault. Covid must have caused quite a few. To get something back when you need it, is more like an insurance.

[jim360]

// The main thing is they [as in rich people, I think] are keeping money circulating around the world. //

Again, though -- are they? Rich people tend to hoard wealth, and while a few go on to generous acts of philanthropy, many still end up with fortunes that could buy out small countries.

All I'm saying, really, is that we have a top-heavy economy, and the pandemic has served to exacerbate that. Even with life standards generally improving, it's still a problem.

[naomi24]

//Rich people tend to hoard wealth//

Not so. Rich people make their money work for them. They invest it, they create businesses, thereby creating jobs, and all of that creates greater wealth not only for themselves but for the nation as a whole.

[Spicerack]

Where are all these extra jobs that you and Zacs appear to believe in?
Seems to me and the facts, the opposite is true.