The Conservative Party

Maybe it's rude of me to butt in on your discussion with West Dids but I feel compelled to comment on this.

I don't know your background so I wouldn't dream of suggesting which category you fall into but my experience of well off / wealthy people is they are one of three types.

1. Exceptional people who despite their backgrounds have overcome multiple obstacles to be successful.
2. Sociopaths who by being completely amoral have managed to exploit opportunities and people that most people would baulk at doing so.
3. People who through accident of birth carry a significant amount of capital (social and/or financial) into their adulthoods which they are able to exploit to their benefit. Not necessarily a single large piece of capital but lots of smaller pieces that add up to a significant whole.

My experience is that there are not that many of the first two types, the vast majority are of the third type. Of the third type there are a proportion who understand the advantages conferred on them but a much bigger group simply have no concept of the often small cumulative privileges they have been the beneficiary of and simply assume it is down to their abilities, hard work and appetite for risk. They don't do this maliciously it's simply a function of their lived experience. I have no issue with this however when people are presented with evidence to support this hypothesis their reaction is telling.

With respect I think your conception of how risk appetite works and it's role in success is hugely selective in its view. I say this as someone who built up a surplus in his own business and has reinvested it in a high risk/reward project albeit one where wealth creation wasn't the only end game.

Everyone has their own values systems of the ways in which it is or isn't acceptable to make money and what is an acceptable level of risk. I think these things vary wildly depending on your circumstances and your experience of the world to date.
Nice post, well put. It’s difficult to argue with your points
I am from a working class, one parent,(father died when I was very young)3 kids family
Bought up in terraced, outside loo and tin bath, 11+ failure, left school with only a few qualifications so I think we can discount your options 2 +3 as applying to me.
My point about risk is/ was you have to take it at sometime in life if you want to get on.
perhaps as I got older my risks were more calculated.
Yes some of my wealth is down to luck, but I only ever risked what I could afford to lose. My business was always there to put food on the table and rebuild the pot, if needed.
I did my last share trade in March this year and the share price has since tumbled.
I now only invest in Land near other housing developments that don’t have planning permission at the moment.
The problem appears to be with some of the same old faces on the politics thread is they hate any sort of success stories.
I can see why there are social mobility issues within the classes.
I started off as working class and but am now middle class.
The classes tend to stay within their own social strata as on social occasions the middle classes tend to avoid the working classes fearing the sort of reaction that’s given on here to anybody declaring they have a bob or two and not ashamed of it.
Because of the chip on the shoulder they miss out on lots of jobs, business opportunities, advice, help etc.which social mobility brings with it
Politically I am seen on here as some sort of Nigel Farage but in reality I see good and bad in all Parties and post Thatcher , just let the politicians decide what ever and just work round it
I think there are many on the left who are expecting miracles if Labour get in but apart from a bit of tweaking at the edges they are going to be severely disappointed when they see same old under a different name.
There just isn’t the spare money out there to do anything radical or please everyone.
 
Its
I wasn’t privy to that conversation but for anyone making a fortune off RBS they would have caught the proverbial falling knife. He’s stepping on that leaking ship when the institutional folk are in the lifeboat. Takes balls that trade so fair play to @halfmist on that front.

One other point you do know that investing is a zero sum game right for the average punter? All trading requires an element of luck but good traders know how to stack those odds in their favour, so in your lottery analogy it’s like already knowing 4 or 5 of the 6 numbers before the draw is made.
Something like 95 % of private investors don’t make money on the Stock Exchange.
My way broke every rule in the book in that I never spread the risk around, I invested in just 1 share at a time and with eye watering amounts. Tried to buy on the fall, sell on the rise on a company whose share price was highly volatile. My only research was a I knew the company’s accounts like the back of my hand. Set myself a profit limit on each transaction and never panicked even when on occasions I was several £100k’s down post Brexit in particular.
 
Lessons never seem to be learned. They can set up their Head Offices anywhere in the world. That’s why we lost 2000 high grade jobs when Astra Zenica cancelled its plans for Macclesfield and moved them to an Ireland. It doesn’t take a genius to work out why, a far lower Corporation Tax rate over there.
No problem.
Any companynunder investigation into potential tax fraud will be barred from tendering for contracts in the public sector for the duration of the investigation AND if found guilty will face a ban from tendering for between one and ten years.
G4s, etc would be banging down the door of Number 11 within minutes of the announcement with hefty cheques
 
Not sure I agree with your statement but broadly I was referring to those with household wealth north of £3m.

You just like the number 3 don’t you? ;)

I can honestly say I know a few who meet your criteria and they all went to state school down to earth types. Certainly got lucky in their careers mind, a couple got very wealthy (>£100m) off the back of setting up their own firms- their kids might well fall into the category of inherited/ entitled but that’s down to their parents. That said some people are just cunts and some of those cunts also have lots of money.
 
Fully agree with what you say about investing in general, and I have done quite well over the last 30 years myself. However I was talking specifically about a certain trade that bore more relationship to a lottery type gamble and paid out thanks to the government pumping in loads of liquidity. Like I said, I have absolutely no problem with anyone who did that. It’s not unlike Soros cashing in on Black Wednesday in 1992. However, due to his “win” he never stops belittling the less fortunate which is not a great personality trait imo.

I’m a big fan of being humble - none of us are better human beings due to the size of our bank accounts - even those that do good with their wealth would have done good without it.
 
Just checked our previous discussion and it would appear you benefitted hugely from the government’s bailout of RBS, so in reality you gambled family money and won some government bailout money. You’ve not actually created value in anything. Fair play to you for doing it that way. I’ve no problem with anyone doing that but it doesn’t make you some sort of entrepreneur that people should admire. You’re effectively a lottery winner who boasts about his win after borrowing the money to buy a ticket.
Poor analogy about the lottery ticket.
 
Fully agree with what you say about investing in general, and I have done quite well over the last 30 years myself. However I was talking specifically about a certain trade that bore more relationship to a lottery type gamble and paid out thanks to the government pumping in loads of liquidity. Like I said, I have absolutely no problem with anyone who did that. It’s not unlike Soros cashing in on Black Wednesday in 1992. However, due to his “win” he never stops belittling the less fortunate which is not a great personality trait imo.
Off you go again.
Name just one, never mind “ never stops” occasion where I have belittled the less fortunate. You just make it up as you’re going along.
Also what makes you so special that your doing “quite well” out of “investing in general”, whatever that means.
To win the so called lottery on 23 successive occasions suggests to me, that it requires a little bit more than luck, particularly with such a high failure rate amongst private investors.
 
Off you go again.
Name just one, never mind “ never stops” occasion where I have belittled the less fortunate. You just make it up as you’re going along.
Also what makes you so special that your doing “quite well” out of “investing in general”, whatever that means.
To win the so called lottery on 23 successive occasions suggests to me, that it requires a little bit more than luck, particularly with such a high failure rate amongst private investors.
Take it to pm mate, it's getting tedious
 
You see this is the problem with the internet. People start making assumptions when not in possession of the facts. You have absolutely no idea what I do with my money or what type of person I am compared with others.
I’m a big fan of being humble - none of us are better human beings due to the size of our bank accounts - even those that do good with their wealth would have done good without it.
 

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