Take a traditional Hollywood movie script. The main character is a brave altruist who wants to help the whole world. He has an inheritance, which the hero decided to distribute to all the poor, creating a charity fund. The hero is good, the poor are happy and grateful, but the rich people, acting as evil swindlers, do not agree with the fact that the usual order of things will be violated.
Of course, it is the rich people who create charitable foundations, but they donate only a certain amount, without giving away their entire fortune. Thus, they maintain the usual order in the world: rich people pay off the faceless crowd for general peace and muffle general envy.
Why do charitable foundations and donations exist, but the poor are not getting smaller?
Why does the modern film industry propagate the idea as old as the world: the poor are good and deprived, and the rich are bad and greedy?
Why is this world not changing?
Donations are a bridge between two polar worlds. The rich allegedly owe the poor for being more fortunate or achieving more. Don't you feel that this principle is perverted?
Let's use the fishing example. Three people by the river. One has a full uniform and a lot of experience behind him. He will surely catch a lot of fish, because, apart from relying on luck, he still knows and knows how to do a lot. Even if he is not lucky now, the fisherman will take note of his mistake and catch even more fish than usual next time.
The second person has a simple fishing rod and some experience from his father. For example, his father once told him that all these tricked-out fishing rods are worthless and fishing is essentially not a tricky business, there is nothing complicated in it, just do not deviate from grandfather's principles and do as your ancestors said. It does not matter that there has been no biting in this place for 10 years already, you sit and fish, because the forefathers taught so. This second fisherman will only smirk when the first fisherman, with his expensive but completely useless gear, is looking for a new fishing spot. The second fisherman hopes for God and good luck. There will be bite - there will be food. There will be no bite, well, lucky next time.
When such freeloaders attack with numbers, accusing the fisherman of inhumanity, he has to protect his interests and the interests of his children. The poor people think: after all, he has so many fish, he is so rich and sits on an expensive boat and has already turned up his nose, he is conceited.
In a good way, the poor can ask for fish one day when he is in absolute need. And he has to thank another for his help. And then ask how he catches his fish. After all, instead of asking and humiliating yourself, swamping with envy and hatred for others, you can learn to fish yourself. Even if there is no fishing rod, you can either borrow it or make it yourself. When a person wants to do something, there are always opportunities..
And here is a little effort, practice, experience - every day will have its own piece of bread. True, for this something needs to be done.
You can also act as a second fisherman. Despise the poor who come in crowds and demand alms from you, but at the same time envy the rich. Because they are engaged in nonsense, and they have better boats and more catch. The philosophy of the second fisherman-worker: to work honestly for a piece of bread and not to stick out, so as not to be ridiculed. You can follow these principles, in the end, so to live calmer and less demand.
Looking at the dominance of the river by such neighbors, the first fisherman will surely seem greedy to others. And sometimes it doesn’t seem like it, because those who were once poor and used to taking and taking everything get into the ranks of such fishermen, only now not from their own kind, into whose ranks he stepped. There are also fishermen from the second layer of hard workers. These retain their anger and contempt. And some fishermen are simply embittered by so much gray mass around.
Even if it seems to you that fate has done wrong to you, you can always ask others for help. But you need to be aware that no one will constantly extend a hand to you. People are full of their own worries. See how someone else's fishing rod is arranged. You will be surprised how people adapt: nets, tackle, various types of fishing rods ... It may seem that there are few fish, the river is shallow, and there are many fishermen. But everyone finds his place, catches his fish with his tackle and follows one very important rule: small fish are released back into the river.
Thus, you can find your niche. Yes, at least attach a fishing line to a branch, if there is no fishing rod, just start with something and the result will be. Not right away, but it will! And then do not look at the gray mass, do not be afraid to go against the current, fall and rise again if you do not want to vegetate all your life, if you strive for creativity and solid ground under your feet.
And when you achieve results, tell others about your experience. Don't turn your back on dummies, laugh at their awkward attempts, and don't fear for your niche.
Man is not a vulture, not a scavenger, not a predator, not a reptile. Man is able to create. That's all it takes to change the world.
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Why does this happen: the rich get richer, and the poor get poorer?! This is not-right-wed-whether-vooo !!!
So it was before and so it will always be. Of course, you will say that this is a great injustice. And you will be... wrong. Why? Because the concept of "justice" was invented by weak and poor people and exists exclusively for them.
Unwritten Law: the strong do not need justice - he can get whatever he wants; Justice is for the weak.
No matter how offensive or offensive it may sound to you, it is a fact. And only if you accept this, you will have a chance to change something in your life for the better.
The fact that the rich get richer and the poor get poorer is a pattern. More precisely, it is the Law of the Universe. And the laws of the Universe, unlike the laws invented and established by people, work flawlessly and regardless of whether we accept them or not. Therefore, it is for your benefit to adopt these laws and live by them. And then you can really manage your life, keep your health in great shape. And, of course, your financial affairs will also go up.
Who or what do you think determines whether you will be rich tomorrow or not, and if so, how rich? Many will answer that it depends on the policy of the state, system, laws, and so on and so forth. They will not consider only one person responsible for their well-being - themselves. And this is the main reason for all the failures in their lives.
The Law of the Universe says: how rich you are now and how rich you will be tomorrow is up to you. Yes, yes, it is your own fault that you are now poor or not rich enough! To some extent, the parents are to blame, because they could not give you what they did not have themselves. If your parents have a poor mentality, they couldn't teach you how to be rich, no matter how much they want you to.
Education is largely to blame - you were not taught to be rich, you were not taught to think the way rich people think. And the worst thing is that poverty has always been sung and is sung as a virtue. After all, many people justify their failures or unwillingness to take responsibility with a hackneyed phrase: poor, but with a clear conscience.
Our trouble is that we have always been told that rich people are unfair, greedy, they earned their big money dishonestly. In general, we have been instilled and continue to instill the image of a rich person as a bad and immoral person. Unfortunately, this image is confirmed in the post-Soviet countries, where, against the backdrop of general poverty, millionaires and billionaires have grown up very quickly, like mushrooms after rain.
But admit it: despite all that has been said, wouldn't you like to see your salary increase several times over? Haven't you ever dreamed that a free million (rubles, hryvnias, dollars, tugriks) suddenly fell on you?
And yet there are many rich people in the world who have earned and continue to earn thousands, tens of thousands and even millions of dollars in an honest way. Another question: how do they do it?
And really, how do these people manage to earn hundreds and thousands of dollars in the same 24 hours a day, while most people earn 10-20 dollars in the same 24 hours? After all, any person who is used to standing at the machine or gluing cat litter bags will tell you: well, how can you earn at least two or three times more money if you do not increase the prices? Yes, you can increase the working day, you can work faster. But in any case, there is a limit to human capabilities.
Most people simply do not understand how you can earn thousands of dollars a day in an honest way. They just don't know how to think differently. I would say they think in the same plane, not wanting or afraid to go beyond the usual. Of course, elementary human laziness also plays a significant role here. Too lazy not only to do something, but even to think.
But it is with thinking that everything begins - your poverty and your wealth. As I said above, your thoughts, your way of thinking, your worldview determine your entire being - your circle of friends and acquaintances, your set of chronic diseases and your poverty or your wealth.
Change your mindset and your whole life will change.
Everything is so simple, you say? Yes, it's that simple. Everything ingenious is simple. But everything simple is complicated. Paradox? No. Just behind the seeming simplicity is persistent, painstaking daily work on oneself.
Many who teach to be successful say: convince your subconscious that you are already rich, and soon you will really become rich. And indeed it is. The experience of many people who have managed to achieve their goals confirms this. But this is not a matter of one day or even one month.
Some people manage to change their lives in a few months, while others will take years. It all depends on how deeply the image of poverty is sewn up in your subconscious. No matter how long you have to work on yourself, the one who firmly and systematically begins to step in the right direction will inevitably come to the destination. This is the Law. This is an inevitability.
Who does not sail anywhere, for that there is no fair wind.
And the one who has chosen a goal and persistently goes to it, he uses the headwind for his own good.
And another Law: like attracts like. Poverty attracts poverty; wealth attracts wealth. It's like a snowball: as soon as you start rolling a small snowball, the size of a chicken egg, on the snow, more and more snow begins to stick to it. And the larger the snowball becomes, the more snow sticks to it and the faster it turns into a big snowball.
You just need to start - bend over, pick up some snow and make this little snowball. And start rolling it in the snow. Until you start doing this, there will be nothing to stick to new snow.
So it is with wealth. If you accept the fact that your success and your financial condition depend entirely on you and your thoughts, and start changing your attitude towards wealth and rich people, start thinking like rich people, then your life will begin to change dramatically.
If you do not change your worldview, then no effort, even if you decide to open your own business, will not change your real situation. Even with your own business, you will remain a poor person. Because actions must be correlated with thinking. Thinking should even precede deeds. Only in this case your success is inevitable.
Summary. The poor get poorer and the rich get richer because: like attracts like; the outlook of a poor person will never allow him to become rich; the worldview of a rich person will help him gain wealth even when he loses everything; The laws of the universe work whether we accept them or not.
In countries with a more or less free market, it works like this. Imagine we have two twin brothers, but one comes from a poor family and the other is adopted by a rich family. The poor child goes to a regular school, does not have the opportunity to study with tutors, he does not even have his own room to calmly do his homework. At the same time, a rich child has a separate room, good tutors study with him, his parents provided him with the opportunity to study in a good private school, or even sent him to study, say, in England. Then they go to universities. At the same time, a poor child can rely only on himself and his own knowledge, which limits his choice of universities, especially if education is paid. He may not be able to go to university at all, because he will be forced to immediately look for a job and simply cannot spend a few years studying. A rich child is provided by his parents, he can at least study in peace at the university he entered, and in countries with paid higher education he has the opportunity to freely choose between the best universities like Harvard, etc. Now, is it worth saying that the average salary of a Harvard graduate is higher than that of a graduate of some non-named university or a person without a higher education at all?
But let's say that we have two people who studied at the same university, spend the same amount of money and got the same job. The only difference is that one of them has $10,000 inherited from their parents, while the other has nothing. Let's say that both of them can save $1,000 a year from their wages. Suppose further that the one who has an extra 10,000 put them in the bank at 2%. Then by the end of the first year, one will have $11,200 and the other $1,000. It is easy to see that the gap has grown by $200 and, other things being equal, will continue to grow chronically.
And this is in the simplest case. And if the inheritance, for example, is not money, but profitable securities, then everything can be even more interesting, but the logic, I think, is clear. And this does not take into account additional factors, such as professional ties that parents can leave for their children, etc., which also play an important role. Therefore, unfortunately, in a market economy, social inequality naturally grows over time and does not reflect the personal abilities of an individual. Of course, no one cancels exceptions like Lomonosov and other people who, with their own mind and work, ensured their well-being from scratch, but exceptions for that and exceptions that do not make a general picture.
States are trying to combat this, more or less successfully, by introducing progressive taxation rates, taxes on luxury, organizing social scholarships for the education of talented children from poor families, and so on. Often - in civilized societies - business also helps talented children by organizing scholarships and so on. This partly compensates for the problem.
In countries where the role of corruption is great, these problems are intensified due to the specifics of the redistribution of budgetary funds. For example, another astronomical bonus of an inefficient manager of a state corporation that sticks to the state budget, any crystal napkin holder and a golden spoon is taken not from thin air and not from the company's income, but from the funds, ultimately, from the budget, i.e. these are salaries not received by doctors, teachers, etc.
And, finally, in socialist countries such as the USSR or modern North Korea, the situation is also no better, since the planned economy there allows you to redistribute wealth in an arbitrary way in general. "Special distribution" systems, "Beryozka" stores and other mechanisms for ensuring the well-being of the groups that are the backbone of the regime (the army, loyal politicians) are being formed, with a general growing deficit.
Summing up, those who have capital in their hands are naturally inclined to save it, accumulate it and pass it on by inheritance, as well as lobby for laws in their interests, etc. The only way to solve this problem is a regularly replaced democratic government that acts in the interests of all citizens and participates in the process of redistribution of capital in order to compensate for growing inequality, as well as the development of an ethic that encourages philanthropy on the part of business. "From below" the solution to this problem may be connected with the creation of independent trade unions and the development of civil society. In addition, it can be noted that, although this problem exists in any form of economic organization, the market economy has the advantage here that it at least potentially contains tools for solving the problem, while the planned economy is absolutely defenseless against abuses by political functionaries. , although it is nominally created in the socialist states to overcome inequality.
This question was asked by Plato, who in his "State" proposed taking children away from their parents and raising them in such a way that the parents did not know who their children were, and the children did not know who their parents were. But I do not agree with Plato - it seems to me that, firstly, it is too totalitarian, secondly, it is not too realistic and, thirdly, it is ineffective - the family, after all, is important for the development of the child's personality. So my opinion is that no, of course not. Another thing is that one could learn culture from the same USA when rich and influential parents teach their children independence - remember, at least, the story about Obama's daughter working at the cash register in a cafe. Can you imagine something like this in Russia? As for the rest, it is necessary to mitigate inequality not by some kind of prohibition of anything, but by other means.
In addition, I am far from the idea that it is necessary to mitigate inequality for the sake of the very mitigation of inequality - leveling is completely hopeless, in my opinion. If a worker, roughly speaking, who has made three stools, will receive as much for his work as a worker who has made one stool, then everything will end up with both doing one stool each - this is a natural and rational human behavior. Rather, I am saying that society should provide such conditions under which the well-being of a person will be proportional to his qualifications and abilities, as well as the volume, complexity and usefulness of his work, and all its members will have more or less the same opportunities to prove themselves in a competitive environment. . This, in my opinion, is the most reasonable goal.
Finally, a basic decent life should simply be provided to every member of society in general - an unconditional basic income could, in my opinion, solve this and many other problems.
The combined wealth of the 200 richest Russians in 2018 increased by $11 billion to $496 billion (31.7 trillion rubles), Forbes calculated. This exceeds the country's gold and foreign exchange reserves ($489.1 billion) and the monetary savings of the entire Russian population in banks (28.186 trillion rubles, according to the Central Bank as of March 1).
At the same time, real disposable money incomes of the population continue to decline. And even the new methodology for calculating them, announced by Rosstat, did not help to “correct” the situation. According to the agency, in the first quarter of this year, compared with the corresponding period of the previous year, revenues decreased by 2.3%.
During the years of the crisis, the Russian middle class, according to Sberbank CIB, lost weight from 60% in 2014 to 47% in 2018. The share of citizens who believe that their income is below the average, on the contrary, increased from 35 to 48%. However, the trend of reduction of this social category is also observed in developed countries. But there the middle class still makes up the majority of the population.
Not a random connection
The gap between the rich and the poor is widening all over the world, and the concentration of capital is increasing, notes Konstantin Ordov, Professor of the Department of Financial Management at the Plekhanov Russian University of Economics. Moreover, in developed countries this trend has been observed for 20-30 years. The main reason is globalization, expressed in the free movement of capital. As a result, they move to places where the rights of workers are less protected, respectively, the labor force is cheaper, and the profitability of enterprises is higher.
The speeches of the “yellow vests” in France and other unrest in Europe just show that there, too, citizens are extremely dissatisfied with the current state, neither in terms of their own incomes, nor in terms of the quality and standard of living. This, unfortunately, is a kind of side effect of the market economy in the form in which it exists today, - the expert notes.
The gap between rich and poor is not just about people, it's about countries, he adds. Cheap labor and local localization of Western industries do not help to catch up with developed countries, which accumulate most of the world's finances.
In Russia, according to the expert, the concentration of capital is also increasing. If 5-10 years ago the country was giving birth to new billionaires at such a pace that sometimes it even overtook China in this “competition”, now the number of the richest people in Russia, on the contrary, is declining.
This, unfortunately, is an endangered species in these economic conditions, - the expert ironically.
The question is, how do those who remain at the top of this monetary pyramid increase their capital. Russian authorities say the country's economy will pick up pace in the second half of the year thanks to higher taxes, including VAT. And how do these additional funds translate into GDP growth? Through an instrument of public investment, Ordov answers.
I am convinced that if we analyze these 200 rich people from the point of view of the foundations of their well-being, we will see that the role and weight of state investments, state orders, certain preferential conditions for financing and doing business will sometimes be the main and determining factor in growth. And we see that the decline in the welfare of citizens and the growth in the welfare of just a couple of hundred people are absolutely related things. We have made a market economy a quasi-market one and in many respects a state one, but, unfortunately, it is not becoming transparent enough, - he says.
In itself, it may be a good thing that the rich get richer. But it is important that this creates a public good, the expert emphasizes. You can, for example, build a bridge that will connect two cities - and that's great. But if this bridge costs three times as much as it could have cost under competitive conditions, and the inhabitants of both cities are impoverished as a result of construction, the effectiveness of the entire enterprise becomes very doubtful.
Compare warm to soft
It is incorrect to compare the fortune of the richest people and the incomes of the population, in turn, Vladimir Nazarov, deputy director of the Institute for Social Analysis and Forecasting of the RANEPA, believes. It's like comparing warm to soft, he explains. You can compare income with income, but comparing property with income is pointless.
According to the expert, the Ginny index is more indicative in this case, and in Russia it is, in principle, quite high, but stable - it stays at the level of 0.4 for a long time and does not change much.
It must be understood that the wealth of the richest people is the value of their business (factories, factories) and how the market evaluates it. And this is absolutely in no way comparable with the income of the population, - the expert says.
According to him, during the year the wealth of the rich can change radically in any direction, but for ordinary Russians this is imperceptible. Surgutneftegaz, for example, has huge dollar savings: the ruble has weakened, the value of these savings has increased. The price of oil rose, the market revalued Russian stocks. And there can be quite a lot of factors that, even against the backdrop of sanctions and the crisis, increase the wealth of the richest citizens.
There may also be situations where the wealth of the rich decreases, but inequality still increases, for example, if during an economic crisis there is a large unemployment and many people lose their wages altogether, while the rich continue to receive some income from assets abroad, etc. Maybe be such that inequality is declining, but at the same time the incomes of both the rich and the poor are falling. None of these scenarios can be called optimistic either.
Charles Whelan
Former correspondent for The Economist, columnist for leading American publications, author of Naked Statistics
When Bill Gates had children, he, like many, realized that the house was too small. In 1997, the software mogul moved into a $100 million mansion; shortly thereafter, the house had to be slightly modified. The 11,000-square-meter mansion has a 20-seat cinema, a reception hall, parking for 28 cars, an indoor playground with a trampoline, and, of course, a variety of computer gadgets like phones that ring only when the person being called is nearby. But this house was not big enough. According to documents filed with the Medina, Washington zoning commission, Mr. Gates and his wife would like to add an extra bedroom and provide additional play and study areas for the children.
Based on how Bill Gates approaches changing his home, one could draw a number of different conclusions, but one of them is quite obvious: he lives very, very well. If you have about 50 billion dollars, the world turns into an amazing playground. This raises other, more important questions: why do some people have indoor trampolines and private jets, while others have to sleep in toilets at bus stations? How is it that approximately 13 percent of Americans are classified as poor, and this situation, of course, can be considered some progress compared to the recent peak of 15 percent in 1993, although not very noticeable compared to any year in the 1970 decade - X? At the same time, one in five American children is a staggering number! - 35 percent of black children live in poverty. Of course, America belongs to the rich countries, but today, at the dawn of the third millennium, a huge part of the world's population - about three billion people - lives in extreme poverty.
Economists have been studying poverty and income inequality for many years. They want to understand who the poor are, why they are poor, and whether their situation can be changed. Any discussion about why Bill Gates is immeasurably richer than the men and women who are forced to sleep on heating grids must begin with an examination of a concept that economists call human capital. Human capital is the sum of knowledge and skills embodied in a particular person: his education, intelligence, charisma, creativity, work experience, entrepreneurial streak, even the ability to throw a baseball strongly and accurately. This is what you will be left with if you suddenly lose all your assets - your job, money, home, property - and find yourself on the street in one shirt. How would Bill Gates feel in such a situation? Yes very good. Even if all his wealth were confiscated, there would be plenty of companies willing to hire him as a consultant, board member, CEO, or motivational speaker. (When Steve Jobs was fired from Apple, the company he founded, he created Pixar; and later Apple invited him back.) How would Tiger Woods feel? Also very good. If someone lent him a golf club, by the next weekend he would have won some tournament.
What about Bubba, the kid who dropped out of school in the tenth grade and is also a meth addict? That would have been really hard for him. It's all about human capital, and Bubba's is small. (Curiously, some very rich people, like the Sultan of Brunei, might not have done well in such a situation either; the Sultan is only rich because his country has huge oil reserves.) The labor market is no different from any other market: some talents are used in it is in great demand than others. The more unique the set of knowledge and skills, the more generously they will pay their owner. Alex Rodriguez will make $275 million in ten years of baseball for the New York Yankees because he can hit a 100 mph ball harder and more accurately than the vast majority of people. He helps his team win on the pitch, which in turn helps them build stadiums, sell merchandise, and make huge profits from televised matches. In fact, no one on our planet can do this task better than Rodriguez.
As with other aspects of the market economy, the price of a particular skill is not related to its social value, it is only related to its scarcity. I once interviewed Robert Solow, the 1987 Nobel Prize winner in economics and a well-known baseball fan. I asked Robert if he was annoyed by the fact that, having won a prestigious science award, he made less money than Roger Clemens, then a Red Sox pitcher, made in a single season. “Not at all,” Solow told me. “There are many good economists in the world, but Roger Clemens is one.” Here is a prime example of how economists think.
Who in the United States lives richly or at least comfortably? Programmers, hand surgeons, nuclear engineers, writers, accountants, bankers, university professors. Sometimes these people are naturally talented, but more often they simply acquired their skills through specialized training. In other words, at one time they made significant investments in their human capital. As with any investment, whether building a factory or buying bonds, money invested in human capital today will pay off in the future. And very, believe me, a good profit. According to experts, a higher education provides approximately a 10 percent return on investment, which means that if you invested in college today, you can expect to get that amount back plus about 10 percent a year in higher earnings. . Few people on Wall Street invest more profitably, especially systematically.
Human capital is a kind of economic passport, and in some cases in the literal sense of the word. In the late 1980s, as a senior student, I met a young Palestinian named Gamal Abuali. The Gamal family, who lived in Kuwait, insisted that their son receive a diploma in three years instead of four. Of course, this required the guy to take extra classes every semester, and even in the summer, which seemed pretty extreme to me at the time. But what about without internships and foreign studies? Why not go skiing in Colorado in winter? Once I happened to have lunch with Gamal's father - and he explained to me that life in Palestine is extremely unstable. Mr. Abuali was an accountant; he could do this business in almost any country in the world, and, as he explained to me, this is exactly what can happen to him. Before moving to Kuwait, their family lived in Canada; in another five years they could be elsewhere, he said.
Gamal studied at the Faculty of Engineering; engineering is also a universal professional skill. The sooner Gamal received his diploma, his father insisted, the more secure his position would be. The diploma will allow the son not only to earn a living, but also to find his own home. In some developed countries, the right to immigrate is based on skills and education, that is, on human capital.
I must say that the words of Mr. Abuali turned out to be surprisingly prophetic. After the retreat of Saddam Hussein from Kuwait in 1990, most of the Palestinians living in that country, including Gamal's family, were expelled from Kuwait, because the Kuwaiti authorities believed that the Palestinians sympathized with the Iraqi aggressors. One day Abuali's daughter brought him the first edition of this book. After reading the previous section, he exclaimed: “You see, I was right!”
publishing house "Mann, Ivanov and Ferber", Moscow, 2017, per. O.Medved
