The Rich Never Pay Full Price For Anything

Introduction

The title is taken from a line by Sir Cathcart D'Eath in Tom Sharpe's "Porterhouse Blue" and it was illustrated emphatically to me today buying some items at the supermarket.

However, there are so many illustrations from memes by rich privileged idiots, to others who see the reality of the situation and the hardships it causes for people.

The music is "How Can A Poor Man Stand Such Times And Live?" by Ry Cooder & The Moula Banda Rhythm which is appropriate for this piece.

Why The Rich Never Pay Full Price For Anything

Today I spent just over £70 in the supermarket but because of the card and bulk and discount it only cost me £54. Now if I had little money, say £12, a bottle of fizz and some salmon fillets would have cost me £11.50 and I would have had no option but to pay that. Today those same two items cost ME £8.75, which is £2.75 less than a person with a lot less money than me would have had to pay, almost 25%.

As an aside from this train journeys in the UK are actually cheaper if the journey is split up into many parts, rather than them all in one. When I go to Preston from Newcastle my split ticket costs me between £20 and £30 return whereas a single return ticket would cost me £140. This would put off ill-informed people, especially if they are poor.

I saw a meme today that said "Poverty charges interest".

I see lots of memes like this and I seriously want to punch the poster:

This implies that the poor are poor because they are wasteful. The graph also implies that the rich and poor have similar incomes. These sorts of people then say something to the effect of:

"Give a poor person £100 and they spend it, it's gone. Give a rich person £100 and in a year it is worth £1000"

They completely ignore the fact that the rich person does not need to spend, what to them, is pocket money. This is the cruel language of idiot privilege, it may be true but it is a very blinkered statement.

Also remember, that the poor people spending money on whatever they spend it on, is stimulating for the economy. A rich person putting the money into an offshore account so they don't have to pay tax actually shrinks the economy.

Terry Pratchett showed us many lessons on how poverty affects the poor. I have been there and I am sure many of my readers have, and maybe are in this position. We can only buy what we have the money for, and sometimes eemergenciescome up meaning we have to divert money for essentials to pay for those emegencies levaing us trying to figure out how to make things balance.

Then there is this situation, the poor often are forced to steal because they are hungry and may spend time in jail (where ironically they will be fed and housed, if not free) while a rich man doing a similar thing will merely pay a fine and go on his merry way.

Conclusion

I am not sure what the answer is, everyone needs disposable income, that income above the necessities for living such as rent, mortgage, food, travel and health. That grows the economy.

The right-wing has forced wage suppression since the seventies. In the seventies no one talked about buying a house because everyone could buy one, today no one talks about buying a house because so few can afford one.

Thank you for reading.

I am sorry I have no answers, but here is a video by Nick Hanauer, one of the few super-rich, who talks a hell of a lot of sense and wants to see full implementation of living wages.