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my job pays me £12000 a year after tax, so it's approx 16-18k, which is with london weighting
if i didn't live with my mum, i wouldn't be able to live anywhere near work, so at the moment i spend £100 -120 a month on travelcards round london
It is about scarcity I think.
If you consider the 'value' you give to society, it's immense - you deliver babies into the world. Anyone employed by the government, is according to economic theory, underpaid less than their value anyway
As a corporate banker, who negotiates, or helps negotiates, deals which bring thousands, millions of pounds into the country, their 'value' to society is - perhaps callously - more than that of a midwife.
You can't put a price on a persons life. Well, actually you can, and economists in London already have. I think it's approximately £1m - that's the value someone will contribute to society throughout their lifetime.
That's due to a lack of affordable housing though.
Have to say though, over the past 30 years, (1970s was the 'highlight'), we've actually regressed in the difference in earnings between the poor and the rich has increased.
I'm hoping to be one of the rich, which is why I'm building up my CV and going to University.
I don't think anyone is suggesting that. But the amount of money people have and earn should at least have some correlation to the amount of work they do.
Do you think that the CEO of HSBC does 250 times more work than, say, a police officer? A fire officer? A midwife? A soldier? Because I bloody well don't. And if he does, he should have a medal for working 25 hours a day.
Yeah, people make their bed, and they tend to lie in it. I've gone into the charity sector because that's what I want to do, I've got excellent A'Levels and a strong degree from one of the country's best universities, I could earn more elsewhere. That's fine, and I don't begrudge my City friend who earns 6 times what I do, or my civil service friend who earns 4 times what I do. Them's the choices.
What makes my blood boil is how we live in a country where the very top earn £14bn in profits, yet the very bottom barely have enough to live on. Even those fabled benefits scroungers, making ends meet on the £64 per week incapacity benefit, barely have enough to live on. I don't think everyone should be paid the same, because that would be stupid, but I think the poorest people should have enough to eat before we start justifying the fat cat bonuses of the mega rich.
The HSBC fat cat bonuses come from all the illegal bank charges which bankrupt the poorest in society. The RBS fat cat bonuses come from the mis-sold endowments, the mis-sold insurance. The Boots fat cat bonuses come from sacking 3000 shop floor workers. As for Phoenix, well, words fail me, they should be in prison.
As for envy, well, I wouldn't turn down a £20k pay rise, but I have enough money to eat well, drink well, and pay my mortgage each month. I don't need more. But that doesn't make it moral, fair or right than the very top fat cats earn in an hour what I earn in a month. Or, for that matter, that I earn in an hour what some of my clients receive in a week.
raflmfao