Pay gap widens

[anonymous-user]

[redacted]

[shed driver]

Could this be one of the reasons why the shopfloor mentality (see other thread) is still alive and kicking?

SD

[voyds9]

Two ways to become a FAT CAT, apply for the job and get it or start a company and become one. If you are unable to do either you still get paid what you are worth.

How may of the FTSE 350 from 2002 are the same as today, different companies will have different pay structures.

[Puggit]

A large part of the Exec rises are due to keeping everyone else's pay down!

[Fittster]

Let's have some Marx.

"The great 19th Century German philosopher, economist and revolutionary believed that capitalism was radically unstable.

It had a built-in tendency to produce ever larger booms and busts, and over the longer term it was bound to destroy itself.

Marx welcomed capitalism's self-destruction. He was confident that a popular revolution would occur and bring a communist system into being that would be more productive and far more humane.

Marx was wrong about communism. Where he was prophetically right was in his grasp of the revolution of capitalism. It's not just capitalism's endemic instability that he understood, though in this regard he was far more perceptive than most economists in his day and ours.


Marx co-authored The Communist Manifesto with Friedrich Engels
More profoundly, Marx understood how capitalism destroys its own social base - the middle-class way of life. The Marxist terminology of bourgeois and proletarian has an archaic ring.

But when he argued that capitalism would plunge the middle classes into something like the precarious existence of the hard-pressed workers of his time"

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-14764357

But there's a new series of the X factor on telly so why worry.

[Ozzie Osmond]

voyds9 said:

Two ways to become a FAT CAT, apply for the job and get it or start a company and become one. If you are unable to do either you still get paid what you are worth.

It's that kind of crass, arrogant idiocy and greed which leads to rioting on the streets IMO.

What are you "worth"?

[BMWBen]

anonymous said:

[redacted]

Only by the argument of logical and scientific fallacy...

If we assume that company performance is a zero sum game (i.e. there is a finite amount of money to be invested in equities) then it proves nothing of the sort. Not the first bit obviously... that's not really in question

That's not to say I agree with the situation, but the whole argument as presented is on shakey logical ground.

Edited by BMWBen on Monday 5th September 21:02

[Otispunkmeyer]

what do you do about it, theyre private entities, its up to them what they pay who. Sure its looking a bit rich while everyones salaries have barely budged while those at the top reap ever increasing rewards (deserved rewards? thats another argument)...but what you gonna do?

[BMWBen]

Otispunkmeyer said:

what do you do about it, theyre private entities, its up to them what they pay who. Sure its looking a bit rich while everyones salaries have barely budged while those at the top reap ever increasing rewards (deserved rewards? thats another argument)...but what you gonna do?

Stop being a passive shareholder and be an active one - the problem is that the major shareholders are pension and investment funds, and they don't give a crap.

[MX7]

Ozzie Osmond said:

voyds9 said:

Two ways to become a FAT CAT, apply for the job and get it or start a company and become one. If you are unable to do either you still get paid what you are worth.

It's that kind of crass, arrogant idiocy and greed which leads to rioting on the streets IMO.

It might be crass, but it's fundimentally true isn't it?

[turbobloke]

An article linked by Isaac Hunt said:

Ms Hargreaves said the share prices and performance of companies had not come close to matching the rises in pay and salaries.

She said: "The evidence exposes the myth that big bonuses and high salaries result in better company performances."

BMWBen said:

That's not to say I agree with the situation, but the whole argument as presented is on shakey logical ground.

Agreed.

Not least as Ms Hargreaves cannot carry out a retrospective real-world experiment where the people getting the bonuses are either a) not given the bonuses to see what happens afterwards compared to the previous situation or b) sacked and replaced to see what happens afterwards compared to the previous situationn.

No such comparisons can ever be made.

The performance of companies in terms of share price isn't necessarily the full story either, though it's a common measure and not unreasonable.

[Jasandjules]

How are they measuring "performance" of these companies?

In a struggling market for example a good CEO might keep the company afloat, saving costs all over the place, and is rewarded for it. Unless this individual knows all the ins and outs of the companies then she is not in a position to judge.

Just sounds to me like the whinging leftie approach....

[rich1231]

I think too many poor people have joined PH lately.

[turbobloke]

Ozzie Osmond said:

It's that kind of crass, arrogant idiocy and greed which leads to rioting on the streets IMO.

What are you "worth"?

I can see your point but the only reason rioting on the streets takes place is that some people make a bad decision to riot, one which is their responsibility alone.

Outside the public sector what one person is paid has not the slightest relevance to another person and it's certainly not a reason to riot unless jealousy and envy are no longer sins but positive qualities.

Clearly at this point we can imagine Polly Toynbee on her supposed £110k salary entering the fray, whining about fairness over the internet from her luxury villa in Tuscany - but if certain people have gained the experience and expertise to take on and perform a job that attracts a certain market rate, that's fair too, whether or not they started the business. Or write for the Guardian, even.

If somebody wants the same remuneration they should forget rioting and take legitimate steps towards their goal, which may include re-training and working smarter / harder, but not rioting and hopefully not whining.

[GeraldSmith]

Before taking too much notice of stuff like this look at where it comes from.

The High Pay Commission sounds official but isn't, it's run by Compass "Direction for the democratic left" (whatever that means) and funded by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, a Quaker organisation interested in 'social injustice' and 'political inequality'

So it's hardly an objective view on the situation....

[turbobloke]

GeraldSmith said:

Before taking too much notice of stuff like this look at where it comes from.

The High Pay Commission sounds official but isn't, it's run by Compass "Direction for the democratic left" (whatever that means) and funded by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, a Quaker organisation interested in 'social injustice' and 'political inequality'

So it's hardly an objective view on the situation....

True, but it's out there and no doubt the BBC will be all over it like a rash. Oh yes I remember now, the link in the OP is from the BBC

It may be a surprise for such a promising old footballer but I probably won't make the GB elite squad for the 100m at next year's Olympics. This is entirely due to a lack of appropriate attributes on my part alongside the possession of some less than helpful ones and there's nothing that any training regime could do about it, such a combination will keep me out of the fast lane on track and that's life.

If certain envyists won't ever make it to top jobs with elite pay grades, then if it's due to a lack of effort or lack of application of ability it can be sorted to whatever degree is possible, if on the other hand they are basically useless lazy buggers with an entitlement complex then that's life and they should accept their limitations and enjoy life in the dumbfk lane as far as possible.

Smile and the world smiles with you etc

[Fittster]

GeraldSmith said:

Before taking too much notice of stuff like this look at where it comes from.

The High Pay Commission sounds official but isn't, it's run by Compass "Direction for the democratic left" (whatever that means) and funded by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, a Quaker organisation interested in 'social injustice' and 'political inequality'

So it's hardly an objective view on the situation....

So anything published by either the Adam Smith Institute or the Tax Payers Alliance should also be ignored as they have agendas?

[turbobloke]

Fittster said:

GeraldSmith said:

Before taking too much notice of stuff like this look at where it comes from.

The High Pay Commission sounds official but isn't, it's run by Compass "Direction for the democratic left" (whatever that means) and funded by the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust, a Quaker organisation interested in 'social injustice' and 'political inequality'

So it's hardly an objective view on the situation....

So anything published by either the Adam Smith Institute or the Tax Payers Alliance should also be ignored as they have agendas?

Tsk.

No of course not. You only ignore publications from groups with leftist agendas.

Obviously.

[Ozzie Osmond]

turbobloke said:

If somebody wants the same remuneration they should forget rioting and take legitimate steps towards their goal, which may include re-training and working smarter / harder, but not rioting and hopefully not whining.

That fits a country with

• a wealthy unelected royal family
• widespread celebrity culture
• central London packed with wealthy people from the middle east
• suburbia packed with wealthy Russians

It's just not credible to say to young people that "if you work hard you can join the party".
More and more wealth is held in fewer and fewer hands.
The pay gap is inexcusable - unless you are comfortable with a return to serfdom and feudalism.

New labour was doing its best to bribe the masses into compliance. As soon as the bribery was under threat of withdrawal we had the riots. After the riots we have another clampdown. The pressure continues to build.

[don4l]

Ozzie Osmond said:

voyds9 said:

Two ways to become a FAT CAT, apply for the job and get it or start a company and become one. If you are unable to do either you still get paid what you are worth.

It's that kind of crass, arrogant idiocy and greed which leads to rioting on the streets IMO.

What are you "worth"?

Easy.

You are worth what you are paid.

If you feel that you are worth more than you are paid, but you do nothing to rectify the situation, then you really are not worth as much as you think.

Don
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