High earners - how do you spend your salary?

If I was earning that much money, there is no way it would be just sitting in the bank earning a pittance. I'd be looking for assets to invest in, to give me a better return.

lancsgirl85
👏👏👏

@Topgub Indeed. Naomi Klein wrote a very good book on this, called 'Capitalism vs the Climate.' In general the poorest people have the lowest carbon footprint, also. I suppose they are getting shafted all ways.

Two children at Uni. Don't get student finance as it's means tested. Swallows up all our money supporting them to pay for accommodation, they both work to support their living costs.

Hopefully in the future we will feel quite comfortable but certainly not feeling it just yet!

Capitalism is literally destroying the planet

Yay for capitalism the system that keeps 99 % poor and fucks the planet

@SlightlyGeordieJohn

Nah double what they take from others in earnings seems about right

Yes, exactly @gotthis

@SlightlyGeordieJohn

Fortunately you’re doing well enough to not have to live near them or work alongside them.

And yet you've the cheek to call others unpleasant? 🤣🤣

You have seemingly no ability to refute any thing I've said so are resorting to getting personal.

The people you went to school with may have had any number of reasons for being unable to do better at school.

You clearly had advantages they didn't. Choice is an illusion that others buy into to feed their superiority complexes

@Citygirly

Politics and wealth inequality and attitudes to both are fascinating?

I'm very much not upset. Why would I be?

Why did you start a thread that no sensible person would need to start?

🤣🤣🤣🤣 you’d be surprised how many walk amongst you mwahahaha

You could have done what I did, and be earning what I do, but you chose not to.

It's not quite that simple is it.

I said previously on this thread that I went to university 3 times and did a PhD recently to qualify in my field. Most of that study took place as a single parent, but with a lot of support around me from family. I now earn 50k in my 30s. Ok, it's not 80k or 120k.... but it's above average, right? It's a a "good" salary. Do I believe anyone could have done what I did and followed my path into my particular career? I actually don't, no.

I came from a background of poverty and a one parent family, but I had a parent who pushed me to do well. Who hammered home the value of education from a young age. Who encouraged and praised my school based achievements. Who loved me and didn't abuse or neglect me. I am able bodied; I have my health. I am relatively intelligent. When I needed childcare for my DD so I could meet university deadlines, it was there. I had a lot on my side from the start.

Others aren't so fortunate. That's why I don't believe "anyone" could have followed my education and career pathway. Because I recognise that my childhood and what it offered provided the necessary foundations for me to do it. If I'd been abused, not encouraged to do well, if I'd had a lower IQ, if I'd had no childcare for my DD while I studied... do I think I could have achieved all that I have? No, I don't.

I don't look down my nose at people who have a lower educational attainment or who earn less than I do. I have the humility to realise that, whilst I worked fucking hard to get where I am in life, many people who earn less have worked just as hard as I have, but possibly without the resources and opportunities I had at each stage of my life.

So, my relatively good salary doesn't make me a better or harder working person than a lower earner. It makes me in many ways luckier.

@Robinni

Whats humble?

Anyone who can afford pe isn't poor or struggling and is absolutely giving their kids an advantage that keeps the wealth with the wealthy

I hear what you are saying about socialism, but it's such an old idea it's a wonder we have not come up with any new perspectives. I do not think capitalism has done better, not when the right to eat is now based on whether you were successful at playing its system.

I don't think it is fair and I think a certain amount of luck is involved in becoming wealthy. But having lived under a former communist/socialist government in a developing country where we queued up for hours for the most basic foodstuffs or services, I am not sure there are many better, fairer alternatives.

You won't catch me complaining about taxes though or saying that people choose to be poor.

Regarding charity donations, I do donate to charity, though not 10% of my salary. Mostly in my country of origin.

They seem to get pleasure from being unpleasant at people who’ve gone out and made something of their lives. There are always people like that around. Fortunately you’re doing well enough to not have to live near them or work alongside them.

That's an interesting point about capitalism, I suppose. There have to be the poor, otherwise there would be no rich. The system is built upon it. Of course, those who are doing well believe it's the result of their virtue and the system is fair. It would be against their interests to think otherwise. Malthusian ideas, such as poverty being a result of moral and personal deficiencies, also are popular. It's a sad system that sets people against each other, that is what keeps it going.

It is disproportionate as the top 1% of earners earn 14% of all wages and pay 30% of all income tax.

That is the actual definition of disproportionate. If it was proportionate they would pay 14% of all income tax.

Just about everyone could do the same, but few choose to, and yes, of course a great many people do choose to be poor.

People will choose an easier job over a higher paying one, people choose to gamble, people choose to spend money on credit, and so on.

I’m from a pit village, and the kids from school who always bunked off for a smoke, or didn’t come in at all, the ones who got out at sixteen for a job in a factory, they are pretty much all struggling now relative to the ones who stuck in at school, and then worked to get themselves into a good career afterwards.

Hear, hear🙌

Youre not rich. Basically. Youre the squeezed middle. Sorry

@SlightlyGeordieJohn

I'm not poor.

I doubt very much you've gotten where you are entirely on your own or that everyone could do the same

No one choses to be poor. Much as telling yourself that makes you feel better

@Madbamboo

Cashiers work hard too.

The responsibilities are different.

Is the ceo really working a million times harder?

Course not. There are roles that are more important in terms of responsibility and harder work that dong earn much more than the cashier.

Things could be fairer with drifting into communism

You could have done what I did, and be earning what I do, but you chose not to.

If you are poor it’s not because others are rich, it’s pretty much a certainty that it’s down to your own choices.

You seem well-balanced, what with having a chip on both shoulders.

@Topgub OP comes from humble beginnings. My grandparents were brought up in council houses.

You seem to think that everyone going to private school comes from a long line of toffs…. There aren’t enough families of toffs to populate the schools. Many of the children are from regular families who worked hard and want to spend their money on helping kids. I know roofers and plumbers who send 1-2 of their children there for goodness sake. They have to work like maniacs but they feel it’s worth it.