To be annoyed/hurt by my good friend and think high earners should be willing to pay more ?

[whatislife]

i have been lurking on MN for a long time and never posted. Decided to join today and thought I'd mark the occasion with a rant.
I got in an argument with my friend (2 days ago) and the anger re-appeared when she sent me a text this morning. This doesn't really matter though.

The argument started when she made a snarky comment about an old friend of ours (not very close to be honest). The woman had been complaining about money and started ranting about high earners, tax and all sorts. My friend , a very high earner (think 6 figures), kept quiet the whole while and then started talking about it to me. This is where she said something along the lines of 'No one forced her to messed around at school and screw her life up. Im not going to feel bad because I worked hard' and 'why should I pay more tax when I already pay a ridiculous amount and she doesn't pay any'. These comments really angered me because I am also a low earner and rely on benefits - she knows this ! So we got into an argument about tax and benefits (silly i know but personal comments were also made).

My question is ; AIBU to think my close friend (and high earners in general) should realise how lucky she is and be willing to pay more tax so people like me can also have a normal life?

I was responding to a pps suggestion that the immigrant success story is usually because despite arriving with nothing they have advantages that the indigenous people don't have.

I think we're a massively diverse group so it's difficult to generalise, as the only common factor has been making the decision to pick ourselves up and leave our home countries to try our hands some place else. Which sometimes feels like it might involve certain personality traits or values that are linked to work and attainment, but I've no evidence for that at all.

I'm the first to admit I started with many advantages that other immigrants don't have.

I think that's obvious.

So have we annoyed the baby out of you yet? ;)

Not nearly! Must try harder :)

Why do you think having a go -getting temperament is any more or less the result of the genetic lottery than having high academic intelligence?

This, this and this again ^

Ice may be assuming those of us who have done well have had no bad luck! In fact it's often the opposite - the Syrian refugee forced to come to the UK. the ugandan asian expelled without a penny. I always attribute my good earnings in things that have gone wrong, all the business decisions that led to a loss or crash etc. It is that resilience in dealing with failure and picking yourself up time after time after time when you lose a lot and having that utter self belief that you can always start again and do fine that makes you do well. It is not that you have never had any bad luck. Even those of us who earn a lot on here have had deahts, disease, divorce and all the rest ., Plenty of business people have bankruptcy and then start out again.

The issue of grit and go getting is the issue of the moment. Schools are trying to develop it in people. What makes people like me?
I think being bright is about 50./50 genes and environment. I suspect being go - getting is similar too. If your family all work very hard are stoic and never give up, are always on time and are happy to work 6 or 7 days a week you will have an environment and hereditary towards that whilst the average lazy hite British git who rises from the sofa to change television channels and goes to work only if their runny nose has only just started to abate and takes sick leave at the drop of a hat - we all know the type - probably has a family where being on time isn't important, their parenst were always on the sick when not sick etc. I suspect the go getting is more environment than genes where as there is probably a slightly higher genetic factor in your IQ level.

Oh for a go getting temperament. My DM refers to me as the laziest individual on the planet and I largely put my academic success down to highly efficient exam technique rather than stellar brains. I don't come from a priveleged background.

I put my money on luck but maybe it was good looks

I wonder what DOES make the difference between people who can see that their success is at least in part due to luck in either their genetic make up or their environment.

I think it is fairly well reported that those who come from tough backgrounds or who have suffered adversity and come through the other side are less sympathetic to those people they perceive as not having done enough to work their way out of their position or are too reliant on the state.
It was certainly credited as part of the reason the Tories won the election.

So it isn't people who have had an easy ride in life thinking it is all down to themselves. It is people who have had a tough ride thinking 'I worked my way to this, why the hell shouldn't they as well'

Isn't it all a bit hopeless to just write off success or failure down to luck/environment/genes? Doesn't it ignore that "spark" in each of us that can often make the difference if we choose to use it?

It just seems too easy to blame external factors for everything, rather than doing something to rise above whatever the disadvantage is. I completely get that it won't always work - even that sometimes it's just not possible - but to suggest some kind of inevitability about outcome? Sorry, but to me it just doesn't compute

I don't know anyone here who has claimed that their success is only due to hard work.

But hey.

I think the suggestion that high earners have never had bad luck/hard times/been poor is ridiculous. Most of the high earners I know work hard because they were poor and are hoping for better for their kids.

I hope all people who own a property above the national average feel extremely lucky and know that they are selfish and greedy. It's only 'fair'.

It just seems too easy to blame external factors for everything, rather than doing something to rise above whatever the disadvantage is. I completely get that it won't always work - even that sometimes it's just not possible - but to suggest some kind of inevitability about outcome? Sorry, but to me it just doesn't compute

To me, there's a difference between acknowledging that some factors in success are down to luck/nature/nurture rather than being purely about the conscious actions of the individual, and blaming external factors for lack of success, or saying that certain outcomes are inevitable (there is plenty of evidence of what people can/have risen above, for example).

For me, the former is pretty important in being able to understand why others may have ended up where they are - and have made the choices they have - and at the same time retaining some perspective on why and how I've ended up on the very nice trajectory I'm on.

thehypocrites, it started at the fourth post on the thread. There have been a few.

Oop. Well there have been a few claims that high earners are all ammoral, privileged toss pots.

I ignored those ones too.

I wouldn't argue with that, Jassy; it's why I acknowledged that sometimes, and for some reasons, "rising above it" just won't be possible

As ever, though, I'm back with the difference between can't and won't, along with the conviction that there remain those who would rather scatter blame than address what they might perhaps do to improve their lot

IceBeing My suspicion is that only those people essentially entirely isolated from the random impact of bad luck in life think their good fortune is of their own making.

Why on earth do you think that? How can you possibly know what things have happened to people in their lives? My father died 4 weeks before my final (having been ill and latterly disabled for many years). I had my education disrupted at school by bullies (which is probably why I can spot bullying tendencies a mile off now). Instead of trying my hardest to work through it, I should have labelled myself "disadvantaged" and spent my time wailing my poor luck and for not having middle/upper class parents. Except it was no different to anything many others go through in an average life.

And of course you get lazy people! They're not all "disadvantaged". I kind of love the use of that word, it is one of those silly expressions that tend to get invented on mumsnet. I look forward to seeing it in legislation - illegal to discriminate against anyone who might be "disadvantaged" by not being born to perfect parents, or simply for being lazy. Maybe we could even have the "disadvantaged" Olympics, for all those able bodied who simply cannot be bothered to train or eat healthily (obviously due to not having a qualified nutritionist and sports coach as parents).

I ignored those ones too.

You are a better person than I am.

Tbh, I don't think I would have bothered with this thread at all except for the indignant 'luck had nothing to do with it!' posts. I get embarrassed at the idea that people might get the idea that all/most higher earners think that way, and I feel the need to redres the balance.

Puzzled, I don't necessarily disagree - I just think it's a more complex landscape than many paint. And I do believe that not everyone has the innate potential to earn six figures under our current setup, for a variety of reasons.

Jassy I'm saying - as I've repeated a number of times - that I find you apparently equating 'disabled' and 'not academic' with 'lazy and disorganised' as pretty awful. You are free to equate those things, I'm free to say I find you doing so as frankly not very nice.

You are indeed, but now you are accusing me of misusing words that I did not even use! I have not mentioned the word "disabled" at all, nor have I used the phrase "not academic". So it would be quite an achievement for me to "equate" (as you accuse me of) them with whatever it is you are trying to say.

But I'll keep it simple. If you got something important to say, and presumably it is to accuse me of something you don't like. Spit it out. S it in words. Forget all the waffle and this means that crapola. You obviously know what it is that you have taken such an extreme reaction to, its not obvious to anyone who doesn't hold that same particular set of prejudices.

I'll repeat - I'm not trying to stop you posting, or 'control' what you post, let alone what you think. I'm commenting on what you've posted, in very similar terms to the way you've commented on others' posts. Why do you find that such a problem?

Very grandiose of you. Of course you don't get to stop people from posting. The issue is that you are accusing me of something, but you don't have the honesty to say what it is. What I d find a problem is that I think you are a bully. And that's why I keep repeating your posts and asking you to say what you mean, because bullies generally don't manage to produce anything that does stand up to scrutiny like that, as you have shown.

Can't quite see why you're looking for a 'legal foundation' for someone commenting on what appears to be the content of your posts in a negative way. Talk about hyperbolic overreaction.

Indeed... in this country, we can say whatever we like, unless its prohibited by law. This is not a difficult concept to grasp. Whether or not someone on an internet site takes a dislike to a certain choice of words is not particularly important. If it were, we would legislate against it.

But as I've said - not from round here, and I still find the odd bit where my use of language is interpreted differently here from how it would be where I'm from.

You and many of the rest of us...

What about people with a vocation? They tend to enter the less well-paid professions because they want to make a difference. I worked hard at school and came away with excellent results. I worked just as hard and received a better degree result than my university housemate. She chose to become a lawyer, I chose to become a teacher. We are both often working past midnight and are both very stressed by our jobs. She earns about 4 times what I earn. She pays proportionately more tax, but still takes home far, far more than I do and leads a much more luxurious lifestyle. I
wouldn't want to do her job and she wouldn't want to do mine, but these were life choices - nothing to do with who worked harder.

DH used to be a consultant earning a 6-figure salary. He retrained as a teacher because he wanted to do something more worthwhile. He is now a middle-leader, earning about a third of what he earned before. He says teaching is harder work and more stressful than his previous job, but he gets more out of it.

Scremersford, you quoted those words in another poster's paragraph, to which you directly responded with your words I've quoted. They were among the 'further disadvantages' being described with which you responded with your descriptions of those further disadvantages.

It was such a direct response that I was able to c&p the quoted para and your response with no editing.

The issue is that you are accusing me of something, but you don't have the honesty to say what it is.

Sorry. Thought I'd been clear. I was saying that it looked like you were equating disability and lack of academic ability (some of the PP's examples of disadvantage, quoted by you) with laziness and being disorganised, and that if that was the case, I found it disgusting. I'm not sure I can get much plainer than that, but I'm happy to keep jumping through the hoops in whatever game you're playing.

What I d find a problem is that I think you are a bully.

You're very welcome to think that; I think taking that 'someone disagrees with me and has questioned what I've said' as 'bullying' as a bit of a stretch, really. Why is my criticising your post and view 'bullying', but you calling another poster's argument as 'appalling' apparently not?

Indeed... in this country, we can say whatever we like, unless its prohibited by law. This is not a difficult concept to grasp. Whether or not someone on an internet site takes a dislike to a certain choice of words is not particularly important. If it were, we would legislate against it.

We don't disagree, so why did you bring up legislation, and continued to bang on about it? Can you quote the bit where you think I tried to control what you post, or suggested there were 'prohibited words'?

And thinking of it - if you weren't responding to the paragraph you'd quoted, then I clearly got the wrong end of the stick. But it would be an unusual posting style to quote a paragraph, post a paragraph underneath it, and for there to be no connection between the two - which is why I drew the conclusion I did.

However, if I got it wrong - apologies.

Still unclear why you had such a go at me last night, though, and yet have decided that I'm a bully.

Oh, Jassy. I fear you are wasting your time. Your argument is quite clear, but Scremer will not be dissuaded from her obtuseness.

Good try, though.

It would need a lot of working through and have to be very carefully done but I think a maximum salary is actually a good idea.

Nobody needs to earn a high 5 figure salary. In fact nobody needs to earn a 5 figure salary at all, although I wouldn't go so far to say that the bar should be set to prevent that. I have no idea what would be fair but Icebeings factor of 10 £150K doesn't seem so terrible to me.

I count myself as a high earner and I'm a teacher and the sole wage earner in my household. Of course I can think of things I would do with an extra 100K but I don't even need everything I have, let alone more.

That certainly doesn't mean I want to give anything up btw! I'm as selfish as the next person. BUT, if I were to be made to, I don't think it would be a bad thing for society in general.

That's good but at the same time nobody Needs to have a house above the national average, nobody needs more bedrooms than kids or even large gardens. We should divide all bigger houses.

True. Complicated, isn't it. The thing that would need to be settled is what is reasonable as a maximum.

To me, personally, larger houses than strictly necessary, a foreign holiday a year and a decent garden is certainly not too much to expect in return for your labour (not that everyone gets that but I don't think taking it away from those who do is a solution). But others will disagree with me there.

But again, to me personally, 6+ bedroom mansions, several luxury foreign holidays a year and your own tennis court, swimming pool and football field sized garden is too much to expect when so many desperately hard working people have almost nothing. I don't think anyone should have that when there is such inequality. But again, others will disagree with me there too.

YABU

ffs manic, if we all had a max salary of 150k who exactly would pay the benefits bill? If you have 3 kids do you think you can send them to private school on 150K - then the cost of schooling goes up because more people need state schools etc. Fucking ridiculous.