to think 51% tax is ridiculous, and already to be planning to move to Asia

[hedgiemum]

Namechanged. Married to someone who earns well in excess of £150,000 a year, though neither does he earn 7 figures.
He is still quite young in his career - a recent promotion to a senior position, but has not been earning this kind of money of long, so we still have a mortgage and haven't saved large amounts (what we have saved is through his pension which is no longer going to be particularly worth doing.)

He phoned me a minute after end of budget to say he'd watched it with his boss whose reaction was that he would move the company (not a bank, but in finance) to Asia. Probably Hong Kong - 12% tax rather than the 51% we'd be paying here.

Seems like a kneejerk reaction, and clearly we can afford to pay more, but boss doesn't feel he'll get good productivity from staff if they are getting to take home less than half their income. Plus it decreases ever-present risk of them being headhunted by companies in lower-tax economies.

AIBU to be PLEASED (I used to hate tax exiles.) Partly because it just does not seem fair. Partly because this country has been run so badly by New Labour of whom we had such high expectations, and the medical care we have received has been shite, the local schools are shite, the roads are insanely busy and yet is costs so much to live here.

Quick reminder to watch kirsty tonight at 8 for ideas on how to recoup this shortfall by blowing your own glass and making a few cushions.You'll never notice the tax increase i promise!

duchesse - Nobody is patronising you. I am however allowed to point out that you didn't get what I was saying. I hope.

"I happen to believe that many others would step into their place if a trader left"

Oh yes, they would be. But how many would be able to replace the guy who made 2 mn for his bank? Not many, I assure you.

"whether they should be required to take negative wages if they lose money for their employer"

Whatever I say at this point you will possibly consider patronising so I will just point out that you seem to have very little idea about how the corporate world works.

If an employee loses you money, you can fire them. Unless they steal, you can't ask them to pay up.

If you are a bit more clever, you know that the guy lost money because the markets have been tanking, not because hitherto unwitnessed competence issues. So you keep him.

You are still bringing home over 3 times the average salary.
I really don't know how nurses, policemen and essential workers manage to live in London.
In a few years time, London will just be full of the very rich and the very poor and no-one in between.

On the frequency of rubbish collection issue: I have lived in lots of different countries and in urban, suburban and rural areas. IMO, the frequency of rubbish collection has a lot to do with the ability of people to recycle/compost/store rubbish in the particular place in which they live.

Here in central Paris we have daily rubbish collections for dirty rubbish, and twice weekly rubbish collection for recyclable rubbish. My parents, in rural England, have fortnightly rubbish collections and are expected to compost or recycle the majority of their rubbish. But they have a large garden and a big garage in which to store recycling until they make a trip to the dump. It is inconceivable to expect people to deal with their own rubbish here in central Paris in the way that my parents can deal with theirs in rural England - people here just don't have the gardens or space to do so.

And on the GP system - this is one of the huge strengths of the NHS! Getting to see a GP here in Paris (and it is much worse in the provinces) is a nightmare, such is the shortage (and general crapness) of GPs in France.

Riven - everybody everywhere pays for rubbish collection!

Riven- exactly! My husband does something that only about 100 people in the world can do in his branch of science, and is part of an organisation aiming to produce a giant modeling system that will have far-reaching and very lucrative consequences. He is not paid anything like £150,000, I can guarantee you. He works in the public because it is R&D which very few private companies are willing to fund unless it yields immediate tangible benefits. So the private companies operating in the same area resort to headhunting the people with the right skills on a regular basis, thereby depriving us all (it's a public organisation, remember) of the benefits of a huge amount of education and training.

So do I think your economic value-addded model of remuneration, Cote, is a pile of shite? You bet I do. It's called unthinking short-termism, not sound long-term business development. We're all reaping the rewards of that now, and will all be paying for it for decades to come.

"Oh yes, they would be. But how many would be able to replace the guy who made 2 mn for his bank? Not many, I assure you."

But the fact is that they would be able to replace him. They might find someone better, or not, it's actually impossible to say.

"If you are a bit more clever, you know that the guy lost money because the markets have been tanking, not because hitherto unwitnessed competence issues. So you keep him."

If the high earners in these organisations were as clever as you seem to think then they would have seen it coming. It's hardly rocket science that packaging American mortgages that people can't pay as 'safe' investments isn't sustainable. People at the top have to be accountable for what they do.

Where has hedgiemum gone?

Is she busy scouring the newspapers for Foreign Currency Option jobs in the Far East?

yes but it's one of those things

enormously intelligent and specialised people end up being managed by someone with an iq of a hundred

why? perhaps they chose to be more ruthless, perhaps they are more political, perhaps they have greater "emotional intelligence" (doubtful going by the managers I've had), perhaps it's all a face-fit club

but unless you combine them like Bill Gates then that's what happens

Couldn't agree more bored.

"I've never seen a doctor so busy that he couldn't give me an appointment within days."

Days??? That's what I mean - it's crap here trying to see a doctor. The shortage of GPs is a big national issue in France so if you don't feel it in your area I think it must be because all the GPs have relocated to the sunny south (this is a well-recognised problem).

In the UK my GP always gives me an appointment on the same morning as I ring (for DD) and within 24 hours (for me), unless I specifically want to see a female GP, in which case I might need to wait 48 hours.

The rubbish collection system is gradually evolving in Paris, to become less and less frequent, and we are required to recycle more and more. Which is good, and I support that. But they'll never be able to abandon daily collections for dirty rubbish.

bored- so in fact, monetary success has little to do with innate talent, motivation, education, or availability of others with their skills? Sounds like the greedy fuckers sharp end up with more money?

Once again. They knew what they were doing, they didn't care.

LOL at Duchesse feeling it's her duty to employ a cleaning lady.

bored- so in fact, monetary success has little to do with innate talent, motivation, education, or availability of others with their skills? Sounds like the greedy fuckers sharp end up with more money?

How long did it take for that penny to drop ?
I've worked in recruitment/sales all my career to date and seen the lives and careers of PhD and professors shaped and managed by people with third class degree's who simply have more balls than the people they are finding jobs for and therefore the agents get paid more than those with the intelligence/talent, that's true in entertainment and sports too.

Cote - actually the skill of traders is probably vastly overestimated - there are plenty of academic papers on the subject. most traders ride a market up, and then back down again. For the purest example, just look at hedge fund returns over the past few years. (incidentally, a lot of hot-shot traders that leave for hedge funds lose their "magic touch" very quickly once they are disconnected from the insights on market flow (some would say front running) they had at a bank.)

To be fair some people in top jobs are brilliant. The point is not all.

oh yes -- the balls, the balls

it does seem like the wankers filter up

someone wrote a book about it I think : How To Be an Asshole and get promoted or something like that

it was all about being rude to people, ignoring staff below you and sucking up revoltingly to those who could be advantageous to the career

the sort of thing most of us lovely people would think: oh I couldn't possibly!

for one of the exercises you had to stand in a mall and pay decent people to say nasty things about you, so that you could get used to it and not care

LOLOL Bored. Maybe we could have a thread for ambitious MNers where other posters do that for free.

"So do I think your economic value-addded model of remuneration, Cote, is a pile of shite? You bet I do."

Great. Very classy.

You still don't get what I am saying.

Your DH might fill a niche job, so possibly has a rare qualification, but that doesn't mean he will make good money UNLESS HE MAKES GOOD MONEY FOR HIS EMPLOYER.

That is what "value added" MEANS fgs.

And it is not MY personal model of remuneration, you dingbat. It is how the world works - why bankers and footballers get big money and why nurses and shop assistants don't. You obviously have internet connection. Teach yourself a bit of economy.

Swedes- I know- nothing whatever to do with the fact that I bloody hate cleaning. Whatsoever. She would be stuck without her clients though- she doesn't drive and has no access to public transport, so relies on working for people who can drive her.

Sorrento- I was kind of getting my original point out into the open, by the back door like. Having worked in the city, I know it to be the haunt of greedy talentless yet ruthless fuckers. It's just nice to have someone else confirming it in a different way.