What people earn

[LauraBridges]

Today's FT has a fascinating examination of income over 40 years from various jobs and professions:

The fractured middle: UK salary split sees übers pull ahead

A deep divide has opened among Britain’s high earners, with an “über-middle” elite reaping the rewards of globalisation while millions of “cling-on” professionals struggle to sustain a middle class lifestyle.

An analysis of almost 40 years’ worth of data on salaries for the Financial Times has found that a large, highly qualified group has slipped down the economic league table. The findings starkly illustrate the growing inequality, driven by the highest earners, that policy makers are grappling with. President Barack Obama has identified the divide as a central theme of his second term.
In a week when the Bank of England issued bullish forecasts for economic growth, capping the most sustained run of upgrades since it gained independence in 1997, it will also raise questions about which groups are reaping the spoils of the recovery.

READ FULL ARTICLE HERE: t.co/r1wg1tiM82

[POST EDITED BY MN FOR COPYRIGHT REASONS]

Let's have more Dutch engineers to help the at risk flood areas and to prevent people's homes and businesses being ruined instead of stopping dredging to protect the "Depressed River Mussel's" eco-habitat.

Let's expose what this rich elite of "sustainability" and low-growth, Club of Rome "Limits to Growth" proponents have really got planned for the people in their "sustainable" vision of our future.

Let's remove the progressive puppets and cut the salaries of their "human rights lawyers" and investment in engineering and development and industry and let's put the formidable Su Burrows of Wraysbury in a position of power so that the views of ordinary people are represented rather than the platitudes of the puppets.

This is what your FT article said - the progressive FT.

"A deep divide has opened among Britain’s high earners, with an “über-middle” elite reaping the rewards of globalisation while millions of “cling-on” professionals struggle to sustain a middle class lifestyle."

You think it is a good thing. You are chuffed because you are a lawyer and think you got what you have because you "deserve" it for your hard work.

Well I don't think it is a good thing. I think it is a tragedy for our country and for millions of our "cling-on" people. And I think it has been done deliberately by a rich elite who intend to impoverish millions of people as they try to cling on, but eventually this rich elite will stamp on their fingers and they will fall further down. That is what this rich elite of "limits to growth" eco-progressives want as they protect the "Depressed River Mussel" rather than people's homes.

'millions of “cling-on” professionals struggle to sustain a middle class lifestyle."

Wake up. this is political. The elite want to break the middle class, just like the communists wanted to, and the elite will use the "progressives" and their "lawyer" class of ex-barrister puppets to do so.

Does that matter? Is it any different from the million years of survival on this planet? Some will always do better than others. I have 5% Neanderthal DNA. 95% isn't. We won over them. We did them down. We were better. Is it any different now?

Surely if one individual person wants more money (not that that will make them happy) then they take a career path to give them that. If they don't really want it then they don't. Plenty don't want it and are still fed and housed. What is the problem?

If we are returning to the norm of bigger differences between rich and poor that does not necessarily mean people starve and having less does not mean you are unhappy.

'Does that matter? Is it any different from the million years of survival on this planet? Some will always do better than others. I have 5% Neanderthal DNA. 95% isn't. We won over them. We did them down. We were better. Is it any different now?'

Of course it matters because they are attacking ordinary people in a social-Darwinist battle to "limit our growth". They think they are better than us - that they are "the ubers" and we are the "cling-ons" as the progressive FT says.

You probably think you are one of the "ubers", but you only get the crumbs from their table and they will ditch the "ubers" after they have dealt with the middle class and the "cling-ons". You may be "alright Jack2, but will your children and grandchildren and great-grandchildren be when they prioritise the "Depressed River Mussel" above people?

'I have 5% Neanderthal DNA. 95% isn't. We won over them. We did them down. We were better. Is it any different now?'

But you are one of us, you aren't one of them, however much you now earn. Your future lies with us, not them.

"Surely if one individual person wants more money (not that that will make them happy) then they take a career path to give them that. If they don't really want it then they don't. Plenty don't want it and are still fed and housed. What is the problem?"

The problem is that there aren't enough well-paid jobs to go round in their low-growth sustainable society and that is what they intend. As the progressive FT says

"millions of “cling-on” professionals struggle to sustain a middle class lifestyle."

That is the problem. Social mobility has declined, opportunities have diminished, graduates can't get well-paid jobs and millions are on the dole. They want a future, a prosperous future, not what the elite call a "sustainable" future.

'If we are returning to the norm of bigger differences between rich and poor that does not necessarily mean people starve and having less does not mean you are unhappy.'

It is not the norm. The elite have tricked people with their "sustainability" story. people are now "cling-ons" struggling to sustain a middle-class lifestyle and some poor people have actually committed suicide as their benefits have been cut and they couldn't see a way of continuing.

It's cruel. We don't want to let them create a world of "ubers" and "cling ons". They are taking us for a ride and it's about time we rung the bell and told them we want to get off.

But you have rather capitalist aims though, don't you? You are suggesting that it is better nicer easier happier if you have more money. If you can cast that aside and look at science - that what makes people happy is moving around, sunshine, freshair, basic foods then you are happier. I don't mind if people have a lot more of money etc than I do at all. It genuinely doesn't bother me.

Growth is not necessarily a moral good. It just makes people less happy and spoils the planet.

I don't care that people have more money than me, because you are right that money does not create happiness.

'You are suggesting that it is better nicer easier happier if you have more money.'

However, I am suggesting that people shouldhave the opportunities to have enough money for a comfortable existence and to live in safety and security and to have choice. For that to happen, we need growth, industry, progress and opportunity, not the "sustainability" that some want us to have.

'Growth is not necessarily a moral good.'

I think it is, because it is nature. The opposite of growth is decline or a stasis of 'sustainbility'. Trees grow, plants grow and families grow until we eventually meet our maker.

We want our wages to grow (i.e. to increase) not to decline and decrease.

We want opportunities and choice to grow (increase) not to decline.

The super rich cabal who pull the puppets' string are against growth because they want to prevent the growth of humanity since they already have everything that they require and they want to prevent us getting our fair share.

I thought you were a Thatcherite. Thatcher wanted everybody to grow and own their own home and increase their own wealth. She wasn't an eco-progressive who wanted to manage our decline in the stasis desired by the rich known as 'sustainability'.

Thatcher prioritised people above the 'Depressed River Mussel'.
Thatcher wanted growth.

It is not "greed is good", it is "growth is good".

This war against the middle class, against the resilient "cling ons" is worldwide, global because this super rich elite is global and their global warming policy is global as is their globalisation.

And why is it against the middle class and its millions of "cling ons"? Because they are the only real resistance to the rich elite. The "progressives" are no resistance, they are pussycats in their pocket. Just look at New Labour.

Living standards are being squeezed and it is deliberate and low-growth is what the puppets promise as they obey their masters' whims. this is the antithesis of thatcher's vision of a property owning democracy where people are rewarded for their enterprise and where growth is laudable. This is the progressive paradise of penury and decline and stasis and dependency delivered by progressives for teh benefit of their masters.

"As you finish this book, the chances are you’ll want to commit suicide. Because all you will have been longing for and expecting is a way of life that’s ‘independent, peaceful, leisured, safe’, where you can remain in good health and can pass on civilised values to the grandchildren - and what happens? The middle class is stony broke, scoffed at, exploited.

Pensions are dwindling, mortgages are bonkers, salaries are squeezed. The Englishman’s home isn’t his castle any more - it is his impossible dream.

House prices have gone up 500 per cent in the past 25 years. The average London property, at £408,000, is 15 times the average income. To afford it you’d need a salary of £87,000, a cash deposit of £100,000, and the stamina to endure ‘a quarter of a century of indentured servitude’.

Over the next decade, it is predicted that values will rise to £688,000 for a semi in the South-East. What young professional can feasibly afford that, as there is already £35?billion outstanding in student loans? And, yeah, that’s really going to all get paid back.

Nobody inherits anything because old folk won’t die, and as they dribble with dementia their care eats up resources.

Once upon a time, the nation’s teachers, civil servants, army officers, doctors, managers and so forth had savings and superannuation schemes, bought new cars regularly, went to the theatre, ate out and took lots of foreign holidays."

www.dailymail.co.uk/home/books/article-2322028/Only-rich-afford-truly-middle-class-BROKE-WHO-KILLED-THE-MIDDLE-CLASSES-BY-DAVID-BOYLE.html

"Obama bashes the rich in his speeches to the American people; he fuels the fire for his class warfare by agitating people and making them believe that they are not getting “their fair share”. However, behind closed doors, he placates his buddies and makes sweetheart deals with them, probably telling them not to worry; he just has to play the game. After all, he bailed out big banks, shoveled billions to GM, wrote huge checks to “green energy” companies, and increased the size of federal bureaucracy making bureaucrats richer. He has made it easier for illegals to come in and work which hurts the working poor, and he has made being a lawyer for wealthy corporations a booming business! With all of the regulations being imposed on businesses large and small, being an attorney in D.C. seems like a good bet.

If he really was going after the rich, do you think they would party with him in the Hamptons, have mega fundraisers for him in Hollywood or become members of his trusted administration? Not on your life.

So who suffers in all of this? Yes, “technically” the poor are getting poorer, but they have a safety net of entitlements that provide them with income pretty close to what they would get if they were working. Between unemployment, food stamps, disability, and low-income housing, they struggle but have a safety net.

Not so for the middle class American. For the guy or gal who graduates college and wants to look at starting a business or get a job, the prospects look dismal. There aren’t many jobs out there for one thing , and if they want to start a business and happen to live in a state like California, they take one look at the hoops they need to jump through and the regulations they will face, and the idea doesn’t seem so appealing."

finance.townhall.com/columnists/morganbrittany/2013/09/16/so-long-middle-class--obamas-world-sees-only-rich-and-poor-n1701057/page/full

Same bullshit in every country. Lawyers ex-barristers attorneys hoops regulations save the planet

The elite are laughing at the "cling ons"

'stamina to endure ‘a quarter of a century of indentured servitude'

That is what they are planning for the masses. To implement it they need servants and puppets and "progressives".

They have bought them off, they offer them roles in banks when they finish politics so that they can make millions in speeches and buy million pound properties. In order to carry out their plans, they need a loyal class of lawyers, ex-barristers and human rights lawyers but when they have killed the middle class, they will start on the people who thought they were part of the uber class

'claig, what happens if all 7 billion people on this planet all believe 'growth is good'? and what naturally comes from that, 'greed is good'?'

There is enough room on the planet for all of us. Don't believe the lies propagated by the media for the benefit of their Neo-Malthusian masters.
Instead of spending billions on nuclear weapons and growing crops to create green bio-fuel in the pretence of saving the planet , spend money on development and growth and education, so that the 7 billion people all learn to read and write and become engineers and scientists and technologists in order to help humanity rather than lawyers and ex-barristers and puppets who hinder growth and puts hoops and regulations in the way of development.

'if India's middle classes, China's middle classes, Russia's middle classes, the ME s etc, billions not millions, if all want the same lifestyle as what people aspire too here in the UK. how could that be possible?'

Because it is not a zero-sum game. Don't believe the quack economists of teh Neo-Malthusians. Human ingenuity will deliver growth and devlopment and progress and it is education that will drive it as we discover new technologies. Once we all had outdoor toilets but we don't anymore. There is such a thing as progress and the billions of clever Indians and Chinese will invent and discover new marvels which will help all of humanity apart form the super rich elite and their lawyer class of servants.

I'm an architect in the UK, and would agree about the change in salaries which I think really started happening in the late 80's early 90's. Yet people still believe it is a very well paid profession and assume a salary and lifestyle in line with a doctor (possibly because it takes longer to qualify as an architect!). It really is quite depressing sometimes.

'but those countries will have to build umpteen coal factories and burn copious amounts of fossil fuels to build their industries to get to our level of development. but can the earth afford the morality of 'growth is good'?'

But don't you understand that that is exactly why the super rich elite have spread the lie that carbon is killing the planet and that when cows fart it kills the planet and therefore starving people should not be provided with healthy meat.

They don't want growth and industry and development for the billions of people on the planet. They have written all their plans down in the open. The Club of Rome's 'Limits to Growth' spells out their vision and so does the UN's Agenda 21.

'if we agree that colonialism is behind us, where to get those resources then? we would need multiple earths to fulfill that even if they were cheap resources. war? a race to the bottom as the government are forcing us into to compete with the chinese (who chose that path for their economic growth?) '

But colonialism is not behind us, because the elite are still robbing and raiding countries in Africa of their precious resources with their gloabl organisations such as the IMF that imposes crippling policies on those countries.

There is no shortage of resources. There are now huge shale deposits etc. But they continue to spread the myth of shortage and depletion and sustainability. In the future we will discover new technologies to produce energy, not 14th century windmills, but new marvels that will serve humanity and not the rich cabal and their servant class of lawyers and puppets.

'I feel sorry for my children as i dont think they will get this level of comfort in their lives as easily as in my adult lifetime.'

Don't give up hope. That is what they want you to do. The people are waking. Vote in the coming Euro elections in May. They will cause an earthquake all over Europe as people wake up. The sleeping giant of ordinary people and the middle class 'cling ons' is stirring.

Change is coming and it won't be a moment too soon. A better future is just over the horizon. Keep faith and reach out for it. Don't swallow the lies.

Surely a better future is simply a happier future which could come about from living simply and happily?

It is the level of comfort which is making people ill - the excess of food, the lazy lives where they hardly move. Happiness comes from a bit less food, lots of veg which in many places you can forage for and moving around outside. I don't con myself that I'm happy because I'm in the "top 1%". I know it's because of the balance of chemicals in the brain caused by fresh air, exercise, veg etc.

Architects - yes one of my sons mentioned that and I looked at it and concluded as The SmallP says it is one of those careers where people's incomes have not risen, hard to make it pay despite the high barriers to entry to pass the exams etc and the skill of the job although of course if he wants to do it I wouldn't stop him.

claig and I always have opposite views but the points are worth debating.

'Surely a better future is simply a happier future which could come about from living simply and happily? '

No. That is the message they want us to swallow. To live "simply and happily" we need money. When we are ill and in hospital, it is money that buys our drugs and medicine and pays for nurses and doctors. Without money, we will live in poverty and that is of course what the real super elite want us to do.

Every week we read of the shocking things that go on in our hospitals and today's Daily Mail carries another horrific story of a man dying in hospital which had a shocking standard of care.

Money can't solve all problems, but it can solve a lot of shortages.

'It is the level of comfort which is making people ill - the excess of food'

Laura, this is what they want us to think, because if you believe that then the logical conclusion is that we should have "less comfort" and "less food" which is of course what the real super rich elite want for us.

Let's have more Dutch engineers to help the at risk flood areas and to prevent people's homes and businesses being ruined instead of stopping dredging to protect the "Depressed River Mussel's" eco-habitat.

That's from a Daily Heil article that goes on to say that dredging would take precedence over a creature such as that.

my DH is an architect, and yes I can say that even when he was in practice, he was earning 'peanuts'. He now owns his own practice, and whilst that's doing very well, people still 'baulk' when they hear 'how much?' when 'all I wanted is a small extension...! why do I have to pay you 1000 for drawings'..??? (once you factor in the time for measuring up etcetc, it doesn't even work out to 10/hour).

Yes NK5BM3, I also run my own practice and have this. People really don't realise how much time goes into even a small extension let alone anything bigger, all they see is a piece of paper.

Claig’s painted picture of international government’s persecution of the middle classes sounds extreme, I’m surprised that he hasn’t projected an outcome like Chairman Mao’s ‘Great Leap Forward;
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Leap_Forward

The truth is obviously quite different, as the world gets more technical, and the middle to higher earning professionals are needed to not just lead economies, but bear the huge costs on incompetent government by paying more and more taxes to pay the current national bills (never mind reduce huge the huge national debts), they Have to increase the potential as aspirations of the middle class.

The U.S.with now over $16 trillion of national debt, similar to us, have now realised their education system is inadequate to the needs of the economy/country, as the likes of China and India are seeing annually, an unbelievable amount in the hundreds of thousands, of Engineers and other professionals graduate, while we are happy to produce ‘well rounded individuals’, with degrees( and £20k in personal debt) in various non work place related ‘ologies.

Although somewhat extreme, China’s transition from persecuting the middle and professional classes didn’t work under Mao and we have no reason to believe current governments are following a similar cunning plan of repression – and look at what Chinese education is producing now – and sure inequality has grown within a communist state, but you have to have jobs first, before you can start to worry about pay rates.

business.financialpost.com/2012/08/01/meet-the-average-chinese-millionaire-39-plays-golf-and-owns-an-ipad/
"A wealth report performed by the Huran Report and GroupM Knowledge was released yesterday analyzing China’s staggering number of millionaires and “super-rich.”

There are now 1,020,000 millionaires in China–a national record–and 63,500 “super-rich” Chinese."

The structure of economies change every decade or so, many jobs that left these shore CAN commercially come back from now on, as long as we are ready with a business friendly conditions and have the qualified workers to do the jobs.

On that subject, I think I remember Obama once asked Steve Jobs why he didn’t bring Apple’s design and production back the U.S. and was surprised at the answer, re the abundance of engineers and other technical staff in China versus America.

There are a few billion workers out there, many now have duo economic hats on, producers and consumers, we have to make sure the UK is equipped to provide/export higher end products to meet that demand, rather than be happy exporting to a shrinking EU percentage of the world economy.

Getting the unemployed back to work and ensuring new school leaver have the required skills may require additional or more focused education/skills, as unless we can bring back more heavy manufacturing plant/jobs, the UK will be in trouble otherwise.

The western economies have changed over the past 30-years, they will change again, but whatever is ahead, over 50% of children leaving school that can not give the correct change from £100 having bought one item, will always struggle to make their way in the world, the other short of 50% has a chance.
www.mumsnet.com/Talk/politics/1990838-UK-education-what-is-the-REAL-problem

I'm not a he.

They are cutting benefits in order to reduce the burden on the state. We destroyed much of our exporting manufacturing industry under both Thatcher and then even more under New Labour. We are noe relying to a great extent on services. We are making it more difficult for young people to gain an education with the cost of fees etc and unless we educate more and provide high-skilled jobs, the jobs available will not pay.

'New figures show how almost half of all university leavers have taken non-graduate roles – and the true average graduate salary appears to be far lower than the £29,000 stated previously by statisticians and strongly disputed by Graduate Fog’s users. Some graduates are even earning less than apprentices at the start of their career. Experts called the evidence of a new under-employment crisis “alarming” and a “massive waste”.'

graduatefog.co.uk/2013/2839/average-graduate-salary-plummets-as-half-of-graduates-take-low-skilled-jobs/

There is a global redistribution of wealth happening and it is by intent. Living standards in the US for example have fallen for about 30 years.

But it now looks as if the EU superstate may even fail and that will put an end to this form of gloabalisation pushed by the global elite. It is then that countries will need self-sufficiency and industrial capacity rather than just services.

Going back to the review of the book "Who Killed The Middle Classes?"

"Though the middle classes were brought up to believe that virtue and industry will triumph while vice and laziness will be punished, this idealistic conception of the world has been blown apart, as witness Boyle’s description of ‘exhausted mothers wheeling home exhausted toddlers’, not in a council estate, but in middle-class enclaves such as Clapham.

The enemy, in Boyle’s view, are the politicians and the bankers, for whom ‘a culture of greed and corruption’ became endemic

Banks and building societies are ‘so deregulated, they also have immunity for the results of their negligence’. Not only that, the taxpayer obligingly bails them out when they fail, and ‘ordinary middle-class investors found themselves on the outside’.

Unleashing the City ‘systematically destroyed the very values of the middle class it was supposed to support’.

And to put it at its basest, everything became very vulgar: internet speculation, the dot.com boom, junk bonds and hedge funds replaced traditional thrift and prudence. Traders took huge risks, ‘gambling with their customers’ money, betting against their own clients’.

While the rest of us were paid less, bonuses and fees were (and remain) astronomical in the financial sector - executives may be earning 25,000 times the average worker’s wage."

www.dailymail.co.uk/home/books/article-2322028/Only-rich-afford-truly-middle-class-BROKE-WHO-KILLED-THE-MIDDLE-CLASSES-BY-DAVID-BOYLE.html

It began under Thatcher and accelerated to a financial collapse and to what we have now. A social-Darwinian system was unleashed where the FT now openly talks of a class of people as ubers

But like everything in life and nature, things go in cycles and it will be reversed because it is unjust and globalisation in its present form will not survive and nor probably will the EU superstate either.

The elite are moving us to a medieval world of city states again. They are breaking up nation states and creating a Europe of regions. That way the central supranational EU state will be able to control all of the regions more easily. Power is being removed from the people and laws are increasingly made in Brussels and our own Parliament becomes increasingly irrelevant. That is the plan of the global elite.

Peter Hitchens in yesterday's Mail on Sunday outlined it quite well with respect to what may happen with Scotland.

Let me explain. The EU’s purpose is to abolish the remaining great nation states, carving them up into ‘regions’ that will increasingly deal direct with the EU’s central government in Brussels.

"Paris, London, Berlin, Madrid and Rome are allowed to retain the outward signs of power. But it is a gesture. All the real decisions are already taken elsewhere, from foreign policy and trade to the collection of rubbish and the management of rivers. Under this plan, England itself will cease to exist. The European Parliament gave the game away a few years ago by publishing a map of the EU in which all the regional boundaries were shown, but the word ‘England’ was not mentioned."

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2560410/PETER-HITCHENS-We-ask-Scots-loyal-ones-betraying-Britain.html

Under this first step of breaking nation states and removing the power of people to determine their own interests, the elite aim to make cities like London the centre of global finance which is why so much emphasis is always given to the City.

London is intended to become the wheeler-dealer hotbed of international finance to which hot money from all over the world will flow and where we may yet see more "rigging" and "scandals" etc

Ordinary people will be asked to bail out any mistakes and the tiny elite of fat cats will grow richer as our infrastructure and flood defences deteriorate and as our taxpayer money is sent to the Ethiopian Spice Girls and our 'Depressed River Mussel' is prioritised above the people living near the Thames.

But, the world is a complicated place and there will be a political backlash against this and the EU itself may fail and the wished for end of the nation state and the "Europe of regions" may crumble to dust.

Time will tell. The people are down but not out. With people like the 5'5'' Su Burrows of Wraybury around, we won't take it lying down.

People in Devon and Cornwall and in Somerset are asking if they are getting their "fair share" as the politicians in wellies all converged on Surrey and not in Cornwall etc.

A city state world will see London as supreme and the regions will suffer, just as Germany is supreme in Europe and the outlying countries suffer.