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]

Claig..sorry, fast typing, never meant to call you a 'he’, I wish I was dead.

In answer to some of your inaccurate observations;
Our benefit bill had risen too fast in the new millennium, when it should have been coming down, I have provided the UK tops versus European proof and an explanation of basic economics, the automatic Economic Stabilizers (when unemployment goes down during a boom, not up), to prove it – if you want the links again just shout.

• Manufacturing mostly died pre 1979, you try running a factory with costs above 20% in an economic inflation prices/earnings spiral, with many millions of man hours lost each year due to strikes and a 50% Corporate Tax SHOULD you make any money - and struggling to putting anything into Research & Development for your future product line – none of which the Germans or Japanese had then, or the Chinese later paying people 20% of our wages.

• Obtaining an education is not difficult, taking advantage of the facility and working to the best of their ability is. Blair targeted 50% going on to further education I believe, more than virtually every other country, but forget the practicalities of that target and rigour of worthwhile subjects, he and Brown just forgot to tell anyone how the State would pay for it. Do you remember them receiving the options report and implementing a policy before leaving power, I don’t, and certainly a problem when leaving an annual deficit/overspend of over £150 billion a year.

So another Blair grandiose plan, without basic costing or thought to the social consequences of both lowering school standards and promoting higher education at the same time. Clearly if degrees taken are not useful to the job applied for, or 50% of those leaving full time education HAVE similar degrees, the career advantages of a degree becomes diluted.

-As for living standards, or inequality, it rises in the boom times, falls in the busts, but busts have no other advantages that I can see, as national debt ( and future tax rises to pay it down, or less future government optional spending on social projects) follows.

-The EU will not fail, it will become closer integrated for those that want to, possibly the original founder members in tier 1, then further tiers or speeds for the other members.

'In the past 30 years, the UK's manufacturing sector has shrunk by two-thirds, the greatest de-industrialisation of any major nation . It was done in the name of economic modernisation'

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intergovernmental_Panel_on_Climate_Change

Britain has had the greatest de-industrialisation of any major nation, we have seen the greatest deregulation of any nation and we are the biggest promoters of global warming and the green crap of any nation?

Coincidence or plan?

You have to understand the elite in order to understand the plan. The middle classes are earmarked to become 'cling ons' for the "ubers", they are expected to experience death by a thousand cuts and it is the same across the entire planet.

The green crap is promoted in order to try and convince India and China to slow down their industrialisation. But just as there will be a backlash here, not all Indian and Chinese politicians are so stupid to believe the cries of the global warming puppets who say that every jetstream anomaly shows that "climate change is an issue of national security". Even us lowly plebs don't believe it, so the leaders of India and China certainly won't believe it.

So the planners have a problem. Their post-industrial low-growth sustainable society won't happen, their deregulation and de-industrialisation will eventually be reversed. It's just a matter of time.

And the end of the EU will be the first brick removed that will bring down their house of cards.

Sorry, wrong link. The link actually comes from a Guardian article.

'In the past 30 years, the UK's manufacturing sector has shrunk by two-thirds, the greatest de-industrialisation of any major nation . It was done in the name of economic modernisation'

www.theguardian.com/business/2011/nov/16/why-britain-doesnt-make-things-manufacturing

I don't think it's ordered at all.States and the rich and the poor bumble along. Over various decades particular nations do better than others for all kinds of reasons rather than some grand plan. The UK has had a pretty good run at growth since about 1800 but I'm not sure it's made the people any happier. If we lose ascendancy to BRIC countries then I am not sure we will be any less happy.

Despite yes being a Thatcher supporter, although I am more a free market libertarian than Thatcherite, my original core views haven't changed since I was about 14, that what makes people happy is on balance what we were made for and lived for about a million years - fresh air, whole foods, nature. More and more research finds that that is so. It is not some rich elite con to tell people that if you have a simple life with good food, fresh air and moving around you will be happy. It is simply what science tell us. Of course big business wants us to get drunk, get addicted, eat junk and then take a lot of pills to get better but that is not really what makes people happier.

They can show an exuberant Jon Snow on Channel 4 New bouncing up and down in wellies in floodwater and enthusing about "is this climate change?" ,"is it here?" but watch the villagers he talks to. Not one of them believes it.

Their bullshit will fail. They won't beat the middle class. Su Burrows of Wraysbury won't let them.

Go on youtube and read the comments of youtubers to the many Su Burrows videos.

"Go on Su", "love ya Su" "stick it to em"

Everyone is with her. The whole country cheered her on. They won't beat us whatever lies they tell.

' It is not some rich elite con to tell people that if you have a simple life with good food, fresh air and moving around you will be happy.'

That is a con. Did you not see on TV how some of the Roma live in some Eastern European countries? They had all that, but that is nowhere near enough.

Of course it is conspiratorial. The elite are not going to come on TV and tell you what they want to do. The elite are the bankers, hedge funds and billionaires who form the real uber class

The politicians are merely their puppets, here today gone tomorrow.

As the author of the book "Who Killed the Middle Classes" says

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

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

Yes. They are trying to destroy nation states. That is what the EU is all about. They are moving to a "Europe of regions" in order to have greater control and to remove self-determination of people. smaller nations will be created as they break larger more powerful nations. They are moving back to the medieval world of the "city state", back to Venice. They are creating a new global order that requires the smashing of the nation state in order to create more effective puppets of global control.

Here is the progressive ex-Labour bigwig, Matthew Taylor, who worked alongside the progressive Blair.

"The brilliant public intellectual Benjamin Barber is completing a new book with the compelling title ‘if mayors ruled the world ’. In it he argues that global networks of city leaders are making change in ways which seem unattainable for international institutions of nation states . Barber links this to the greater legitimacy of local leaders and their more practical problem solving orientation.

This is not a new idea. It is, after all, fifty years since Daniel Bell said something along the lines of ‘ in the modern world, the nation state will be too big for the small things in life and too small for the big things ’. But whether it is Barber, Richard Florida or Edward Glaeser (to name but three) the contrast between the optimism of urban commentators and the pessimism of those who focus on nations and multinational institutions is striking.

Despite all this, it is hard to see how cities can thrive for long in nations that are failing. Perhaps the big challenge for city leaders is not simply to enjoy their status but to explore how they might help their nations find better ways of governing at home and internationally. Thus, just as city states laid the foundations for the modern nation so, perhaps, modern city states can provide the basis for a new model of networked internationalism

www.matthewtaylorsblog.com/uncategorized/inter-city-thoughts/

It was the nation state that was powerful enough to safeguard liberty. The return of the far less powerful city state will see the beginning of a slavery to a global power, the death of the middle class and rule by an uber class over the cling-ons

In fact, maybe this explains the whole trend to elected mayors in many of our cities.

Elected mayors were introduced by the progressive Blair.

"The concept of directly-elected mayors in the United Kingdom were first introduced by Tony Blair's Labour Government with the creation of the Mayor of London. The Local Government Act 2000 then provided all councils in England and Wales with a range of options as to how to operate its executive functions, including the option of a directly-elected mayor. The Act also provided that a petition of more than 5% of the electorate of a council area could force that council to hold a referendum on whether or not to introduce a directly-elected mayor."

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_mayoral_referendums,_2012

Here is the author mentioned by the progressive, Matthew Taylor

In the face of the most perilous challenges of our time— climate change , terrorism, poverty, and trafficking of drugs, guns, and people—the nations of the world seem paralyzed. The problems are too big, entrenched, and divisive for the nation state. Is the nation state, once democracy’s best hope, today dysfunctional and obsolete? The answer, says Benjamin R. Barber in If Mayors Ruled the World: Dysfunctional Nations , Rising Cities, is yes.

Barber asserts that cities, and the mayors that run them, offer the best new forces of good governance. Why cities? Cities already occupy the commanding heights of the global economy. They are home to more than half of the world’s population, a proportion which will continue to grow. They are the primary incubator of the cultural, social, and political innovations which shape our planet. And most importantly, they are unburdened with the issues of borders and sovereignty which hobble the capacity of nation-states to work with one another .

benjaminbarber.org/books/if-mayors-ruled-the-world/

By God, we need Su Burrows more than ever. "Love ya Su".

Who the fuck is Sue Burrows?

The only person I find on google is Dame Susan Ion (nee Burrows), expert in nuclear power... what an utterly amazing name for someone in the nuclear industry!

I really wonder claig whether you have any idea how the Roma live, what they have to put up with on a daily basis. Have you ever been to somewhere such as Usti-nad-Lebem? It's an eye-opener, that's for sure. The simple life is good, when one has comfortable surroundings, but for many, forced into 'simple living', it's not actually ideal.

People have been rihgtly calling for Su Burrows to be PM

HanSolo, I am saying it is not ideal. That a simple life is not enough. I saw how Maria's parents lived on TV and it was not ideal.

Sorry, can't do youtube on a 'phone, but I doubt more than 1 person has demanded she be made PM

And, who on earth is Maria?

' Lord Prescott took to Twitter to ask: “Can we get Su Burrows to chair the next Cobra meeting please? * ”

His tongue-in-cheek remark came after her head-to-head argument with Defence Secretary Philip Hammond in Wraysbury, Berkshire, today and 24 hours after she issued a heartfelt plea to the PM to “get your waders on”.

She became the darling of Twitter and other internet sites today where thousands said they would vote for her over any other politician for her passionate straight talking.

In a television clip on news channels yesterday, the 38 year old flood warden from Wraysbury said: “David Cameron get your waders on and get down here because we need you.

“We need the Army, we need bodies.

“Forget dredging the river, we’ll get you on that later. But get down here now. We can’t do any more, we’re doing everything we can.'

www.express.co.uk/news/uk/459231/Get-Su-Burrows-to-chair-Cobra-Lord-Prescott-leads-call-for-flood-heroine-to-take-charge

This is about the Roma girl, Maria.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2474887/Is-Marias-REAL-family-Bulgarian-mother-quizzed-police-birth-records-suggest-gave-away-baby-Greece.html

So, knowing how to clear flooded areas qualifies one to run a country? Really?

I know who that Roma child is now. I don't think you can say the Roma have a simple life in the way Laura is advocating.

'So, knowing how to clear flooded areas qualifies one to run a country? Really?'

Does being a member of the Bullingdon Club do so?
I'm with Su. "Love ya Su".

I'm not so sure local democracy is such a bad idea. Small is beautiful etc has been around since the 1970s and earlier and is not a bad concept. Scotland ceding power (not that I think it will) gives more control to those there to determine their own destiny.

I think the simpler life points can make people happier, but I am not against the natural path of seeking the best you can achieve and becoming uber having started as a cling on if that's what some women want. It's fun.

Claig…you forgot to mention that Ms Burrows, highly frustrated leading the local effort for several days, was visited by the Defence Minister (Hammond) down the next day, who told her while the army was already on standby, it had not had a request for help from her local Gold/Silver command.

Hammond then went off to kick bottom, and within an hour or so they were getting army etc help.

Still, Ukip has council representation like Mr Lagoda to drive reforms and make you proud.

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/ukip-disowns-cambridgeshire-councillor-peter-lagoda-following-complaints-he-used-racist-and-offensive-language-9138091.html

Ukip has been forced to deny links to a local councillor in Cambridgeshire after he was reportedly made to apologise to firefighters for using “racist” and “deeply offensive” language.

Peter Lagoda was the subject of a formal complaint from one member of the fire service when, during a visit to a station last month, the councillor described his north African sister as a “w*g” and relatives in Germany as “Mongols” whose children had “slanty eyes”.

Lets hope white male Cambridgeshire stays safe, and they don’t need the fire service to pump HIS home out.

oes eqal a sort of freedom. Poverty equals very little choice. Even over basic needs