The Rich According to the Guardian

[Judy1234]

www.guardian.co.uk/money/2008/aug/04/workandcareers.executivesalaries

I agree that sarcasm doesn't always come over on here. I don't think I'll be aligning myself with Giles Coren any time soon.

FWIW I've been an unashamed Toynbee cheerleader for years, and before that I was an unashamed Gill Tweedie cheerleader. I don't think I'd ever have gone to Oxford were it not for the Guardian and its columnists. They opened my eyes.

Anyway, here endeth the SSB smugfest.

Dittany
"Do you think people who talk about women like this are good company SSB?

"this beautiful excoriation of that sordid, raddled, old whore, Toynbee, by Giles Coren"

You are incorrectly attributing this quote to Coren.

Would someone mind linking to the apology in the Guardian, please? I do read the Guardian most days but I missed the apology.

suey2, why would your lawyer and banker patients talk about whether their jobs are rewarding or private school fees in the first place? That is just too specific to come up in conversation with a physiotherapist every day. Forgive me for being sceptical. If the topic can up in the presence of a person in a white robe and relaxing hands (I am of course making assumptions about how you work), I would not necessarily rub your face in how much I am making and instead focus on more universal gripes like prohibitive school fees.

I really don't know how to respond to that, blueshoes, except to say that you don't know what the fuck I do so I find your snidey attempts to judge me pretty offensive.
FwIW it is part of my job to find out the cause of peoples pain so I can teach them how to deal with it: often the cause of pain is sitting too long at a desk which funnily enough does instigate conversations about changing career and the pros and cons of that.

and nooka I do not include the commute in my 60 - 80 hours per week. One of the trainees I treated recently had worked 100 billable hours in the previous 5 days

100 hours in 5 days is too much by any measure. If you are right that it is the high earners that generally work these very long hours, and Xenia is right that high rates of tax encourage people to reduce their hours once they've earned a certain amount, then between you I'd say you are providing an excellent argument for more progressive taxation.

ahhhh, suey2, I thought it would be along those lines. People who are in pain from their job would naturally be unhappy with their lot, and would voice it if asked about it. Neither dh nor I are in pain and are strangely happy with our lawyering (even as trainees) and don't feel the need to talk about it, even in underwear.

What you do is relevant in that it brings you in contact with lawyers and bankers whose jobs are causing them physical ailments. But to extrapolate from your limited and selective contact to paint a picture of lawyers and bankers as dissatisfied with their work but having golden handcuffs is a tad misleading.

My friend's DH works in catering. He works 12 hours a day, 6 days a week for £6.10 per hour. Most of that time he is on his feet and he gets 30 minutes for lunch.

Somehow, I just cannot muster any sympathy for the high rollers in the city working long hours. No doubt some of them think (and I sincerely hope that they are in the minority but I don't think so somehow) that my friend's DH did not apply himself well enough in order to get a better paying job but forget that without minionspeople like him, they would have no-one who would serve them at their extragavent office parties, working lunches etc.

Well that's fairly crap isn't it. I once worked with a surgeon who had a busy private practice as well as his NHS commitments (fairly common). You didn't want to have him drive you anywhere in the afternoon as he had a tendency to doze off. I would not have liked to have him operate on me either. Working long hours is not commendable. It's not productive and it can be unsafe. Working hours are now controlled for doctors and other key workers (such as train drivers) because people's lives were at risk, I doubt your junior's 100 hours were a good idea either, and wonder how much choice he/she felt they had about it. I wouldn't want to be billed for 100 hours if I knew the person working them had had a maximum of four hours sleep because I would know the quality of work in those 100 hours would have been severely affected by that. In those circumstances I would be complaining.

Oops - sorry Suey, I forgot you were treating the poor sod, not employing them! I am sure you are fully aware of the effects of such stupid working practices. Sorry

Suey made it clear that she was talking from her personal experience - I didn't see her saying that all lawyers etc were in pain, simply that she had come across plenty who were unhappy and had expressed a wish to do something else. Obviously there are enough who are happy with the status quo to keep things as they are. In the NHS it is generally held that the reforms to working hours (New Deal) have caused a fair amount of problems, but were in principle the right thing to do. The days when juniors slaved and seniors played God were not good ones (for anyone, even I suspect, the senior consultants).

Exactly nooka. Nobody should be working 100 hours in 5 days EVER. That works out to 4 hours a day not working and can only be humanly sustained if the trainee sleeps in the office.

It is poor poor management if a trainee ended up doing that. If I knew my trainee was doing those hours - and I used to supervise trainee lawyers - I would pack them home. From a health & safety perspective, that is beyond dumb.

I have no doubt that it does happen. But I would say that 100 hours is pretty extreme even by my book, and I have heard some horror stories over the years.

Nooka It is intereresting though that junior doctors in hospitals complained bitterly about their 75 hour working week but ff a few years and the same doctors (now consultants) are uncomplaining about running their full NHS practise with a very busy private practise. Often working more than 90 hours a week. I think there is a difference when the rewards are deemed sufficient. There is probably nothing more depressing than feeling-time poor whilst being insufficiently rewarded.

Just read your last post, nooka. Fair enough about suey2's statement was not ALL lawyers. But the fact the cross-section of lawyers she is coming in contact with are those who are already having health problems from their work is a very significant factor contributing to their dissatisfaction, and one which I feel should have been disclosed otherwise it would be misleading.

I am coming from the perspective of how come suey2's experience is at odds with my own extensive contact of hardworking lawyers. If there are really large swathes of dissatisfied lawyers pouring their hearts out, I need to know why so I can tell dcs not to go into the lucrative and intellectually stimulating legal field.

Well my father is an accountant who works with many lawyers, and he did indeed tell me not to go into it as a field (he also dissuaded me from accountancy because he thought it had become too specialised). Re the consultants, they should not be claiming to work a full NHS schedule if they are also working long private practice hours. NHS contracts now are very specific about which sessions are to be worked (and what is to be done during those sessions). Most consultants I know work something like eight NHS sessions and two private ones, and seem to be able to afford the private school fees, smart houses and nice holidays on that basis. Of course only some specialisms have lucrative private practice possibilities anyway (avoid geriatrics or pathology if you want lots of money).

A session pretty much translates to half a day. On call is also heavily regulated.

some interesting examples of the way the burden of taxes fall disproportionately on the poor

For instance, people in the UK hold £284 billion pounds in shares - but only declared selling £5.8bn for tax purposes. Yet on average shares are only held for 14 months - so why are people not paying the full amount of tax due?

There are lots of people paying capital gains tax when they sell their investments- cheaper than paying income tax - but actually they've only held these investments for a short time, when CGT is meant to apply to long-term investments.

It's bloody hard for the poorest in society to fiddle their taxes while the rich have endless opportunities to do this. (I mean fiddle as in 'arrange their financial affairs in such a way that they minimise the tax due'.)

some more points from the campaigners against poverty

nooka, on the issue of parental advice, my father is a GP and his best advice to me was not to go into medicine. At the time I thought he was being sexist. My cousin-in-law is a successful chartered accountant and partner in an international accounting firm - she thought lawyers had it easier. They certainly seem to earn more on average. My FIL is an accountant and none of his 4 dcs are accountants.

Why did your father advise you not to be a lawyer?

Blueshoes, there ARE huge variations in remuneration for different legal professionals.

EG, a civil barrister will usually earn a STACK more than a criminal barrister

And as for solicitors...there's even more disparity - say, a low level conveyancing solicitor in a small town who isn't a partner will have a VERY boring job and probably earn about the same as a teacher.

I am not playing the smallest violin in the workd for lawyers, by the way - just saying that there are fat cat lawyers and thin, bedraggled, rather scruffy moggie lawyers.

Edam- I am sympathetic to what you are saying. But bear in mind that many of "these rich people" simply pay their accountants to apply the rules in the way that is most favourable. Of course some rich people are involved in devious plans to stretch the rules to the limit.
And in the global capital markets the authorities will not be able to shut down all the loop holes.

I think the less well off could be assisted with financial planning and assisted into schemes that have trageted incentivises. Not easy though. ISAs were supposed to make PEPs more accessible but it is still mainly the "middle classes" that use it as an instrument.

But you can't just say let's tax the rich more to solve the problems of the less well off. You have to look at some of the structural issues that prevent the less well off from being mobile and encourage that earlier poster referred to.

LadyThomson- agreed, same is true bankers and other city folk. Some earn 30k per year and some 30M per year. Imagine how the guy earning 60k feel neet to the guy who earns 500k.