The Rich According to the Guardian

[Judy1234]

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

I'm not saying it's emotionally easier to be bereaved or ill or disabled or lonely or frightened or unhappy if you are richer or middle/upper class. Of course not. But even at the worst of times it can make for things being slightly easier in some ways. imo.

examples:

we were able to choose the grave we thought my mum would have liked when she died very suddenly and pay for the funeral costs so that all the people who loved her could be there

we were able to afford lots of takeaways and lamb chops (the only thing my dad knew how to cook) when my mum became acutely unwell when I was a kid and was in hospital for over a month.

i was (just!) able to buy pricey shoes that the physio recommended when my son's foot was bendy.

I know someone who is a venture capitalist. He pays far more in tax than my whole family and extended family put together. It is not his fault that he does not pay income tax; it's the way the taxation system is set up.

That article is truly morose.

Dittany - It's not the way he's structured his company - it's the most efficient way for him to pay tax whilst complying with HMRC rules.

If people didn't compare themselves to rich people and compared themselves to zimbabweans or we could just all be grateful for what we've got and if we're not happy do something about it they'd be a lot happier.

I don't deep down agree with the sentiments of some of the bankers but entirely on the surface and openly. However I have never said everyone can earn what a banker earns. Most people aren't clever enough or hard working enough or lucky enough or don't have the inclination. Most people can't be surgeons either or even run a school. Most people are mediocre or average. It's how we're made very very different from each other.

I don't agree we have real absolute poverty in the UK not in either historical terms compared with our past in the UK nor in international terms either.

I disagree on the deaths point too. I think they are objective awful and money is nothing to do with it and doesn't ameliorate it in anyway. Even worse if a child dies (I never had that but my mother did), money is a complete irrelevance. Those are the life events which make people unahppy as does having conditions such as dementia or long term pain. If poverty weren't a little difficult no one would shift themselves off their rather fat bottoms and better themselves. If you make life a picnic on the dole (and in international terms it certanily is a picnic) then you don't help people at the bottom one iota.

What are those who are pro guardian wanting then. We could pay everyone the same whatever job they did or indeed pay no salary at all but just provide from the state direct according to their needs. Would you be happier with that system?

Xenia - i find your views so black and white. You seem to have not heard of grey
"Most people are average or medoicre".....luck has played a part in your situation you know. You were in the right place at the right time. You may have grafted but there has been an element of luck as well
Speaking as a grafter (and I run my own business) I do know that luck certainly has a large part to play in my life also.
I think some of your throw away comments (fat bottoms) really give you away - you seem to belittle anyone and everyone who is not in "exactly" the same situation as you.

Personally I feel from following this thread that Xenia is slightly out of touch with reality.
I respect her for having a different opinion, not sure I necessarily agree with what she is saying here though...like others...
If you are mediocre, then life is certainly not black and white. there are various shades inbetween.

sm - we do realise that we are wasting our breathe though don't we/ Xenia will never, ever change her mind. She is like a granite version of a characature of a career woman

Disapponting article; and that's speaking as a guardian reader.

"Rich people astonishingly arrogant and ignorant of how everyone else lives"; that's firmly in the "dog bites man" category of news.

I'll file it alongside the idiots who think schoolteachers are on 100KpA, and the people who believe New Labour (ZaNU Liebor!!!111!1) are responsibile for absolutely everything bad anywhere ever; rubbish written by or about people whose opinions are made worthless by their total ignorance of the subject at hand.

I'm not going to comment on Xenia's replies, because once I start I'm never stop...

Oh yawn. I see that Xenia has had enough of SAHM-bashing for the time being and has turned her attentions to the "poor".....

Xenia - you seem to just like winding people up. Why don't you take up knitting or something instead

so, according to the guardian, all rich people are the same regarding their attitudes to their own wealth? That a small section of high earning bankers and lawyers speak for all rich people? (even if the quotes described were a true reflection of the breadth of opinion)
I find it very difficult to believe that everyone is the same in that or any other environment. I have met my share of bankers with a totally skewed perception of the rest of society, but that does not make them all as bad as each other. I think we can all be guilty of only seeing the world through our own spectacles, and I have met many of these people who are perfectly nice- but when you work 80 hours a week for every week of your professional life it is no surprise to me that they can become very blinkered.
I think the piece was exceptionally sensationalist and deliberately painted the worst possible picture. I know many rich people through my work who do put a lot back

Actually the rich people who annoy me are the ones who pretend to be socialist and read the Independent.

I expect the article made many guardian readers on low salaries feel better and thus it served its purpose oh and isn't it an extra from Ms Tyonbee's book. So it's really rich journalist knocks rich bankers so she can line her pocket. Is that a fair assessment?

I thnk you muddle tax evasion and tax avoidance. Avoidance is normal. You all do it. You contribute to pension and claim tax relief. Husband and wife earn £5k a year each and pay no tax as they get a tax allowance each rather than both on £10k and pay tax. Everyone could and shoudl and has a legal right to minimise the tax they pay within the law. They need their heads examining or a one way ticket to Yemen or Cuba if they don't want to.

If Cuba hadn't been so f*cked over by USA sanctions it would be a very different place.

but all the bankers and lawyers interviewed for this piece will be paying tax here in the usual PAYE way, or, if on secondment in their country of residence. Sure, the one example quoted and quoted again throughout this thread is awful, but not representative of the people interviewed.
Again i say, it seems like the worst possible quotes have been taken, probably out of context, to make people seem as bad as possible.

People who run their own business have more leeway within the tax rules: but also have fewer benefits and safeguards. For example, the people i employ all get sick pay and maternity pay and i don't. And don't be fooled by corporation tax: IIUC you pay tax twice or even 3 times- once in a normal annual way, once when you take it out as salary and again if you sell the business. (although i am happy to be corrected on this, i am a sole trader)

Also, it is not only the people interviewed that believe a lot of the extra taxation has been frittered away. I do too. I believe that every penny spent should be accounted for, when you are spending taxpayer's money. But no, they set NHS targets based on almost anything other than outcome which to me as a healthcare professional seems ridiculous. And all of these nanny initiatives: i'd much rather that the money went to more deserving issues.If the money was spent more sensibly, we could afford to improve social mobility, give inner city teenagers something to do other than hang around in gangs and stab each other, (that was being helped by the lottery, but GB has raided that pot, too) have an NHS where the patient is treated as an individual not a statistic.

With GB feting the end of boom and bust in his initial time as chancellor, then spending everything in the good times, is it any wonder that people feel that money has been misspent? We need that money now to help people in fuel and food poverty but there is nothing less.

sorry nothing left

The book included polling by IPSOS Mori so not just based on half a dozen interviews with fat cats.

And it's Toynbee's role to, you know, write about stuff. Are you saying no-one is allowed to discuss income disparity or explore what lies behind the bald statistics?

Slightly off topic but do the people holding up Cuba as a bad example really know much about the place other than what they have gleaned from the lazy ol' propaganda we get here, ie faintly feeling the people are oppressed by Fidel, and now Raul Castro?

I'm far from a Communist but I do know Cuba well and I've written about it.

They have:

• A very low crime rate indeed
• Excellent health (one of the best in the world, in fact) and education system and genuine opportunities for all
• Ok, food rationing - but you can buy other things on top and everyone gets a liveable basic ration so no starvation
• Above all, a pride in their country and a genuine sense of community and of the need to look out for each other (which we loast many years ago, if indeed we ever really had it).

To be balanced, and to prove I am not an apologist for Communism, they don't have

• a decent travel infrastructure (public transport is overstretched and not widely available)

• Little or no opportunities for foreign travel

• A proper free press. But given some of the guff we have to put up with (and with Murdoch and co at the helm, it's hardly 'free' in the classical sense, is it) one wonders whether that's a bad thing.

The health system and outcomes in Cuba are amazing considering what they have to work with, GDP and average wages. Frankly the rest of the world could learn a lot from them.

I particularly love Xenia's claim that 'writing articles' is an easy way for anyone to earn a few extra bob. Because obviously journalism isn't a 'proper job' involving skills that you have to learn or anything...