£150k debate - the sequel

[Twinklemegan]

Here you go.

I am still determined to have the last word on the other thread

Did anybody watch BBC Parliament lateish last night?

There was a most interesting meeting being shown between government Ministers and some of the top banking/finance chappies (all men of course). The main subject seemed to be renumeration of city jobs although I only caught the last 20 mins or so.

Anyway it made for most interesting viewing and covered a few of the points being made in this discussion.

Basically a few things came across as being very obvious IMO. These were;

That the Labour guys whilst shaking their heads in disbelief at the bankers' recent monumental cock ups, and being extremely cutting in many of their questions and comments, were still trying to keep the banker folk sweet.

There was a chumminess and slight arse lickingness on the part of the governement that was disheartening to see as it very much suggested that government is not the one to run the show here.

Another thing was how when subjects like 'should we really be paying lodsa money to the city workers who take stupid risks which then lead to enormous losses?' the banker folk sort of scratched their heads and said 'gosh, well, I suppose we could think about it' like it was some sort of radical weird concept that was being proposed.

Quite honestly it was like watching satirical comedy.

Forgot to say that there was one pretty clear point that stood out.

Everybody seemed willing to accept that so called performance based pay was a contributing factor to both financial crisis and poor performance. The reason for this being that it motivated people in the wrong direction as it made them willing, indeed keen, to take on riskier and risker deals in order to try and make a quick buck.

As one of the Labour Ministers put it 'now the party has come to an end and the people paying are the ones caught holding the parcel when the music stops'.

"Of course I would hack the hours for the low pay if I had no other marketable skills and needed to feed the DCs.at"

Quattro, the implication of that statement of course, is that nurses have no other marketable skills.

Which is a very dismissive thing to say as it implies that nurses have no other marketable skills.

Do you want to actually be that dismissive? Do you believe that most nurses have no other skills apart from their nursing?

You see, this kind of post is what comes across as so sneery and dismissive of lower paid workers. I find it quite depressing to read actually.

Sorry have repeated myself quite a lot.

I mentioned a mate who used to be a psychiatric nurse earlier on this thread.

She left France to work in Switzerland because the pay and conditions (both for nurses and patients) are better.

She then left nursing completely after being attacked once too often by a patient and being told by her bosses that being slammed up against a wall and held by the throat by a large male in a psychotic state who tells you he wants to kill you is 'an occupational hazard'.

The patient had repeatedly attacked nurses and other staff but it wasn't until he head butted a doctor that action was taken.

Anyway my mate left and set up her own business in an entirely different field. Not quite three years later she is running a successful business, regularly on the radio to talk about what she does, making much more than she did as a nurse and providing others with jobs.

She misses nursing because she loved many parts of her job. She won't go back though. Not because she doesn't have any other marketable skills but because they pay and conditions are unacceptable.

Quattro,

On the barriers to entry and skill things leading to higher pay...

You're a solicitor I think (not stalking, I think I just read it lower down in the thread...?); I'm an academic; doubtless we both have friends who are doctors.

All three jobs have high barriers to entry, are costly in cash terms to the trainee for considerably longer than the average degree, require enormous (state) investment in providing high level skills and specialisms. You said yourself, your own DH working in the public sector has a similar profile and training to you but earns less (I think).

The variability of pay across these three types of job, and within them (since there is considerable variability in salary dependent on types of role for two out of three of these posts) cannot be explained by barriers to entry, training and skill.

So to use this as a counterpoint to say nursing or caring jobs don't get paid as much because of the training and entry process doesn't really work for me. The key difference between the nurse and the doctor is probably professional responsibility and liability (notwithstanding the fact that in practice, nurses are increasingly being made responsible for clinical practice and decisions); the key difference between the legal secretary or clerk and the solicitor is what - I dunno enough about the job - but something similar along lines of level/remit of work but also legal responsibility for outcomes and perhaps financial commitment if partners etc? In my field the key defining role is probably based in degree awarding powers (and believe it or not, this is a pretty big and increasingly litigious responsibility) and some notion of academic freedom (in comparison to more independent knowledge creation).

So I think there are differences between professional jobs and other jobs, but I don't think any of skill, training, hard work, commitment, financial sacrifice are in themselves necessarily a 'cause' of higher pay.

I think that's right Will. And there are degrees even within the same proffession.
My dh AND i both trained as lawyers. He works in the City and earns - well you can imagine. I represented in the care system and earned far far less.
However, it surely can't come as a shock to say, a nurse or a care lawyer or a clerk in the CPS that they won't get the financila rewards that others may. It's not like you wake up at forty and wonder why you're not on half a mil.
It's choice isn't it? And where there's choice you can hardly complain.

Surely the real reason that nurses are on comparatively low pay is that there are a lot of them and they are paid out of taxation/the public purse so there is a limit to what they can be paid without busting budgets? It's like my cleaner might be worth £20 an hour, but she cannot ask for more than half that as she is paid out of my taxed income so I can't afford it on a regular basis.

Litchick,

I agree that some of it is a choice. I don't believe all of it is a choice. I believe there are many barriers to free entry into the professions that have nothing to do whether an individual could do or could be trained to do that job. And almost all of those barriers are to do with in what kind of family you have the fortune or misfortune to be born into.

Middle class people with middle class parents who value education, who can afford to send their own kids to better schools or play the system to get better state school places or supplement their child's education with additional support or learning and supplement the costs of university and raise expectations about professional life and pay for all the additional expenses education requires and educate their own child in the status behaviours they need to learn to get by in middle class environments: these are the 'fortunes' that enable the choice of kids to get the education and the jobs they need to earn lots of money... On the whole, with a few exceptions.

And for an innocent, intelligent baby born into a family with no resources, no expectations, no support around them to enable parents to get out of the poverty trap so they can work to enable their children to get on, it is MUCH more difficult for them to achieve the educational, cultural and social profile to allow them access to the 'choice' of jobs you describe.

Individuals do not live in a vacuum, unaffected by their circumstances or their background or their luck. Just because some barrowboys become high-rolling financial managers does not mean that social class is not still the main determinant of academic and income success in this country. Because it is, actually.

I have always thought that success (in these terms) depends on 4 variables.

1. Talent, whether intelligence or an aptitude for sport
2. Drive
3. Health
4. Luck: whether being spotted in the street (eg Kate moss) or having supportive parents and a good education.

Without the drive you would not be able to make use of the other 3 variables. However, imvho, drive is apoisoned chalice. People without it find happiness easier to attain

Excellent posts, wilfsell.

TBH, the only reason I talk about nurses as representing the NHS is because my own field of medical lab scientist is woefully under-recognised - I didn't have "no other marketable skills" - plus I had a good BSc and Masters degree - I CHOSE to work in the NHS because I was disillusioned with the many corrupt practices I had learnt about in the commercial fields I was involved with.

I'n agreement with what you say Wilf and in addition:
I'm in a similar though not the same prof to you Wilf. One thing I would say too is that when you are 19 and embark on a long training for a career the money seems either less imp or alot (from ones debt ridden 22 yr old perspective). So when you are 20 years down the line and with kids and a mortgage etc, what looked a very comfortable salary when you were 20 now seems OK at best. I'm not explaining myself well but financial concerns were low when I was 20, I wanted to save the world. Now I would still like to make my mark but it seems harder and I'd like to do it with the benefit of an extra bedroom, off street parking and a cleaner!

Still like many posters have said, you know I don't have to choose between heating and eating so that makes me a lucky person indeed. Luck is always vastly underestimated when you hear sucessful people take stock of their lifes. Either the luck of a good family or the luck of good health or the luck of being in the right place at the right time.

I would replace 'luck' with 'opportunity'. Some people are more able and motivated than others to see and take up oppotunities.

''So when you are 20 years down the line and with kids and a mortgage etc, what looked a very comfortable salary when you were 20 now seems OK at best. ''

That is very true. I was not motivated by money and the result was that not only did I do work I came to hate - I was also not well-paid (I am back at grad school now).

I was thinking aboutthis this morning and I wonder ifthere is also an element where people are buying things in order to create a sense of security?
I know some people who seem almost to have a sequence of symbols that I has ( a bit sniffily) dismissed as being all about staus and commercialism.
Butthen I realised that I had bought my DD lots and lots of clothes when she was smaller and I realised that I was trying to make her 'safe' by wrapping her in the trappings of affluence and love and status. I had had an abusive childhood and it seemed to be connected to that.
So that made me wonder if , on some level people feel that if they have the big house and the flash car and the designer clothes and the right school that they will somehow be 'safe'
My sense of safety has always been from having savings and no debt - but I was brought up that debt was shameful so I think others do not see it the same way and can have debt but if they have 'stuff' then they still feel secure.

IYSWIM [hopeful emoticon]

Not sure I am making sense. But I know what I mean

Am a nurse of 20 years standing and I think I have many 'marketable skills'
Ability to work under immense pressure
Ability to work as part of a team
Ability to empathise and give constructive advice in often desperate situations
Ability to delegate
People management
IT skills
Ability to liase and often conciliate.
Knowledge of medicines and medicines management.
Some medico/legal knowledge eg relating to laws of consent,Children's Act,Every Child Matters,Safeguarding Children etc etc
Experience of dealing with families of critically ill children.
Knowledge of complicated medical equipment and how to use it.
And sadly,too much knowledge of death,disease and desperation.

I think you have a point there pagwatch. I remember one friend always got a warm, secure feeling if he saw the egg row in his fridge full up with eggs.

I think I nest in 'stuff'. Not expensive stuff - but not free either. Just stuff - books, tat from my travels and previous lives, years worth of papers. Junk most of it really but it feels like my nest and I would be unhappy without it. I like to get more of this stuff. My house is going to explode

Maybe some people are the same with more expensive stuff.

actually just glad it made some sense.

The time I notice it most is our car. We have a crappy old car mostly for dropping DS at rugby and putting the dog in the back for walks to woods.
But people get quite uncomfortable that we choose to have a crappy car and won't replace it just because we could afford to.

Because we could seems in many peoples minds to mean that we should. But I don't give a toss what my car looks like and I don't want a status car. But people honestly make me explain it as if I am a bit weird

Pagwatch - makes prefect sense to me! I can never understand the need for bigger/faster/more expensive cars, but like you am happy to having savings and no debt. A friend the other day was oohing and aahing over a 'sports bmw (?)' she had been given a lift in - I would not know one of those if it ran me over.... I daresay I could afford one if I wanted one, but why on earth would I when my modest four wheels get me from AtoB, and I don't feel the need to hog two spaces in a car park for fear of a scratch or dent Cars leave me totally cold, also the clothes, handbags thang...

You make a good point, pagwatch.
However, I would still say that those I know who earn a lot of money spend most of it on their mortgage and schooling: everyone tries to buy the nicest house in the best area they can afford. But then I live in London. I also know people on high salaries with crappy cars.

For the poster who made the 'opportunity' comment, for me that is included in drive. Drive pushes you to succeed, but also gives you a radar so you can take advantage of situations.

I forgot to add. I do not consider that high salary = rich. For someone to be rich, I would expect them to have a high capital wealth and be able to live comfrotably off it. Rich people do not have to work for it IMO

pagwatch, I agree with you on many fronts there. I get horribly uncomfortable when my bank account drops below a certain point and frantic if it gets into double figures - having a "cushion" in the bank and savings are what keep me "safe". I don not consider myself particularly lucky that my bank account is always in the black, I work at keeping it that way; but understand that in the current climate it is not always possible for everyone to be in my position (so in that respect I am lucky). My car is really crappy too..

But, like Acinonyx, I also use my "stuff" to feel safe and nesty. And myhouse is also about to explode! DH doesn't get it - he just sees it as so much tat and can't understand why he can't just throw it all out...