Ici Londres: Why do high salaries bother us?

[MB-stbe]

"Or would it add one to their number?" Ooh an excellent argument to keep in the grab bag of quotes against anti-marketeers!

[Nelapidae]

No honest person begrudges those more successful than they are. It's worse than envy. It's what Ayn Rand called "hatred of the good for being the good".

[peterholden]

I’d guess we don’t get upset at a footballer or actor getting high earnings, because they didn’t nearly blow up the world economy.

It’s a ‘detail’, but one that I feel is important!

[apu_apustaja]

YES YES YES! Dan is the man with the plan! 👍

[aldursys]

The problem is that there are multiple labour markets - largely the gig economy and the talent economy. In the first there are more people than there are jobs and they are infinitely replaceable. In the latter they are not, and risk averse buyers drive up prices to insane level - largely by transferring money out of the gig economy. What is needed are interventions in high salary areas to increase the supply - for example by requiring open anonymous tendering, or requiring that entities go for the lowest bid. Markets only work if there is as much pressure to put prices down as there is to put them up.

EU protectionism - the "think of the jobs (particularly my job)" line from executives - is a good part of the problem.

[lynnemorris]

Very interesting, have never thought of it that way.

[Tj]

As you suggested, the frustration might be prompted by the lack of transparency. But, equally so, there is the inability to opt out of paying these people. (Much like the over-large and wasteful public sector.)

[stephen_]

Well said. The work bankers gave to put in to manage their nostro / vostro accounts is a real eye opener.
Unfortunately a vocal few like to hate on those who are more successful, content to hate and not put in the effort to change their own wealth and fortune.

[chesshooligan]

I challenge Corbyn to try and pass a few actuarial exams. By the time he's passed a couple--if he's capable of doing so--his opinion on bankers will have changed.

[ColinMcNulty]

If you earn the UK's national average wage of approx £29k then you ARE the 1%, measured globally. As 99% of the people in the world, earn less than you.

If you want wage equality on a planetary scale, then people in the UK would have to earn on average, about £5k per year!

[bigbadbyrnes]

All for free markets when the profits are being privatized... when things go bust, and it hurts everyone in the economy, it’s public funds which make the bailout.
It is an outrage that this model is supported by “small government conservatives”