
Meet the Rich - theoneill
http://www.guardian.co.uk/money/2008/aug/04/workandcareers.executivesalaries
======
gizmo
The smug superiority of the author really annoys me. Add to that the effort
made to make the "rich guys" sound as evil as possible. For instance:

"But did they work 10 times as hard as a teacher on £30,000 a year or, in the
case of some lawyers and bankers, 100 times as hard?"

It's not about how hard you work, it's about how much free time you have left
AFTER work. Considering 8 hours of sleep, a commute, overhead for food and
exercise and general life maintenance, a guy who works 80 hours a week really
has very little spare time left. Easily 10 times less than a teacher.

Then the author makes those infuriating "Of course, the poor didn't deserve
it." comments. Of course people don't -deserve- benefits. Benefits are charity
- you get them because the state pities you. Handing out benefits is the
ethical thing to do - but that doesn't mean you're -entitled- to them.

The article is shit.

~~~
Prrometheus
The article is incredibly trite and vapid, a three-page exercise in rubbing
the author's unquestioned (and in his mind, unquestionable) Marxist
assumptions in the reader's face. I'm hoping that this will be the worst
article on Hacker News today. It will be hard to beat.

~~~
einarvollset
I don't think so. It provides an insight into how rich people in the UK think.
There things like the NHS aren't considered "unquestionable Marxist
assumption".

Maybe once the US gets rid of its current president, it too will enter the
civilized world, where people aren't left to die because they can't pay.

"The greatness of America is in how it treats its weakest members: the
elderly, the infirm, the handicapped, the underprivileged, the unborn"

------
redsymbol
Well, obviously the article is hostile to the idea of being or becoming
wealthy. Reading it, I'm reminded of the aphorism, that if one sees money as
evil, they will find themselves without money.

One good thing about this article is that they did original research by
actually locating and interviewing these high income earners. After filtering
out the slant I found some interesting information.

------
Hexstream
_As if he hailed from the planet Zog, one of the bankers said: "I have
absolutely no idea how my taxes are spent and therefore I do not trust the
system at all."

Another banker asserted that there is "little accountability and measurability
in the way that tax is actually used"._

They might be on to something. With all the stories of outrageous misspending
and corruption around I think the world would benefit from big doses of
transparency.

------
iron_ball
The message: White-collar business owners and key founding personnel should
not receive vast compensation.

Hacker News: White-collar business owners and key founding personnel.

Hacker News Response: Outrage!

(To be fair, though, the Guardian is frothingly liberal, and as a merely left-
of-center liberal I can honestly say it usually makes me wince.)

~~~
drewcrawford
It's easy to write off HN outrage as mere classism; of course that completely
sidesteps the question of who is right and who is wrong. I'm certain that
there are a significant number of people here who agree with the author, or
some subset of the author's views, and that there are a majority who disagree.
To state that is to state that "black people want affirmative action" or
"republicans will vote for mccain." It's statistically true, in a vague and
general sort of way, but doesn't really say anything about whether or not we
should have affirmative action or whether or not mccain should win.

The real problem I have with the authors is that they operate from the
_presupposition_ that operating a business (which, on a transactional level is
really just free exchange, like exchanging fish for books) is somehow
_unfair_. The authors are neither party in the exchange; they are providing
neither the fish nor the books, and are merely standing from the sidelines,
saying "You should not exchange six books for twelve fish!" which is of course
none of their business. The only other way I can see to do it would be to have
some sort of a middleman who decided the amount of fish being traded for
books, and he would probably take a cut off the top for his 'service'. In
gradeschool we called this 'bullying', but one man's moral outrage is another
man's fairness I guess.

------
j2d2
From the financial services industry, this seems reasonable. I've had many
discussions where concern for those who earn less than 100k/yr becomes
accusations of being a socialist.

------
mynameishere
_As for the poverty threshold, our lawyers and bankers fixed it at £22,000.
But that sum was just under median earnings, which meant they regarded
ordinary wages as poverty pay. Mistakes such as these should disqualify the
wealthy from pontificating about taxation or redistribution_

Presumably, a person who thought <£22K/year defined poverty would be amenable
to the idea that such levels of income should not be taxed heavily, or should
receive additional moneys through redistribution. The authors willfully
reverse that interpretation. At any rate, your caricatured "Scrooge" character
would likely have put the poverty level at 2 quid a day, with anyone making
more being disgustingly overpaid.

As always, the fundamental mistake is the evident belief that the economy is
zero sum. The rich can only get that way by taking from someone else. Of
course, with redistribution, that actually becomes the case...

~~~
olefoo
Just an observation, but societies with vast disparities of wealth tend to be
poorer overall and to have flatter economic growth.

They also tend to be subject to catastrophic social events.

~~~
mynameishere
_They also tend to be subject to catastrophic social events._

It would be interesting to actually quantify that. I suspect that the main
catastrophes that occur involve rich people being robbed and/or murdered.

~~~
olefoo
Increased crime and lawlessness are also symptoms of vast disparities of
wealth, yes. Your point?

~~~
turkishrevenge
Yes, but of course no one here is going to agree with you.

------
jodrellblank
"""What we had hoped for was more awareness, some recognition that their
position needed explaining and even justification."""

Why does their position need justification?

"""They could not see that the pleasure they derived from possessions,
prospects and doing well by their children is universal and that others
deserve a share of that, too."""

Would the authors care explain on what grounds others "deserve" a share?

"""A last defence against paying more tax was their absolute conviction that
government is inefficient and could not to be trusted with a penny more."""

Not-rich people seem to think that rather a lot, too.

"""One banker said he thought a family of four receives "say, £3,000 a month
in their hands, and they're somewhere miles up north. They're not going to
earn that sort of money, so where's the incentive for them to go out to work?"
In fact, a family of four would in 2008 receive a net total of £1,328 a
month."""

That's still the after-tax take home of someone on the average salary
mentioned earlier. Free. Ad-hom Scroogey name calling wont help.

------
qwph
"The gap between rich and poor is wider than ever. But that doesn't seem to
bother Britain's wealthiest earners."

How surprising... ;)

------
quellhorst
I want to down vote this article.

