Mintball wrote:All you could start with The Spirit Level, which examines in admittedly dry fashion the results of widening income gaps. Sorry, I should have been clearer. I was more interested in the claim regarding cost of living compared to income for all but those at the very top. The only mention of this I spotted in any of those links was: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13663778 Quote:It added that a significant proportion of workers have received little if any financial benefit from the doubling in size of the British economy in the last 30 years. However receiving little or no benefit is not the same as being worse off.

Mintball wrote:All you could start with The Spirit Level, which examines in admittedly dry fashion the results of widening income gaps. Sorry, I should have been clearer. I was more interested in the claim regarding cost of living compared to income for all but those at the very top. The only mention of this I spotted in any of those links was: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-13663778 Quote:It added that a significant proportion of workers have received little if any financial benefit from the doubling in size of the British economy in the last 30 years. However receiving little or no benefit is not the same as being worse off.

There's just been something on the BBC lunchtime news about executive pay way outpacing the pay of anyone else. However: "The picture in the UK is complex. It, along with the US and some other anglophone countries, saw a rapid rise in income inequality between the mid-1970s and the mid-1990s. Since then, the increase in the UK has broadly levelled off for most people although those at the very top of the income distribution have continued to accelerate away from everybody else." http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/fc77fce8-7580 ... z1eRFXPHED http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7193904.stm "It is well known that the distribution of income in the United Kingdom has widened considerably in the last three decades. This rise has been a result of a widening at both the top and bottom of the wage distribution. More recently, most of the action appears to have occurred at the top of the distribution with lower wage workers keeping pace with the median." http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/28780/1/cepsp21.pdf

There's just been something on the BBC lunchtime news about executive pay way outpacing the pay of anyone else. However: "The picture in the UK is complex. It, along with the US and some other anglophone countries, saw a rapid rise in income inequality between the mid-1970s and the mid-1990s. Since then, the increase in the UK has broadly levelled off for most people although those at the very top of the income distribution have continued to accelerate away from everybody else." http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/fc77fce8-7580 ... z1eRFXPHED http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7193904.stm "It is well known that the distribution of income in the United Kingdom has widened considerably in the last three decades. This rise has been a result of a widening at both the top and bottom of the wage distribution. More recently, most of the action appears to have occurred at the top of the distribution with lower wage workers keeping pace with the median." http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/28780/1/cepsp21.pdf

There is something similar here:



It seems back in the 80's the top man at Barclays earned 13 times the national average whereas now they earn 169 times the average. Why is this? I am sure the bank is more profitable these days but lets not forget a lot of this will have come from de-regulation which led to what was kind of like "instant money" for many institutions. The best analogy I can think of is when the privatisations went through where I don't think one of them was priced properly so it was a sure fire bet your money would increase overnight for no effort and nothing actually produced. It seems in a similar way banks since deregulation have not really had to work that hard to make billions of profit and have become self serving institutions of little public worth as they strive to avoid tax where possible while at the same time paying daft wages to those at the top.

A picture worth a thousand words? Here's an interesting graph

Meawhile: "Total earnings of barclays chief are 4,899 per cent higher than 30 years ago, says FT. Not a typo"


I'm fairly sure that the RPI (or even CPI) cost of living hasn't risen 4,899% in 30 years. Nor has the AEI.

But what about the productivity of the Barclay's boss? Has that risen 4,899% in 30 years?

Just had the South Somerset News (local council guffpaper) delivered and was interested to read about changes to Housing Benefit.

If you are aged 25-34, live alone and are in receipt of housing benefit, you will now be assessed based on the Local Housing Allowance rate for shared accommodation as opposed to a one-bed property. So your housing benefit reduces from £91.15 per week, to £58.50 per week. I presume that the shorfall will be made up from whatever other benefits you receive. Shouldn't be too long before we return those bijou little carboard residences that used to be all the rage 30 years ago.

I suppose there's always the possibility that the private landlords will realise that it's the coalition that have cut the benefits and will accept £30-odd a week less. After all, we is all in this together eh?

If there are sufficient tenants so affected then most landlords will have to accept less.

Hang on, a flock of pigs have just flown past the window...

So they'd prefer empty properties, with no income and high squatter risk?