so i wasn't the only one...

so it turns out that with my naive suggestion i am not the only one thinking that dealing with the obscene salaries is a serious issue. i had suggested setting a salary cap above which people could then earn more and choose whether to invest it in arts, health, charity - something on the lines of transformation for good. doing so would overnight change our economics. this idea wil not go away out of my head. in fact i am getting more and more wound up about peoples' so called earnings and their supposed individual right to such earnings. i enjoyed the letter in today's guardian from les farris which said

Can we stop referring to "earnings" to describe the ludicrous sums looted from the economy by "top" people. The terms "trousered", "pocketed", "walked  way with", "snaffled" or the simple "received" would be more appropriate. Nobody "earns" those levels of income.

that about says it! a report has just been published on high salaries and how they have escalated in the last 30 years so that the gap between high and low earners in a companby is wider than ever. in barcalys for example it is 75 times with top earners getting 4.5 million pounds in a year - yes a year. why do we tolerate this as a society? is this the sort of world we want to live in? it's completely absurd and indefensible.

the reason i mention it again is partly because of the report but also this indicator in companies of the differential in pay as a multiplier of the lowest to highest earner. a friend lis at grace pointed out that there is quite a discussion in places to suggest that a good move would be to curb this at 20 times. this still seems huge to me as someone who works in the charity sector but i guess it would be good to see footballers at chelsea earn a maximum of 20 times the recepionist or equivalent! it's certainly a step in the right direction.

the phrase i keep coming back to from st pauls occupy protest is the phrase another world is possible which is on tape all round the camp. in this area it surely is!

Comments

[@BaptistPilgrim]

The way Chelsea are playing at the moment the receptionist should be earning 20 times as much as the players!

[Aaron Cavanaugh]

Hi,

I found another blogger who thinks the same

http://micah.sifry.com/

Quote: Money is a double-edged sword, Ariely argues, it’s a motivator and a stress-inducer. People who are completing a task that offers them a huge reward turn out to be too stressed to work as carefully and well as they would otherwise. So much for the theory that we need to allow for unlimited incomes to motivate innovators.

Thanks. God Bless.

Aaorn.

[D]

As good as such an idea might sound, I doubt it would truly work. Social change through legislation rarely does. For example, it would almost be impossible to monitor or control payments received outside of the country and you could probably bet your bottom dollar that that would be a popular way to circumvent such a proposed law. If we truly want to make lasting change in the commericialistic culture that dominates the modern world*, where profits and goods are seen as more important than fair and just treatment of one's fellow human beings, then we must employ the more difficult, but more effective in the long run, method of chaning people's hearts and minds through the power of the Gospel. Do that and the need for legislation will be greatly curtailed. Fail to do that and anything else will be a mere band-aid.

* a good example of this over here in the United States is Black Friday, whose spirit overshadows that of Thanksgiving (indeed, many seem more thankful for the savings they are about to receive than any spiritual blessing) and is seen as preparation for Christmas.
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