How about a job with the BBC, nice studio, comfortable chair.......

Rick said:
It really isn't, you know (actually, the exception probably is athletes and performers, which ironically is what were were originally discussing). Maths and physics teaching are probably the most obvious examples of jobs where there is chronic undersupply at the (not-market-set) salary. Medicine and politics are fairly obvious examples of large salaries without even a hint of undersupply (medicine courses are hugely over-subscribed by people with the requisite grades). Medics have played a superb hand over the last twenty years to drive the divergence of their incomes from other stable-work professionals (and good luck to them).
In general frictionless market theories tend not to apply that well to the actual world; this is even truer in salaries than most other areas, where things are distorted by political action, people's understandable reluctance to change to a different career where that means starting again at the bottom, and people who set wages' equally understandable tendency to pay themselves rather well. And at one time there were effective trades unions, of course, from whom we still have SOME legacies (paid holidays etc).
I'm not complaining. I do well enough for my needs, and I have enough transferable skills and low enough debts that I COULD jump ship if I really wanted to. But the idea that remuneration is set principally by merit and market doesn't, in my experience and opinion, survive much contact with the facts.
(The idea that income, and indeed promotion, are driven as much by desire for them as anything else does, but that's a whole different conversation.)

slow_lift_joe said:call it supply and demand, or call it what you like.

Footballers and celebrity people in this country are not heroes, they are not saving lives and they are not that entertaining, if fact most are inept and just plain lucky and in the right place at the right time.

I tell what talent is a heart transplant, a great medical break through.

This is just greed and it shows our values as a society.

Wayne_Cowdrey said:I'm not personally bothered by this.

DomRedshaw said:i think there should be 3 pay grades. everyones time is equal but some jobs are more stressful or high skilled so these should be better paid.

25k low skill or responsibility or labour

50k mid skill responsibility labour

75k high skill responsibility labour

no need for people to earn ridiculous amounts. i personally think they are t**ts.

for example some one earns 1M pa, works 50 hours a week, thats roughly £400 an hour. they see themselves as worth that but pay their hairdresser, plumber or whatever say £15 per hour, so they must think they are worth around 25 times more than those people. i assume those in high paid jobs are intelligent enough to see this and why i assume they are t**ts (unless they pay people such as waiters or who ever elses services they require, the equivalent to their own earnings per hour, which i doubt any of them do). to think yourself as 25 times more valuable for doing a job that usually isnt that helpful is a c**ts view imo.

also why should just a few be able to afford silly sized houses or supercars while others cant afford to replace a broken appliance and work just as hard.

we are in this mess because people are stupid and selfish. i guess thats just our nature

scruffmcbuff said:
What about the people who go out and take risks and set up a business or makes investments that go well and end up making loads of money? Should they be capped too?
Or are we talking people paid salaries only?
I dont think anyone should have any say on how much someone else can earn.
I know cable pullers and rail workers who make over 80k a year. But they would fit in your 50k bracket. Should they be capped because of thier job even tho they work like lunatics often running up 24hr shifts?

DomRedshaw said:
yes i think given the amount of people who starve to death on our planet that wealth needs to be better distributed and capping it is one way. they maybe better ways and if so im all for them.
the numbers i gave was just to give an idea, obviously theres many factors, how hard they work, shifts, total hours ect but it should be calculated more fairly.
big business owners and popstars and the higher earners would be able to decide where their excess earnings go, be that schooling, healthcare, technology, orphanages. or firstly as personal savings until hit a cap of say £2M. if people earnt a lot they should be able to retire not work for another 30 years, fair enough. but once say the £2M cap is hit they should retire and open up the high paid jobs for someone else.
i will be honest i havent given it enough thought for it to be perfect just an outline of what could potentially be a better system.
it wont ever happen though because anyone who suggested it and was in a position to implement it would no doubt be killed by someone with £1B who would rather pay £10M to murder them than have to hand over £998M
still its nice to dream of a fairer world

DomRedshaw said:
25k low skill or responsibility or labour

Wayne_Cowdrey said:
I wouldn't know what to do with that much money. I'm a LONG way below that, manage just fine and am very content.

IrishMarc said:
Professional football is obscenely competitive much more so than medicine. They attract massive incomes to their employer and are such due a much larger remuneration. There is no luck involved in professional athletes ending up where they are it's all agentism and hard work especially in an insanely well-populated sport like football.