A Future That Works

A Future That Works
NO2aTory/Liberal coalition - Vote with your feet for an alternative to a neo-liberal economy and neo-conservative state Yes2aLeftFront and a Red/Green Left Alliance

Monday 5 September 2011

Fat Cats bonuses

The High Pay Commission's latest report found that average bonuses for FTSE 350 company directors have increased by 187 per cent since 2000.

Directors' basic salaries have increased by almost two-thirds over the same period, even though firms' pre-tax profits have only gone up by a half.

And pay for bailed-out bankers shot up to just under £4 million last year, compared with £1.7m in 2000 - an increase of 130 per cent.

Professor of History John Foster says ‘‘It is the system of incentivised executive pay, resulting in short-term profit-taking and often disastrous policies of growth through acquisition, which has caused many of our current problems both in banking and industry’’

Professor of Industrial Relations Roger Seifert says ‘‘Senior managers decide their own pay, more or less, and over time this drifts far away from any business or market justification’’

9 comments:

  1. they say ‘‘you can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you cannot fool all of the people all of the time’’ and the time has come to say we are not going to be fooled any longer by neo-liberal/neo-conservative ideology, which is a theoretical pretext for robing the working classes of the surplus-value of their labour and expropriating it for a parasitic capitalist class.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It’s time for the Broad Left to build a new ‘‘historic bloc’’ that can fightback against the Anglo-American ideology, it’s time the working classes of Europe confront the capitalist classes and the British and European state/super-state that governs in the interest of an elite at the expense of the people of Britain and Europe.

    Francis Wurtz of the Parti Communiste Français is President of the European United Left/Nordic Green Left Group of MEP’s and Pierre Laurent is President of the European Left Group as well as National Secretary of the Parti Communiste Français. Pierre Laurent is one of the speakers at the Europe Against Austerity conference on the 1st of October in London.

    This is a real opportunity for the British and European Left to for a ‘‘historic bloc’’ that can challenge the hegemony of neo-liberal and neo-conservative ideology and governance that has dictated the agenda for thirty years. Will the British Left rise to the challenge and join with the European Left against the capitalist class agenda of privatization, deregulation and austerity?

    ReplyDelete
  3. A disastrous neo-con broth - dose this feel familiar

    ‘‘What it's proposing isn't an indication of a general policy but a veritable kit of the interventions that must be made - cuts in the welfare state, in social protection, in health care, an attack on the status of workers, the status that sets fundamental social relations, an attack on labour market guarantees, on retirement pensions.’’

    ‘‘It's a kit that is perfectly inspired by free market ideology and which is akin to the social butchery that's already been tried in Greece. And, in passing, let's point out that what this neo-con broth produces is so disastrous that it should incite us to the greatest prudence, given that none of us can guarantee that Greece will succeed in paying her debts with such an austerity programme.’’

    Finance is governing, it dominates and dictates its unconditional measures to governments and politicians, and it leeches assets like a vampire.

    ‘‘The abyss is really impressive - it's hypocrisy, cynicism and political inconsistency that characterise the country's rulers today. I think that you have to go way, way back in Italian history to find a situation that's as catastrophic as the one we're experiencing today.’’


    ‘‘They're envisaging substituting a free-trade alternative to this character, and what they're trying to do is to catch the ball on the rebound to dismantle everything that remains of the welfare state in Italy. They want to get their hands on the remnants of labour protection in this country. They've never accepted the status of workers.’’

    ‘‘The wider market is mimicking what Sergio Marchionne is doing in Italy's biggest factories - the Fiat factories," Greco continues. "It's an operation that's using the economic crisis to make the workers, the citizens, pay - and they're already paying a high enough price.’’


    ‘‘Today they're talking about raising the retirement age, so all pensions begin at age 65, increasing indirect taxes like value added tax - which are as you know the most unfair taxes - and reducing budgetary transfers to local government, which means an attack on public services and social protection.’’

    ‘‘The left needs a proposal and it needs to make it come to life in a mass relationship. It's a sure thing that our forces have been marginalised, that they're still limited and shaken by the splits, which have not helped to reinforce the left in Italy.’’

    "But there are also big movements which have succeeded in meeting together in the last few months. I'm thinking of the precarious workers, of the students, of the workers who, with the FIOM-CGIL - the metalworkers trade union - have had very strong mobilisations. I'm thinking of the militants of the movement for assets that are held in common who, by winning an overwhelming victory in the referenda on nuclear power and on water, have made a deep impression on people. To my mind, all this shows that in society there is more reason, more of a sense of reality, more consciousness that we cannot continue on this deleterious route, than there is in the field of political representation, even, obviously, on the centre-left.’’

    ‘‘What we can do with our forces - which aren't extraordinary - is to produce counterinformation as a newspaper and to share with the citizens the certainty that it is possible to do otherwise, that this is not a passing fancy, that it is not the expression of an ideological thought that is cut off from reality. There are possible alternatives.’’

    ‘‘Of course those who hold power today naturally can also dictate the agenda, but I have the impression that in September, when the accounts are going to have to be presented and when the balance sheet of this new, oh-so-cruel free trade acceleration is going to have to be drawn up, the renewal of social struggles will be absolutely necessary.’’

    (Dino Greco l'Humanite)

    http://www.morningstaronline.co.uk/index.php/news/content/view/full/109136

    ReplyDelete
  4. Now we have Fat Cats tax cuts – but don’t forget we are all in this tugether!

    Shadow chancellor Ed Balls says Cut VAT, not 50p tax rate, accusing economists who argue for the abolition of the 50p tax rate of ‘‘not living in the real world’’ he argues for a reduction in VAT to boost consumer confidence, rather than a tax break for top earners.

    The first priority is to help families not to cut to taxes for people on incomes over £150,000 £2884.62 per week)

    Ed Balls told BBC Breakfast ‘‘If you really want to get spending and purchasing power into the economy quickly, rather than doing it through personal allowances, which tends to be a bit diffuse, better to have a temporary cut in VAT because a cut in VAT puts money into people's pockets straight away. It will have more of an impact upon the economy.’’

    The shadow chancellor also used the round of interviews to urge Osborne to lead the way on a "global plan B" for tackling the fragile economies in America, the eurozone and Britain, rather than ‘‘ploughing on regardless’’.

    ‘‘The irony is that the one country which has the political strength to change course is Britain and to make their argument in the world’’

    ‘‘The problem is it's almost the opposite problem: our coalition has decided the cornerstone is sticking to a deficit reduction plan which isn't working, has flatlined our economy. Our problem is we can't argue for sanity in the eurozone and America if we are sticking to a failing policy in Britain. That's why George Osborne having a plan B in Britain is necessary for him to make the global argument. We desperately need leadership in these times.’’

    OECD's latest assessment of its member countries predicts that the UK economy will grow by just 0.3% in the last three months of 2011

    ReplyDelete
  5. British families will see living standards fall £4,600 a year by 2013 because of the Tory/Liberal coalition’s cuts, benefit changes and below-inflation pay rises, as a study warned and that living standards have already fallen more than at any time since the 1970s.

    TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber says

    ‘‘The wrong people are paying the price for what went wrong over 30 years….As experts worry about a double-dip recession, it is time to change course to invest in jobs, growth and getting the economy moving. This is the only sure way to repair the damage done by the crash.’’

    but don’t forget we are all in this tugether!

    ReplyDelete
  6. The latest research showed directors of Britain’s top firms have seen their pay rise by 49% despite rising unemployment and falling standards of living for most of the population, average earnings for FTSE 100 directors have gone up to around £2.7 million, according to Incomes Data Services (IDS). Average bonus payments for directors increased by 23% from £737,000 in 2010 to £906,000 this year according to the data. Pay of FTSE 100 chief executives rose by 43% in the last financial year to an average of £3.8 million, while finance directors enjoyed a 34% increase to take their average earnings over the £2 million mark, according to the report.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Compare this with someone on the minimum wage who gets just under £12,000 a year and an average office worker on £16,290, the average graphic designer is on a wage of £20,424, the average store manager is on £21,299, and a personal assistant’s average wage is £24,244 a year and we still haven’t reached the supposed average annual wage of £26,000 a year or £500.00 per week.

    ReplyDelete
  8. Fall in salaries for average workers and large rises for senior managers, says annual households earning survey as the median salary for a full-time worker in Britain rose by just 1.4% in 2011 to £26,244, against the CPI inflation rate of 5%.

    Directors and chief executives of leading organisations enjoyed pay rises, with median earnings up 15% to £112,157. Whilst the annual pay of waiters and waitresses fell 11.2% to £5,660, but don’t forget we are all in this together.

    ReplyDelete
  9. The average Managing Directors has enjoyed a 21% increase to £237,000 which over 41 times the average wage of a waiters or waitresses and the latest figures indicate that about 3.8 million (one in three) children are live in poverty in Britain today.

    ReplyDelete

Note: only a member of this blog may post a comment.