At school the boy studies hard. No one is surprised when he gets his a-levels and goes to Uni.
When he gets his degree the grunt job at the bank seems a natural progression. Good money for a graduate too. Every one is pleased for him.
Learning and working hard - leads to a series of promotions and sideways moves, climbing the corporate rungs. Responsible for ever more people on the lower rungs, and the upkeep of ever grander titles. Eventually, the top echelons are his.
The 50yr old schoolboy runs the show.
Continual learning, continual growth, and some hard work... make him responsible for thousands of people... generating huge profits. The boy's done good!
His responsibilities command a huge salary, and a huge bonus when growth is achieved.
But the public don't like it. We all have an idea "what we're worth". We won't seek earnings beyond that. If you're earning £30K and you see a job ad for £60K you don't even look to see if you could do the job! AND WE STRUGGLE TO ACCEPT THAT OTHERS SEEM TO BE WORTH MORE because they aim higher.
You can scapegoat the banks as the cause of the downturn, but that's just naive.
You can criticise the internal mechanisms of a finance system you barely understand just because the numbers seem so much bigger than your perceived personal worth.
You can strip someone of a title..
You can bring the pressure of the masses to make it hard for a successful person to earn well.
But will you ask the tough questions? If a knighthood was given undeservedly who screwed up? The recipient or the teams of people who got "services to banking" that wrong?
It all looks very ugly to me. "Isn't the boy working hard and doing well for himself?" transitions into "how can anyone be worth that much?" and we don't notice the point of change.
Envy, jealousy, and the need to claw others backwards in the mistaken idea that the action of pulling them backwards somehow propels us forward.
When it's done, when the finger pointing is over, the scapegoats sacrificed... Where are you?
Still in the same shitty job, moaning about bigger bills and tiny pay rises... Expecting more and more for the same task. Mistaking longevity for added value. Watching those lottery numbers. Sharing the opinions you read in the paper during the first coffee break of the day.
Whilst we focus on the easy populist noise, we change nothing at all. Sad. Ugly. Dangerous.
Learning and working hard - leads to a series of promotions and sideways moves, climbing the corporate rungs. Responsible for ever more people on the lower rungs, and the upkeep of ever grander titles. Eventually, the top echelons are his.
The 50yr old schoolboy runs the show.
Continual learning, continual growth, and some hard work... make him responsible for thousands of people... generating huge profits. The boy's done good!
His responsibilities command a huge salary, and a huge bonus when growth is achieved.
But the public don't like it. We all have an idea "what we're worth". We won't seek earnings beyond that. If you're earning £30K and you see a job ad for £60K you don't even look to see if you could do the job! AND WE STRUGGLE TO ACCEPT THAT OTHERS SEEM TO BE WORTH MORE because they aim higher.
You can scapegoat the banks as the cause of the downturn, but that's just naive.
You can criticise the internal mechanisms of a finance system you barely understand just because the numbers seem so much bigger than your perceived personal worth.
You can strip someone of a title..
You can bring the pressure of the masses to make it hard for a successful person to earn well.
But will you ask the tough questions? If a knighthood was given undeservedly who screwed up? The recipient or the teams of people who got "services to banking" that wrong?
It all looks very ugly to me. "Isn't the boy working hard and doing well for himself?" transitions into "how can anyone be worth that much?" and we don't notice the point of change.
Envy, jealousy, and the need to claw others backwards in the mistaken idea that the action of pulling them backwards somehow propels us forward.
When it's done, when the finger pointing is over, the scapegoats sacrificed... Where are you?
Still in the same shitty job, moaning about bigger bills and tiny pay rises... Expecting more and more for the same task. Mistaking longevity for added value. Watching those lottery numbers. Sharing the opinions you read in the paper during the first coffee break of the day.
Whilst we focus on the easy populist noise, we change nothing at all. Sad. Ugly. Dangerous.
