Right wing politicians and the press are quick to accuse anyone criticising the high
earner with the label of jealousy, ignorance and envy. They are
adamant that in 21st century Britain, only those who are prepared
to work harder or are more talented could
receive higher rewards.
However, if this was true then the question would be how
could an average salary of a senior banker be as much as ten
times more than a nurse? Do they really work ten times harder or are
they ten times more talented?
It’s difficult to justify their high salary with the number
of hours they work. Many nurses do more
hours and are arguably doing a more
difficult and worthwile job. So it
must be because of their talent that these
bankers earn such high rewards.
Given the fact however that bankers’ many mistakes resulted in one of the biggest
financial crises known to man kind, it's difficult to argue that bankers
are more talented or deserve their higher rewards. Below is a good example of bankers’
inability to control costs and squandering of other people's money.
One of the UK’s leading banks lent £2.5 million to the
owner of two small hotels in the south of England. They
then decided to call in their loan and put these two hotels into
administration. Our "talented bankers" - without any
negotiation or bargaining - decided to appoint a large
expensive team to sell these two hotels.
Recently, the hotels were sold for £1,015,000.
After the deduction of absorbent administrator's fees, the agent's commission and
other expenses, the bank received £36,000. This equates to less than 2% of the
original loan amount.
In most other industries the people responsible for this
fiasco would lose their jobs. In banking, they probably get
promoted. After all, these bankers have shown results by
successfully removing two non-performing hotels from their
books.
The fact that the bank lost so much money and paid fees
that in any stretch of the imagination was not
appropriate, does not seem that important. It's not
worth getting upset over.
The reality is that there are many in the banking and other
industries that do not deserve their high rewards but continue to make easy and
excessive money. Whilst in the same country an increasing number of hard
working, talented people such as nurses, police officers and teachers struggle
to have a decent standard of living.To many the idea of fairness and the notion
that in 21st century Britain only those who are prepared to
work harder or are more talented could receive higher
rewards is nothing but a fairytale.
Mamad Kashani Akhavan
