Reply to post: Re: It doesn't take a flashy report with pretty graphs...

Why isn't digital fixing the productivity puzzle?

LucreLout

Re: It doesn't take a flashy report with pretty graphs...

or the 'widening gap between rich and poor' in which case there's apparent exploitation going on

The problem people parroting on about this gap between rich and poor don't understand is that it is absolutely inevitable, and also totally irrelevant.

Why is it inevitable? Ok, try these simple facts for size.

A full time job (40 hour week) will earn, at minimum wage levels, 40x7.83x52 = £16,286 gross. After tax that amounts to £14,354. For now we'll ignore the public sector as that produces massive distortions which I'll return to later.

The FTSE 100 yields 3.9% Yes, there are higher yields available, and I'm going to ignore capital gains because we're talking for the moment about income. Anyone with £417,600 invested in the ftse would be generating passive income greater than the post tax income of the minimum wage worker.

That sounds like a lot, however, the average ft salary is £27,600, or £22,047 after tax.£7,693 difference. The FTSE has grown about 5.4% per year over the past 20 years, excluding dividends. So combined about 9.3% per annum. A quick calculation shows it would take 19 years 11 months to hit the target where an average income worker could replicate passively the entire post tax income of the minimum wage worker. The average working lifetime is somewhat longer than that. Thus, it is inevitable that incomes will diverge.

Ok, they diverge, so why is that not a bad thing?

Lets take the worlds richest men. Bill Gates, Warren Buffet, Jeff Bezos, and Carlos Slim. Does the size, speed, oppulence of their third yacht have any real world impact upon me at all? No, none whatsoever. The only adverse effect it can produce is envy, which is an undesireable trait and a character flaw in those choosing that path.

Does it matter if David BEckham has 20 Ferraris, 1, or none? Not to me. It won't impact me at all.

Does it matter if Linus Torvalds is a millionaire? Nope - I could not care less. His wealth has no impact upon me at all.

I've never been able to understand why socialists get so obsessed to the point of dsitraction by other peoples money. It's none of their concern, or business.

You mentioned the public sector Lout. Well, yes, I did. The actual cost of relicating a public sector pension in payment using money purchase pension pots is very close to 50% of salary. Thus, an average public sector worker is already socking away more than enough wealth to surpass our minimum wage Joe, even if they treat their whole income as coke 7 hookers money. every single penny of it. 25% of people in work are in a public sector role, thus we have a baked in inescapable inequality of income due to pension accrual.

Income inequality is, as I said, inevitable and wholly irrelevant to the real world.

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