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> This escalation of CEO compensation and of executive compensation more generally has fueled the growth of top 1% and top 0.1% incomes, leaving fewer of the ga

> This escalation of CEO compensation and of executive compensation more generally has fueled the growth of top 1% and top 0.1% incomes, leaving fewer of the gains of economic growth for ordinary workers and widening the gap between very high earners and the bottom 90%. I ignore every article that separates the top 1% from ordinary workers. In the UK, to be in the top 1% of earners you need to earn 120K GBP gross a year, or 74K net. Don't tell me you are anything other than an ordinary worker with that. As a side note, you will also earn less net than a household of two earning 50K gross each, are they also not ordinary workers? I don't give a single fuck about the salary of the 0.0001% of the population that is billionaire CEO, that's not the problem. The problem is that basic necessities have been turned into a profit-printing machine and you pay 2K a month for a 500 square feet apartment in London.

lucisferre 4y ago
It's more like 170k. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1224844/monthly-pay-of-employees-uk/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1224844/monthly-pay-of-e...
- itsdrewmiller 4y ago
  https://ceoworld.biz/2020/02/07/how-much-the-top-1-of-worlds-richest-earn-in-different-countries/ https://ceoworld.biz/2020/02/07/how-much-the-top-1-of-worlds... has $248k or ~205k GBP.
fistfucker3000 4y ago
> I don't give a single fuck about the salary of the 0.0001% of the population that is billionaire CEO, that's not the problem. The problem is that basic necessities have been turned into a profit-printing machine and you pay 2K a month for a 500 square feet apartment in London. Interesting that you don’t see those things as part of the same problem but rather two separate unrelated issues.
- holbrad 4y ago
  How are they directly related? Is Bezos, Gates or Musk at fault for high UK house prices ? No, it's a failing of government policy. Straggling house building for decades, leads directly towards rampant land speculation. (70+% of a houses value is the land...)
  - misto 4y ago
    Actually, at least in Helsinki part of the rising costs of housing in the centre has been attributed to so called vacation housing, where apartments have been bought by rich people from abroad or rural areas, yet occupied maybe a couple of days/weeks a year, or rented out as an airbnb flat. I'm not saying its a major factor, but still an indicator that theres more than enough money to spend for some people, for them to take out from the 'necessities' pool, just to achieve some form of luxury.
  - shmageggy 4y ago
    > No, it's a failing of government policy. And who (or perhaps what socio-economic class) might be responsible for our inability to change these perpetually bad government policies that always seem to preserve this state of rampant inequality?
  - ls15 4y ago
    Bezos, Gates and Musk are a result of failing of government too: https://old.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/y1xqul/oc_amazon_ipo_vs_now_revenue_and_profit_breakdown/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/y1xqul/oc_... https://old.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/y0a0ek/oc_microsoft_ipo_vs_now_breaking_down_its_revenue/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/y0a0ek/oc_... https://old.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/xgyut8/oc_breaking_down_teslas_revenue_and_profit_sources/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/xgyut8/oc_...
dmix 4y ago
> The problem is that basic necessities have been turned into a profit-printing machine and you pay 2K a month for a 500 square feet apartment in London. There would be significantly more profit (and tax revenue) if it was possible to build more housing in London. Although artificially constraining supply and reducing competition has contributed significantly to the problem of there being a few big winners vs a broad set. So it's still relevant.
Glyptodon 4y ago
In the USA I think the top 1% income income floor is circa $550k nationally, or circa $400k when viewed state by state. Which is pretty solidly above what I'd call "typical incomes." It's an income level that should easily translate into permanent wealth within 20 years if sustained, even if it isn't billionaire class.
misto 4y ago
What occupation does an ordinary worker have in your books? I'm curious, since for example I have always held doctors in the higher end of middle class workers: not quite 'i own a yacht' rich, but still economically set for a more cushier lifestyle. Yet, according to NHS[1] doctors in the UK earn 120k at best, so I'm sorry but something doesn't add up. [1] https://www.healthcareers.nhs.uk/explore-roles/doctors/pay-doctors/pay-doctors https://www.healthcareers.nhs.uk/explore-roles/doctors/pay-d...
- iLoveOncall 4y ago
  NHS doctors are grossly underpaid, it's shocking.
opportune 4y ago
I agree. In the US it’s really not hard to get into the top 1-2% as a salaried employee in the software industry. The difference in feasibility between top X% of income vs wealth is large. Last I checked it was like $600k gross household income to get into the top 1% of incomes, but like $10mm wealth. You’d need to make a top 1% income and invest a good portion of the after-tax income for quite a while to get there. All these punching up class warfare policies hurt the wrong people IMO. I have a 98%ile income and I live in a studio and can’t afford a house in the neighborhood I live in. Meanwhile Joe Rich works in a stereotypical rich boy field like sales, has a lot of family money ultimately stemming from things like land grants or moving to a US metro area a hundred years ago, has way more money than me and a more lavish lifestyle, and pays less taxes. As far as I see it, higher income taxes actually just entrench class divisions and make it harder to enter upper classes. Rich people aren’t affected much by income taxes and remain rich, except even more unattainably so
- jltsiren 4y ago
  Software engineers are the exception, not the norm. High-income people in the US are more likely to have high-income parents than in most Western countries. It's difficult to enter the upper class in one lifetime, because your peers who earn as much as you do already have intergenerational wealth.
pdntspa 4y ago
Dude you live in one of the most in-demand cities in the world, expecting cheap rent is a pipe dream. The only way prices will go down is if lots of people, maybe even you, move out of London!
bojangleslover 4y ago
In other words they may have/earn (big distinction that is often overlooked) 100x more which seems egregiously unfair but if there are 10000x fewer of them, then it's not a big problem unless you're trying to appeal to emotion with single case studies.

lucisferre 4y ago

It's more like 170k. https://www.statista.com/statistics/1224844/monthly-pay-of-employees-uk/ https://www.statista.com/statistics/1224844/monthly-pay-of-e...

itsdrewmiller 4y ago
https://ceoworld.biz/2020/02/07/how-much-the-top-1-of-worlds-richest-earn-in-different-countries/ https://ceoworld.biz/2020/02/07/how-much-the-top-1-of-worlds... has $248k or ~205k GBP.

fistfucker3000 4y ago

> I don't give a single fuck about the salary of the 0.0001% of the population that is billionaire CEO, that's not the problem. The problem is that basic necessities have been turned into a profit-printing machine and you pay 2K a month for a 500 square feet apartment in London. Interesting that you don’t see those things as part of the same problem but rather two separate unrelated issues.

holbrad 4y ago
How are they directly related? Is Bezos, Gates or Musk at fault for high UK house prices ? No, it's a failing of government policy. Straggling house building for decades, leads directly towards rampant land speculation. (70+% of a houses value is the land...)
- misto 4y ago
  Actually, at least in Helsinki part of the rising costs of housing in the centre has been attributed to so called vacation housing, where apartments have been bought by rich people from abroad or rural areas, yet occupied maybe a couple of days/weeks a year, or rented out as an airbnb flat. I'm not saying its a major factor, but still an indicator that theres more than enough money to spend for some people, for them to take out from the 'necessities' pool, just to achieve some form of luxury.
- shmageggy 4y ago
  > No, it's a failing of government policy. And who (or perhaps what socio-economic class) might be responsible for our inability to change these perpetually bad government policies that always seem to preserve this state of rampant inequality?
- ls15 4y ago
  Bezos, Gates and Musk are a result of failing of government too: https://old.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/y1xqul/oc_amazon_ipo_vs_now_revenue_and_profit_breakdown/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/y1xqul/oc_... https://old.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/y0a0ek/oc_microsoft_ipo_vs_now_breaking_down_its_revenue/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/y0a0ek/oc_... https://old.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/xgyut8/oc_breaking_down_teslas_revenue_and_profit_sources/ https://old.reddit.com/r/dataisbeautiful/comments/xgyut8/oc_...

dmix 4y ago

> The problem is that basic necessities have been turned into a profit-printing machine and you pay 2K a month for a 500 square feet apartment in London. There would be significantly more profit (and tax revenue) if it was possible to build more housing in London. Although artificially constraining supply and reducing competition has contributed significantly to the problem of there being a few big winners vs a broad set. So it's still relevant.

Glyptodon 4y ago

In the USA I think the top 1% income income floor is circa $550k nationally, or circa $400k when viewed state by state. Which is pretty solidly above what I'd call "typical incomes." It's an income level that should easily translate into permanent wealth within 20 years if sustained, even if it isn't billionaire class.

misto 4y ago

What occupation does an ordinary worker have in your books? I'm curious, since for example I have always held doctors in the higher end of middle class workers: not quite 'i own a yacht' rich, but still economically set for a more cushier lifestyle. Yet, according to NHS[1] doctors in the UK earn 120k at best, so I'm sorry but something doesn't add up. [1] https://www.healthcareers.nhs.uk/explore-roles/doctors/pay-doctors/pay-doctors https://www.healthcareers.nhs.uk/explore-roles/doctors/pay-d...

iLoveOncall 4y ago
NHS doctors are grossly underpaid, it's shocking.

opportune 4y ago

I agree. In the US it’s really not hard to get into the top 1-2% as a salaried employee in the software industry. The difference in feasibility between top X% of income vs wealth is large. Last I checked it was like $600k gross household income to get into the top 1% of incomes, but like $10mm wealth. You’d need to make a top 1% income and invest a good portion of the after-tax income for quite a while to get there. All these punching up class warfare policies hurt the wrong people IMO. I have a 98%ile income and I live in a studio and can’t afford a house in the neighborhood I live in. Meanwhile Joe Rich works in a stereotypical rich boy field like sales, has a lot of family money ultimately stemming from things like land grants or moving to a US metro area a hundred years ago, has way more money than me and a more lavish lifestyle, and pays less taxes. As far as I see it, higher income taxes actually just entrench class divisions and make it harder to enter upper classes. Rich people aren’t affected much by income taxes and remain rich, except even more unattainably so

jltsiren 4y ago
Software engineers are the exception, not the norm. High-income people in the US are more likely to have high-income parents than in most Western countries. It's difficult to enter the upper class in one lifetime, because your peers who earn as much as you do already have intergenerational wealth.

pdntspa 4y ago

Dude you live in one of the most in-demand cities in the world, expecting cheap rent is a pipe dream. The only way prices will go down is if lots of people, maybe even you, move out of London!

bojangleslover 4y ago

In other words they may have/earn (big distinction that is often overlooked) 100x more which seems egregiously unfair but if there are 10000x fewer of them, then it's not a big problem unless you're trying to appeal to emotion with single case studies.