At the risk of wandering off topic....

Quote feline1:

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Money is contract between people in a society. We agree to engage in whatever activity on the premise we'll be remunerated and be able to spend it on something else. Implicit in this concept is that both parties have to agree to it. Workers have to agree to be employed.

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Well, so far....but not for much longer. Massively increasing unemployment, wages being replaced by 'work experience' 'placements' for the unemployed....

It is my opinion (and that's all it is) that 'management' and overpaid CEOs, etc., are shafting this country up the chocolate chuffer big time, especially in the public services - idiots on £150,000 or more a year determining the fate of OAP carers on £12k a year.

These overpaid tosswits have built their little empires and they'll fight tooth and claw to A) justify their position and B) protect their job and golden pisstake pension.

Of the public services, a mere 20% are front line workers 'on the coalface' as they say. That leaves 80% of people in back rooms running the shooting match, many of them clueless, all of them protecting their vested interests. And it is this 80% who are now cutting the front line services to the detriment of all ... while still retaining their highly paid position.

If it was me, I'd be cutting back on the 80%, not the front line people ... but the 80% call the shots.

And it's madness. These people are supposedly 'managers' and yet they employ external 'management consultants' at a cost of £millions to the taxpayer to advise them how to do their job.

Sorry, if a highly paid (ahem) 'manager' needs to squander a few £mill of taxpayers' money on external management advisors, they can't do their job and so they can collect their P45 and leave the keys to their government supplied BMW at the door as they leave ignominiously and kiss goodbye to their golden handshake pay off and pension.

Sorry, Narco, I have to disagree with many of your observations. I am sure you know/work with good CEOs but there are many (too many) others who, against the advice of experts in the field, commit the NHS to £6 billion IT systems and HMRC to £12 billion IT of taxpayers' money, yours and mine, that don't work. Much more too - profligate wastage of money on management designed 'schemes' and 'initiatives', all froth to preserve their little, highly paid empires.

Or in other words, total cock!

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Website / Music Lab Machines / Blog

Quote feline1:

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If it's any consolation, my earnings this year will have me well over the 40% income tax threshold, basically for me spending about 10 hours a week tidying a multi-national corporation's IT dept's sock drawer for them

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I take it that role doesn't cover website design.

Quote feline1:

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Well I do not have concrete figures in front of me, but I suspect you are wrong:
I would wager that the majority of economic activity and "wealth creation" in Britain comes from exploiting existing capital and expertise and assets that have been built up over CENTURIES. It was not suddenly stimulated by philanthropic millionaires swanning in and pepping us all up with their "investment".
HINT: economic activity has not increased 4000% over the past 30 years. Which we might expect it to have done, if "outstanding executive directors" were somehow the dominating driving factor.

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The overwhelming majority of UK economic activity is Not based on centuries old assets. At all. Whether you and I like it or not this is a private sector led nation. Personally, I'd prefer a huge socialist leaning; but nobody would vote for that. I'd like public appointed and accountable figures on appropriate pay structures. But nobody here wants that. They want the private pie. Well... The private pie puts the money in the hands of investment groups and somebody has to control that. You can't have it both ways, you can't have large scale private enterprise investment and a socialist controlled economy.

You're putting words into my mouth. I'm not a pro high end pay packet or pro philanthropic millionaire guy. I'm talking about not tarring everyone with the same brush. and to counter the above post.... There are fmore capable people than bad tossers. You guys talk as if everybody on a wage of six figures is somehow a leech on the Uk.

NHS is a different story. The whole thing is badly run, badly organised and no longer in line with what a country like the UK needs. it needs huge reform and the blame lies with the government for making the Uk an unattractive ace for business investment. but the government are to blame only because we, as a nation, have allowed it to happen. For far to many reasons to go into I hold us ALL accountable for the Uk economy. The western population as a Whole is all about "what's in it for me". Why should any CEO etc be any different.

right, this has got a little bori, but some of you chaps are thinking far too linearly.It just doesn't work that way.... There are multidimensional issues at work and the cause of them does not lay at those operating companies alone.

High pay is an insult to those who's jobs are on rocky ground and I totally agree that there are some top brass who are foolish in their approach to their own employees. That doesn't justify some of the comments being made here ..... You're tarring everyone with the same brush, including me, but it's me that gets the work to PAY my employees. Without me there is no company here. I can give you a thousand examples of other companie operating in the same way.

You ARE talking exclusively about the extreme high end high profile looney bosses in charge of important mega organisations. I don't operate like those guys with my company and neither to many others.

Quote hollowsun:

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If it was me, I'd be cutting back on the 80%, not the front line people ... but the 80% call the shots.

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And a brilliant, but short term solution. what happens once you've cut back and those figures in business? Those with the investment contacts and social structure to procure further international interest up sticks and go work with companies in other nations? The world does not work like that... Making a good product does not mean it'll sell. One has to strike a balance that attracts those very people unpopular In business. Fair enough on the NHS ( same happens in the military ... The LITS system is a great example of that). You could legislate against the CEO mentality, but you'd have to apply this across the board. That would include treating the whole economy as a joint responsibility; I'd go for it..... Would you?

But if people here seriously think that removing thos positions completely from society would be beneficial to a free market economic nation then you are not understanding the gulf between idealism and the real world. Without those investments from those people you despise there would be no corporate structure in the Uk. How does a private enterprise economy exist without private enterprise?

As I've said before....I Don't want the nation to be like that, I'd like a public led and socialist led nation operating as one. Individual ambition stops that so I operate under the whims of a right of centre economy. Under that sort of system you cannot kick out the very people who bring the investement connection into the country, fairly or not. We're too far down the road of private equity and ownership which is why, Feline, your preaching of left wing values that I hold dear to me is unrealistic. You can't put the cat back in the bag. Private enterprise is ALL about connections and investment. Stop preaching ideals and look at ways in which we can attract the RIGHT sort to the CEO and similar level in business seeing as that is the business world we operate in.

Quote narcoman:

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You guys talk as if everybody on a wage of six figures is somehow a leech on the Uk.

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As it happens I earnt 6 figs last year.

£8,743.54p

And in NO way am I a leech on the UK. But then again I do live in Greenland.

Hahaha.

Basically, judge individuals and circumstances... Not a job title.

I didn't intend to imply that all CEOs were incompetent, or that people who earn large sums somehow don't deserve them, although there are people who fall into both categories who undoubtedly are and don't respectively.

I was thinking about people like James Murdoch, who had seems to have had very little idea (that he's prepared to admit to, anyway) of what was going on in the company he was nominally running, or Sly Bailey at Trinity Mirror, pocketing a large salary and excessive bonuses while revenue and shareholder dividends plummeted. Thankfully those two are now history, but I'm sure there are others that haven't received as much publicity.

For me, as a student of history, the problem set in a long time ago (at least in the 1950s) when management couldn't bring themselves to deal seriously with moderate trades union leaders, despite both Labour and Tory governments encouraging them to, which led to the sort of hardline union militancy that caused so many problems in the 1970s and early 1980s. If management had not been so complacent then many of those problems could have been avoided or reduced in scale. So, in my view, the malaise is the responsibility of both sides.

More recently, though, the high salary rises awarded to the directors of formally nationalised industries, starting with Cedric Brown at British Gas post-privatisation, for essentially doign the same job with the same responsibilities, should have been a warning sign. And the emergence of the highly-paid council CEO should have been, too.

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Gear List: reverse only.

Agreed.

Quote White Car Man:

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Quote feline1:

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If it's any consolation, my earnings this year will have me well over the 40% income tax threshold, basically for me spending about 10 hours a week tidying a multi-national corporation's IT dept's sock drawer for them

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I take it that role doesn't cover website design.

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lol Correct.

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~~~ A weasel hath not such a deal of spleen as you are tossed with! www.feline1.co.uk ~~~

Quote narcoman:

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The world does not work like that...

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With respect, the world works like what people allow it to work like. If there was some kind of unavoidable way the world "had" to work, then every country would be the same, and your choice of whether to live in, say, Nigeria or Finland would simply be one of which climate you preferred, and not involve any preference vis-a-vis endemic corruption versus being nice to people.

You're peddling these old tropes of "you guys don't know what it's really like" (Fine then - let's webcast all top board meetings on Skype so we can all SEE what they're *really* like) and "that's the way the world works": i.e. we're ignorant, there's no hope and change is impossible.

That's clearly bullshit. Change is actually inevitable. And we need to fight for whether it's change for the worse or for the better.

Sorry that you feel aggreived that everyone's getting tarred with the same brush, but it was you yourself who generalised the thread away from "PRS FOR MUSIC"!

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~~~ A weasel hath not such a deal of spleen as you are tossed with! www.feline1.co.uk ~~~

Quote feline1:

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In the case of PRS, the important thing is that people write good songs first! Will I write better songs if the CEO of PRS is paid half a million quid a year? WILL I???

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No, you won't. People have been writing good songs for thousands of years, it doesn't mean anything. What would you do if the CEO of PRS became a lot more incompetent? How about if he was a bit naive and made really bad deals, meaning that the revenue they collected was massively reduced?

Perhaps you'd ask why a more competent and highly valued individual wasn't put in charge.

But does salary = competence? Or does it just mean that an individual made the right connections by being born into the right family and/or going to the right school and/or university?

There are plenty of very competent people on low salaries for any number of reasons, and plenty of people doing very nicely who would not be where they are today without help.

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Gear List: reverse only.

Quote johnny h:

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What would you do if the CEO of PRS became a lot more incompetent? How about if he was a bit naive and made really bad deals, meaning that the revenue they collected was massively reduced?

Perhaps you'd ask why a more competent and highly valued individual wasn't put in charge.

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Not much point asking the PRS board about the secret deals they made with YouTube, is there?
I'm sure there must have been a good reason why they were secret though. And it can't possibly be because they were really bad and would've provoked outrage

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~~~ A weasel hath not such a deal of spleen as you are tossed with! www.feline1.co.uk ~~~

Quote Dave Gate:

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But does salary = competence? Or does it just mean that an individual made the right connections by being born into the right family and/or going to the right school and/or university?

There are plenty of very competent people on low salaries for any number of reasons, and plenty of people doing very nicely who would not be where they are today without help.

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Fred Goodwin !! QED

Quote feline1:

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Not much point asking the PRS board about the secret deals they made with YouTube, is there?
I'm sure there must have been a good reason why they were secret though. And it can't possibly be because they were really bad and would've provoked outrage

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I think I'd quite like to see you on the board. Can't you put yerself up and we'll all vote for you?

Order ten taxis, I'll pay for 'em!

Quote narcoman:

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what happens once you've cut back and those figures in business?

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I am not talking about 'business' but public services.

Quote narcoman:

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Making a good product does not mean it'll sell.

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Again, I was referring to public services ... who make nothing and don't generate wealth.

But I am partly in agreement with you and if someone's paid £350,000 and brings in £3 millions of business, he's worth every penny.

But can you seriously say (for example) that the head of TfL, Peter Hendy, is worth £350,000's worth of tax payers' money? What does he do exactly? And if he was dumped, where would he go abroad - who'd take him on?

This notion that without silly salaries, these CEOs would all head offshore is nonsense.

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Website / Music Lab Machines / Blog

I wish the bloody would head off-shore.

Funny though, none of them want to live in Lagos. Apparently the biscuits are terrible.

Anyways, for a "not for profit" statutory collection society, PRS's directors seem to personally profit from its operations, in remarkable fashion.

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~~~ A weasel hath not such a deal of spleen as you are tossed with! www.feline1.co.uk ~~~

Who has collected all the Natwest Piggybanks?

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'You know it's a bad role when Nic Cage passes on it.'

Quote feline1:

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Sorry that you feel aggreived that everyone's getting tarred with the same brush, but it was you yourself who generalised the thread away from "PRS FOR MUSIC"!

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Um ? Did I? I responded to a generalisation. I also haven't said change is impossible. I've intimated generalisations are pointless.

Well, most people find generalisations quite useful

It is a fact that British executive pay has become ludicrously, obscenely inflated over the past few decades.

This has not happened "because you have to get the best people", it has happened because unaccountable assclowns are allowed to sit in board rooms awarding each other gazillions of pounds, in a total abuse of their power.

PRS's board is a perfectly good example of this general situation.

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~~~ A weasel hath not such a deal of spleen as you are tossed with! www.feline1.co.uk ~~~

Great thread chaps! Possibly run its course, but big thanks to Narc and Feline. I agree 100% with both of you!

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Battle flags are flown at the feet of a garden gnome.

As I understand it from some gossip elsewhere two PRO are currently under investigation - in France and Brazil - and executive salaries are part of the issue, (as are staff booking holidays on the company credit card and a few other more serious issues).

I doubt the people complaining here realise just what is involved with being a CEO, and would change their mind or at least soften their attitude if they did. Most people would rather earn less and have an easier life. Few could take the pressure or acquire the range of skills. Look at all those TV 'apprentices' hoping to earn vast money in business. Not one decent CEO prospect amongst them.

For me the truth would seem to lie somewhere between Narco's and Feline's views, but I'd put it vey close to the former, with the latter being unrealistic and a bit 70's, and possibly a bit 'sour grapes'. It's not a matter of what system we prefer but of what works. Maybe the PRS CEO is being overpaid, but the salary would have to be at least £300k to buy someone very average.

Mind you, I do have some difficulty understanding why being CEO of PRS is such a difficult job. It seems likely to be a lot easier than either a top NHS job or a top industrial/entrepreneurial job. A turnover of £80 million is not a big deal when it's generated by steady and repetitive admin work. A company turning over £1 million p.a. might be a far more difficult job.

Quote petev3.1:

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Mind you, I do have some difficulty understanding why being CEO of PRS is such a difficult job. It seems likely to be a lot easier than either a top NHS job or a top industrial/entrepreneurial job. A turnover of £80 million is not a big deal when it's generated by steady and repetitive admin work. A company turning over £1 million p.a. might be a far more difficult job.

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It should be difficult job because s/he has to look after songwriters interest in a rapidly changing world and go up against some of the biggest companies in the world to do so. 20 years ago it was just admin. Today the decisions and actions of the head of PRS could harm or enhance the income of songwriters for generations to come.

Oh come off it - they hire lawyers to handle the details of that crap.

Are you seriously telling us the CEO of PRS has a law degree?

Quote petev3.1:

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I doubt the people complaining here realise just what is involved with being a CEO, and would change their mind or at least soften their attitude if they did. .........

Mind you, I do have some difficulty understanding why being CEO of PRS is such a difficult job.

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Contradictory, much? Possibly due to soggy grapes.

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~~~ A weasel hath not such a deal of spleen as you are tossed with! www.feline1.co.uk ~~~

Quote feline1:

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Oh come off it - they hire lawyers to handle the details of that crap.

Are you seriously telling us the CEO of PRS has a law degree?

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Lawyers dot i's and cross t's. They don't make decisions or take risk. Further... Most top legals ents earn more than most CEOs!! Not the premier leaguer ones ( which I grant you ARE overpaid) . The legal advice given to the PRS, however, is often dubious!! Haha....

Um.

100K isn't a particularly huge salary in London these days.

Upper end of middle management, not CEO.

Partners at big consulting firms get 500K to a million. Bob Diamond at Barclays gets 8 million. Someone running a big hedge fund would get a few times that.

Somewhere on that continuum it gets a bit silly. I couldn't say where.

100K for running the PRS sounds attractive. I wouldn't run TFL for 350K though.

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Instant gratification is actually pretty good. It's fast as well.

I read the other day the Eric Clapton has a net worth of 120 million. How reasonable is that ? A talented bloke, no doubt, but we are talking blues, not jazz, so let's not overstate it !

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Instant gratification is actually pretty good. It's fast as well.

Quote SecretSam:

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I read the other day the Eric Clapton has a net worth of 120 million. How reasonable is that ? A talented bloke, no doubt, but we are talking blues, not jazz, so let's not overstate it !

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yeah but think how much more he'd be worth if (inappropriate comments deleted)

Edited by Mike Stranks (04/06/12 07:51 PM)

yeah but think how much more he'd be worth if...

...he'd invested in Apple at an early stage?

yeah but think how much more he'd be worth if...

... he owned majority shares in a prominent pharmaceutical company ?

PM us, Feline. We just can't work it out !

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Instant gratification is actually pretty good. It's fast as well.

Quote feline1:

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Quote SecretSam:

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I read the other day the Eric Clapton has a net worth of 120 million. How reasonable is that ? A talented bloke, no doubt, but we are talking blues, not jazz, so let's not overstate it !

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yeah but think how much more he'd be worth if (inappropriate comments deleted)

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They were not "inappropriate" - Clapton is infamous for his never-retracted racist comments about immigration. Get a grip.

He was complaining about black people coming over here, taking all our jobs.

yeah but think how much more he'd be worth if...

...he'd had Feline to sort out his PPL/PRS?

yeah but think how much more he'd be worth if...

... ethnic minorities / migrant workers didn't keep taking all his jobs ?

yeah but think how much more he'd be worth if...

...he hadn't set up a drug rehabilitation centre in the Caribbean?

yeah but think how much more he'd be worth if...

... He'd have been the one who invented the Rubik's Cube ?

I'm shocked!
I'm reading he was very drunk when he said those things on stage in 1976. and the great guitar on Layla was played by Duane Allman.