Cleaners 'worth more to society' than bankers - study

You've got to hand it to the MSM - just every now and then they get it so right it leaves you speechless:

Hospital cleaners are worth more to society than bankers, a study suggests.

The research, carried out by think tank the New Economics Foundation, says hospital cleaners create £10 of value for every £1 they are paid.

It claims bankers are a drain on the country because of the damage they caused to the global economy. They reportedly destroy £7 of value for every £1 they earn...

Source


And it's not just an astute observation either. They're already talking in terms of a remedy:

Eilis Lawlor, spokeswoman for the New Economics Foundation, said: "Pay levels often don't reflect the true value that is being created. As a society, we need a pay structure which rewards those jobs that create most societal benefit rather than those that generate profits at the expense of society and the environment".

So here's the rundown:

A total of six different jobs were analysed to assess their overall value. These are the study's main findings:

The elite banker

"Rather than being wealth creators bankers are being handsomely rewarded for bringing the global financial system to the brink of collapse
Paid between £500,000 and £80m a year, leading bankers destroy £7 of value for every pound they generate".

Childcare workers

"Both for families and society as a whole, looking after children could not be more important. As well as providing a valuable service for families, they release earnings potential by allowing parents to continue working. For every pound they are paid they generate up to £9.50 worth of benefits to society."

Hospital cleaners

"Play a vital role in the workings of healthcare facilities. They not only clean hospitals and maintain hygiene standards but also contribute to wider health outcomes. For every pound paid, over £10 in social value is created."

Advertising executives

The industry "encourages high spending and indebtedness. It can create insatiable aspirations, fuelling feelings of dissatisfaction, inadequacy and stress. For a salary of between £50,000 and £12m top advertising executives destroy £11 of value for every pound in value they generate".

Tax accountants

"Every pound that a tax accountant saves a client is a pound which otherwise would have gone to HM Revenue. For a salary of between £75,000 and £200,000, tax accountants destroy £47 in value, for every pound they generate."

Waste recycling workers

"Do a range of different jobs that relate to processing and preventing waste and promoting recycling. Carbon emissions are significantly reduced. There is also a value in reusing goods. For every pound of value spent on wages, £12 of value is generated for society."

The research also makes a variety of policy recommendations to align pay more closely with the value of work. These include establishing a high pay commission, building social and environmental value into prices, and introducing more progressive taxation.

So what do you make of this? And what are your thoughts on other jobs that haven't been covered?

I think that's also interesting because I imagine most cleaners and hospital cleaners are immingrants. people forget their contribution to our society, yet bash the immigrants over the Bankers.

Great observation although I believe the observation was made years ago by a some guy who said Blessed are the meek for they shall inherit the earth and the first shall be last and the last shall be first.

lol

Yep its a stretch but I have only had one sip of java.

reply to post by pause4thought


I thought we'd have to wait for the judgement as to what a work position is worth...
but your OP has already anticipated that 'dark aspect';

And it's not just an astute observation either. They're already talking in terms of a remedy:

Eilis Lawlor, spokeswoman for the New Economics Foundation, said: "Pay levels often don't reflect the true value that is being created. As a society, we need a pay structure which rewards those jobs that create most societal benefit rather than those that generate profits at the expense of society and the environment".

sounds like socialism or communism to me...
although the ideal behind giving values to jobs/positions might be positive,
just what does one do with the inevitable slacker...who holds a highly valued position in that society?

Bankers are also being mildly skewered by Pres. Obama, in front of today's meeting with a group of banker leaders...whom Obama referred to as Fat-Cats... which is just pandering to the growing 'Populist' sentiment in the States.
After All, Pres. Obama, just getting back from the Nobel $MillionDollar Awards...is also a Fat-Cat...
As If, his whole Harvard, Law, felt-padded life was anything near A Struggle

oh man, this is going to be a rough thread. "this sounds suspiciously like socialism to me, my rich uncle says socialism is bad by definition", i'm not sure people are even able to think outside the pigeonhole on this subject.

we have all been indoctrinated to be selfish, personally i find it harder to shake than my catholic guilt. it's so ingrained in us that it's difficult to work out how we'ld start to build a system for rewarding people for the good they do society rather than the good they do themselves.

at the moment we employ a highly flawed system which involves raising the tide so that all the ships are kept afloat and it kind of works. the generation of wealth has raised the level of society better than anything else we've come up with so we reward the people who generate wealth best.

it's good that we're starting to question this system, it seems unsustainable at the level our civilization has reached and we're probably well connected enough to run a better system.

[edit on 14/12/09 by pieman]

About time someone appreciate the ones who really do some community good.

The trend is ' the less you do, the higher the rank and salery'.

reply to post by St Udio


Hi. It looks like pieman, (who posted at the same time as you) anticipated your response.

If we are going to examine this in a mature fashion then your concerns need to be taken on board. The way I see it this study is questioning the rewards given to elite bankers. It would be unfair to tar everyone in the banking sector with the same brush. In fact the vast majority probably both do an honest day's work and create wealth.

If I read pieman's initial response correctly he is indeed calling for some subtlety in the analysis. And believe me, I'm no communist!

reply to post by pause4thought


i can see the point, full socialism was a method to address what is a real flaw in the system but it was generally a failure. i've come to believe that it usually fails because it demonises the people that were needed to make it work.

as a society we pay a lot of people a lot of money to effectively administer wealths proxy, money. i actually think they all generally do a good job at fulfilling their brief, accountants keep accounts to the benefit of clients, as instructed, bankers make the maximum profits for shareholders on any given day. investors invest money to generate the maximum return in the shortest possible time.

i actually think all these skilled administrators hold the keys to changing the world, we just need to change their brief.

we need to get these people to administer actual wealth for the good of all rather than ask them to administer the proxy of wealth for the good of the few. a bankers job is not to bank for the good of society, it is to bank for the good of shareholders. they generally do a good job. change the brief, not the man.

[edit on 14/12/09 by pieman]

That is absolutely genius.
I've always wondered how top 'execs' get paid so much for sitting on their arse, whilst they pay the cleaners minimum wage.
Think about it - without cleaners, everything would be filthy and disease ridden. I'd say a clean, healthy environment is more important than say, what colour to make a logo, or how to best extort people.

But who gets the million dollar bonus and big phat paid-off mansion, and who gets to scrape by week-by-week not knowing if they can afford the rent for their crappy little flat after the bankers and insurance salesmen (etc) have bled them dry?

But of course, don't tar all 'bankers' with the same brush. I know people who work (or have worked) for banks, as counter staff, or admin - and they're in the same boat as the rest of us. They're skint too!
Society as a whole needs a BIG rethink IMO. Paying everyone equal wages would be a good start, then those who work extra hard, or go above and beyond, they can have a small, modest bonus.
Before long, prices of stuff would adapt, and we'd soon see exactly who the greedy people are.

Originally posted by ChemBreather
The trend is ' the less you do, the higher the rank and salery'.

That is soo true!

I would love to be on facebook and watch youtube vids along with 10 cups of tea a day with a salary of 100K and a milli xmas bonus untaxed.

Oohh boy keep dreamin!

reply to post by pause4thought


There is no hard evidence that banks create wealth. They serve as a storage facility for wealth and they will, if one has the collateral to justify it, loan money to investors for an interest rate. Here is the problem. Banking began as simply a place to store wealth, and at some point it began loaning money backed by the wealth it was storing. The problem truly began when banks began loaning more money than they had wealth to back it, and then when those who were storing their wealth in that bank decided to withdraw their wealth the banks find themselves in somewhat of a pickle.

If there were no banks to lend money there would still be investment capitalists and angel investors to do so, and the primary difference between them is that when an investment capitalist or an angel investor makes the investment they do so with their own money not someone else's money and their is no fear of the owners of that money demanding a withdrawal before the investment has produced any wealth. Banks are fairly useless outside of wealth storage and given that the vast majority of people don't really have enough wealth to justify storing it in a bank the question becomes why do so many people do business with banks?

The answer to that question lies in the nature of legislative and business practices across the world that have demanded even poor people do business with banks. What possible reason would a poor person have to do business with a bank? Other than that they work for jobs that pay them in check form rather than cold hard cash and in order to get that check cashed they have to either pay a "service fee" from the bank that issued the check or agree to open a checking account with that bank in order to get past the "service fee", there is no good reason to do business with that bank. That "service fee" is outrageous and tantamount to extortion given that the employer presumably pays by check because they have every reason to believe that bank will honor the check assuming there is enough wealth in the employers account to pay the person casing the check.

The problem becomes even more complex and dicier when when banking cartels usurp governments and form agencies such as the Federal Reserve, where they then take standard currency once backed by wealth and devalue that currency by no longer backing it with wealth in the form of fiat money. To even further complicate the problem they take control of the lending rates established and engage in practices such as depressing the lending rate lower than the rate of inflation which then in turn discourages people to save their money in a bank as the return off of that savings will be lower than the rate of inflation and they will have lost money rather than gained any by saving it. Thus, consumerism is fostered by a Federal Reserve who has confiscated all the wealth in exchange for printing useless money that then must be used to purchase stuff in order to have any value.

These practices are engaged in to enrich-en the bankers at the expense of everyone else and this is not at all a productive service to any economy. No study was needed to illustrate that a "cleaner" or any other low waged job ultimately has more value to society than that of banking. One final note, I am a firm believer in pure unfettered capitalism, which means a free and unregulated market place where banks could never achieve the success they have today. It is through regulation that they have managed to accumulate the wealth they have not "de-regulation". It is the regulations that require people to have bank accounts to begin with that has led to this accumulation of wealth by banks.

Employers have come to believe that for tax purposes they have to pay their employees in check form rather than cash so they can "withhold" the "required" income taxes from their checks. It, apparently, never occurred to these employers that they have become accounting and collection firms for tax collectors and that there truly is no law preventing them from simply paying their employees in cash. It has been a fraud perpetuated by banks, government and other corporations who are all subject to these income tax laws, but there is no evidence to support the notion that any "cleaner", janitor, or laundry cleaner or waitress or farmer or even a doctor or lawyer is subject to the so called "Personal Income Tax".

The amount of fraud and extortion perpetuated by the banks and the governments who have also committed fraud while facilitating the wealth of bankers is colossal and has done great damage to local, state, national and even world economies. The Constitution for the United States of America empowered Congress to coin and print monies and the people would be much better off if they began insisting that Congress stop abdicating this power and transferring it to banks and go back to doing the job they were mandated to do to begin with.

Originally posted by merkava
I would love to be on facebook and watch youtube vids along with 10 cups of tea a day with a salary of 100K and a milli xmas bonus untaxed.

to get into that position you need to work 20hr days 6 days a week for ten years or so. you need to marry yourself to your job and suck up to a ton of people just long enough to get into a position where you can stab them in the back.

you can start in just about any office position in any large company. there are no real bars to entry so long as you're willing to do it...so away you go.

EDIT: on re-reading, that sounds rude, i don't mean it that way. i just mean to point out that i don't think the salary being inversely proportional to workload thing is a fair comparison, and i'm not on a high salary.

[edit on 14/12/09 by pieman]

Originally posted by pieman

Originally posted by merkava
I would love to be on facebook and watch youtube vids along with 10 cups of tea a day with a salary of 100K and a milli xmas bonus untaxed.

to get into that position you need to work 20hr days 6 days a week for ten years or so. you need to marry yourself to your job and suck up to a ton of people just long enough to get into a position where you can stab them in the back.

Ahh i don't mind doing that for 10 years as long as it all pays off after that.I heard stockbrokers are in simillar situation too?

you can start in just about any office position in any large company. there are no real bars to entry so long as you're willing to do it...so away you go.

You sure about that?

So i don't need double masters and and student loan debt of 100k to start on any position in a large multinational?

Would cleaner position count?

Originally posted by merkava
Would cleaner position count?

if you were able to make it count!!

that's my point, business is all about results, if you can get results or make others get results, no-one really cares what you do or how you do it.

if you're a cleaner that can turn a billion profit a year by watching youtube and drinking tea, someone will pay you 100k a month and a million bonus. simple as that.

i feel we should stop asking the people capable of doing it to turn a profit and start asking them to administer third world economies for the good of the people in them, as an example.

[edit on 14/12/09 by pieman]

reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux


I see some folks are already putting together a CV & putting a stamp on an envelope marked 'Goldman Sachs'.

But my main point is that I would hope some people might flag this thread if only to get your post read by more people.

What you said was pretty devastating. And extremely refreshing in terms of clear thinking.

One thing you said reminded me of a quandry I posed quite a while ago. You said:

To even further complicate the problem they take control of the lending rates established and engage in practices such as depressing the lending rate lower than the rate of inflation which then in turn discourages people to save their money in a bank as the return off of that savings will be lower than the rate of inflation and they will have lost money rather than gained any by saving it...

Back in October 08 I was scratching my head like this:

Here's a new angle to tease the brains of the economists out there and (possibly) bring a smile to the face of the 'man in the street'.

If the base rate in the US is now 1.5%, 4.5% in the UK and roughly within that range throughout the major industrialized economies but true inflation is running at 10-15%+ are the banks effectively giving away money and making a loss when they lend it at just a few percentage points above the base rate?

Pondering this and trying to assess the repercussions feels a bit like one of those optical illusions where a staircase goes up, turns a few corners, then ends up back where it started. Or is borrowing money (at a fixed rate) now truly a free lunch, in that you end up paying back less than you borrowed when the value of the money is adjusted for inflation?

In fact, if you borrow now and hyperinflation starts soon, presumably you effectively end up paying back nothing...

(over here: Is the True Rate of Inflation being hidden by Government? )

And I still can't claim to have understood what exactly is going on here. Perhaps you can clarify?


Meantime anyone who hasn't seen these might find them an interesting reflection of your overall argument:




(parts 1-5 should be viewed)




(parts 1-8 need to be viewed)

Originally posted by pause4thought
reply to post by Jean Paul Zodeaux

 

I see some folks are already putting together a CV & putting a stamp on an envelope marked 'Goldman Sachs'.

Postion Applied For:Cleaner

Wish me luck guys!

I Wonder if they worked out the value of what people who work in 'think tanks' are worth?

Not much I'm betting

Great thread, IMHO the people making the most money lack ethics and compassion, and that is why they are paid so highly. Anyone with a heart and soul would not be able to screw people the way the Banksters do and still sleep at night, so if you start as a cleaner and show how ruthless and backstabbing you are, there's a job at the top for you. Not just anyone can be a scumbag, and it it really takes a lack of any human feelings to make it to the top.

Originally posted by merkava
Postion Applied For:Cleaner

Wish me luck guys!

Like in the bruce almighty movie, the cleaner ends up being the main contributor lol.

Says alot, lol.

I'm no fan of bankers but I question their methology. In particular their analysis of advertising. It would be great if we could do without it but I think it would work better in theory than practise. On paper it's easy to plan a utopia, in practise it's much harder if not impossible.

Basic supply and demand rules govern how much people earn. The demand for cleaners is high but because the job requires little to no education the supply of applicants is also very high. There isn't a business in the world who wouldn't want to pay their higher level employees less money if they could. However they are all competing for a small number of qualified and experienced people and that's why wages have been pushed up to the levels they are in some professions.

[edit on 14-12-2009 by Jacob08]