Salaries paid to the 'top ten' employees of Haringey Council

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Finsbury Park Ranger on May 9, 2016 at 13:12

Personally I don't find many of those salaries too high for the responsibility but a discussion over the pay of our public servants is entirely reasonable.

Permalink Reply by John McMullan on May 9, 2016 at 13:22

One repercussion of this is that because PAYE rates up there are so high, the council is effectively handing half that money back to the treasury so that they can pay off our debts which reduces the money supply.

Permalink Reply by Finsbury Park Ranger on May 9, 2016 at 13:58

They're not paying off our debts, they're increasing it by 1.4 billion a week ...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Kingdom_national_debt

Permalink Reply by John McMullan on May 9, 2016 at 14:11

Money is loaned into existence so for every pound out there, there is a pound owed. In the Bank of England's case (as it was nationalised after WWII) we loan it to ourselves.

Permalink Reply by Finsbury Park Ranger on May 9, 2016 at 18:02

So what ?

Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on May 9, 2016 at 19:28

National debt as a proportion of GDP is under 50% at the moment. In 80 of the last 100 years, the national debt was at over 100% of GDP. In the 1950s it reached almost 250% and in the sixties, a time of massive economic growth, it was between 50 and 100%.
National debt isn't like your or my debt. The closest analogy is a mortgage, where we borrow huge sums of money, many times our salary (our own personal GDP if you like) yet no one bats an eyelid if you tell them you're borrowing hundreds of thousands of pounds, even though there is no way in the world that you could pay if all back in one go.

Permalink Reply by Finsbury Park Ranger on May 9, 2016 at 23:06

We had an empire back then, things were different. Hence why every major British political party now accepts the national debt is too high.

Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on May 10, 2016 at 5:46

Debt and borrowing are essential to capitalist economics. Without it the supply of money in the system falls to levels that won't support the working of government. What is spent is always greater than the amount raised through taxation and other income. It was Mrs Thatcher who introduced this strange idea that a nation was like a corner shop, you only spend what you earn. Capitalist economics doesn't work like that. Money is borrowed with pay back terms of decades (actually some money borrowed to finance the First World War was only recently replayed).
There is a strange hysteria about national debt both here and in the USA that previously didn't exist and certainly doesn't worry many other European and far eastern countries (the national debt in Japan for instance has run at 100-200% for a long time).
Having an empire usually means lower national debt as those countries within your economic control are normally exploited by taking their goods and raw materials at a low price, using them in manufacturing, and then selling on the finished product at a much higher prices, often to the country you got the raw materials from in the first place,

Permalink Reply by EMC2 on May 9, 2016 at 16:18

I don't know why Clive but when I saw this today I thought of you and Haringey Council...

Permalink Reply by john higson on May 9, 2016 at 16:34

Thanks for this information. Doesn't this mean that the Chief Exec of Haringey earns more than the Prime Minister? It seems to be assumed that anyone being paid these grotesque amounts must be super-people, but in my walk of life I've witnessed people on these kind of paygrades who spend most of their day gassing about extravagant luncheons they have planned. Inequality in this Borough appals me: if someone stood to lead the council on a ticket that there would be equal pay for all council employees, from street-sweepers to these bigwigs, they'd certainly get my vote 

Permalink Reply by Michael Anderson on May 9, 2016 at 17:41

The chief executives of most companies and organisations, from charities to TopShop, earn more than the PM- that's if you exclude all of the freebies the PM gets like expenses, paying no rent or mortgage, the income for letting out the home he doesn't live in while we pay for number 10. It's a hang over from the days when politicians were expected to be independently wealthy, which of course simply isn't the case now.........
I too would like to see more equal salaries but I wonder who would want to take on the hassle of running a multi million pound operation like a local authority for the same income as the person who does their filing.
By the way, street sweeper salaries are set and paid by Veolia, not Haringey. Interestingly the CEO of that company earns well in excess of £1m, plus bonuses and share options, and also has the time to also run EDF and collect a salary from them.

Permalink Reply by john higson on May 9, 2016 at 23:21

But the reason the prime minister's salary is relatively low (although try telling that to someone sweating away for a pittance in McDonalds every day) is because it comes under public scrutiny, whereas it's needed a Freedom of Information request to bring to light these characters raking it in at Haringey, which is hardly a council synonymous in the public mind with excellence. I take your point about CEOs of big companies earning much more than this, but to my mind this is utterly disgusting and should be outlawed. It's well proven that unequal societies are the least happy for almost everybody (try reading The Spirit Level), and my goodness the inequality in this neck of the woods is something shocking.

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