My heart bleeds for them
Entry posted by GhostOfClayton
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Hello, and welcome to my blog. Are you sitting comfortably? Then I'll begin.
The law of unintended consequences
I was listening to Nigel Farage being interviewed on the radio this morning (the picture isn't him, by the way). For those who don’t know him, he’s the leader of a New-Kid-On-The-Block-Far-Right-We’re-Not-Racist-But-We-Have-To-Keep-Saying-We’re-Not-Racist political party in the UK. Now you won’t be surprised to learn that I don’t agree with very much he says. However, this morning I found myself agreeing with him. He has an aspiration to reduce immigration to the UK, and the figure that’s being bandied about is 50,000 per annum. He was being a little evasive when pressed about that target though, saying it was more of an aspiration than a hard and fast target to which UKIP should be held if ever they (God forbid!) get into power. I know what he meant though, he sees it as being more of a strategy, something that would influence the way they would govern. It would be the ‘spirit’ of what they do rather than some we-must-reach-50,000-at-all-costs-no-matter-how-we-do-it goal. He didn’t want this target to stop the ‘right’ people immigrating. This is fair enough. I don’t like hard-and-fast targets, because they tend to change the motivation of people. If you phone an IT support desk (for example) with a problem, sometimes you get the impression the operator is motivated to close your call, rather than provide the help you need. That’s because he or she is some poor sap working in a Hyderbad call centre, and how much money he gets to spend on feeding his or her family is directly dependant on how many calls he closes, rather than how much help he provides. I would be the same, and so would you. And these kinds of targets have caused as much harm as good within the National Health Service for exactly that reason. Staff are motivated to meet the targets, rather than being motivated to care and cure.
My heart bleeds for them
Mr Farage went on to say that he didn’t want to set a target because people are bored with them. That’s where I stopped agreeing with him. I’m frustrated by targets, but not bored. Go on, ask me what people ARE bored by. I’ll tell you. It’s just how often you hear rich people moaning about how bloody awful it is to be rich. Let me quote talented singer/songwriter Adele, talking about tax:
"I'm mortified to have to pay 50%! I use the NHS, I can't use public transport any more. Trains are always late, most state schools are shit, and I've gotta give you, like, four million quid – are you having a laugh? When I got my tax bill in from [my album] 19, I was ready to go and buy a gun and randomly open fire."
Let’s ignore the last phrase and hope it isn’t an early sign of a major psychotic episode on her part. Instead, let’s do the maths (translation for US readers: let’s do the math.) She had to pay 50% tax, and this totalled £4,000,000. Let me get may calculator out, so she had . . . clickety-click-click . . . £8,000,000 to start off with. (Concentrate; I know there are a lot of zeroes going on here, but bear with it). So let me just work out what she’s left with to spend . . . . erm . . . oh yes, £4,000,000. Is that all? I’m so sorry I doubted you, Adele. Your life must be really shit! Maybe we can have a whip-round for you. I’ll tell you what, I don’t pay much in the way of tax. Wanna swap incomes?
But it’s the irony of what she’s saying that must be lost on her. Maybe if people like her started doing their bit for the society that made them multi-millionaires in the first place, the state schools would be a bit less shit.
The other main gripe you’ll hear from rich people is “I may have lots of money, but I work hard for it”. It’s apparent to me that this statement is rarely, if ever, true – the more people earn, the less hard they work. What people are doing when they say this, is mistaking the concept of “working hard” for that of “working long hours”. The people who pick the vegetables that find their way on to your dinner plate? They work hard. A&E nurses work hard. Coal miners work hard. Sitting in an office on the top floor of a Canary Wharf tower holding a teleconference with the New York office until 10:00pm is unwelcome, inconvenient and irritating. It may even be stressful. Though, if you’re stressed by the prospect of losing your job and having to live out your life on what miserable few million pounds you can eke out of your stock portfolio, then you’re not seeing the bigger picture. My heart bleeds for you.
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