TUMBLEGUM;
As one of the 'bleeding heart' society, you have conveniently forgoten, or deliberately failed, to mention 'family support'.

Now a single wage earner, with four kids, on $38K, which is what you have based your thead on, would be laughing all the way to the bank as the amount of 'hand outs' they would receive, from the other 'tax payers' would be quite nice indeed and, they would be 'TAX FREE'!

Ever been asked if you have a 'health care card'? I wish!

Furthermore, while the 'high skilled', 'high paid' worker you refer is out slaving away, sometimes up to 90hr per week, your poor little 'over worked and under paid battler' is working his/her 38hr and enjoying every weekend with their four kids.

And, if society wishes to improve the conditions for retail workers, pay decent money for your goods and stop continually seeking the cheapest alternative as you know, or ought to know that every time you seek the cheapest goods, retail jobs are at risk as the major employer in retail is small business. Not big business.

May I suggest that rather than taking the 'tall poppy' approach towards the CEO's of the world, just remember, it is they who pay huge taxes and receive little to no assistance, just so the likes of your battlers can enjoy life with their four kids, even though they knew full well they could never afford them.

In my organisation I know of several chaps who are on $12700 per annum. They work 1 week on , 1 week off. They are essential services officers on CDEP. This has been happening for years now under successive Qld Labor. Others in the communities do sfa & are on excellent public service awards. Yes labor , the for the worker party. What a joke, they're nothing but an academic yuppy club.

Worth is a funny word. For ordinary people value is based on the merit in the jobs people do allowing for small variations in opinion.

In the madness of our shareholder/profit driven economy 'worth' and 'value' take on nebulous meanings like "you are worth what people are willing to pay" not in terms of the 'real' value one might contribute to a business, whether one is a CEO or a cleaner. These worths are contrived.

This term is also used in real estate as though the continual push to make higher commissions is not relevant to the cost of housing along with issues like availability.

We live in a world where words like efficiency no longer mean doing a job well including great customer service, but reducing services to make more profits is now what is viewed as efficiencies. The customer and the employee can go jump in other words.

It is not tall poppy syndrome to see that the widening gap between the incomes of the rich and the poor have far reaching consequences on prices and affordability leaving those on lower incomes out of the loop for access to home ownership and other benefits. It also has great effects on health and wellbeing and the ability to raise children.

We wouldn't have to provide subidies to low income families in the way of tax benefits and allowances if the economy was better managed in relation to personal debt, housing affordability and rental prices.

Why is it unreasonable to ask that some of those exhorbitant salaries at the top be reduced so that some of the spoils be filtered downwards. CEOS earning $23M per annum plus bonuses (which they seem to get despite falls in share prices) is not a 'reasonable' income while a cleaner that cleans the office is on $30K per year. The CEO should earn more given his responsibilities and the time he puts in but...$23M?

We live in an economy where it is too easy for those at the top to continually feather their nests while consumers, workers and shareholders remain powerless to influence policy.

Pelican, you echo my thoughts.

Why is it anathema for a liveable wage be paid to the lowest level employee who earns less in two years, which a CEO at $23M earns in a day? That's value for work done? I don't think so. Industry relies on the contribution of the bulk of employees who are paid minimal rates - without them nothing would be produced.

Pelican, I think you will find that human greed runs right through
society and that those who can feather their own nests, in fact do.

I was in a small way involved in an insurance class action, where
the lawyers were charging 400$ an hour. When the farmers tried to
claim 20$ an hour for their time, the lawyers cleverly argued that
the farmers time was in fact worth nothing. By this time the farmers
were so brow beaten by all the legal costs, that they just gave in.

Recently a company operating up North had a gun put to its head
by a union, and was forced to pay workers a 50k$ pay rise per
worker. Just plain old human greed, all through society.

The only Australian CEO that I know of, who earned 23 million
in 08-09, was Allan Moss of Mac Bank. I'm not sure what they pay
their cleaners, but Mac Bank staff on average, are apparently
extremely well paid.

Was Moss worth it? To me Mac Bank is a bit like a magic pudding,
making huge amounts of money in ways that few people understand
in investment banking. He certainly seems to have been the brains
behind the whole MacBank success story. B&B tried to copy him,
but they soon went broke.

Would MacBank ever have become what it did without him? I doubt it.

Dont believe the lies that CEOs are paid what they are worth. Of course the fat cats will say they are smart and intelligent and no one else could do as well as them but this is just self serving BS. None of them took a loss when they screwed up and brought the world to the brink of another great depression. None of them were made homeless by their incompetence. Unlike many of their workers.

Being paid thousands of dollars an hour is only possible within the exclusive, elitist, fatcat club of parasites, living high on the backs of their workers and using their power to influence and blackmail governments. Swanning around with their limos, power lunches and first class they do minimal work while "earning" millions. A filthier, more vile bunch of parasites there has never been. Even the monarchs and the church of medieval times dont come close to the capitalist pigs of greed and exploitation that are running this world into war, degradation, inequality and collapse.

Bring back the militant unions of the 70s and the class war that was seemingly won by the capitalist parasites. A few general strikes and walkouts and these rich pigs will have no choice but to share the wealth. Wealth produced ONLY by workers never by rich paper pushers and the millions of pieces of paper they stole from us.

Solidarity is not a dirty word. It is the only way to stop being screwed. They all stick together why shouldnt workers do the same?