ESL School

... when the monthly pay cheque didn’t quite cover an emergency: the washing machine that would be more expensive to repair than to replace, new tyres for the car. But I have somehow never worried about it too much.

Now that we hear about bankers and their bonuses I reflect on how we view money. I am completely puzzled. Bankers, unlike teachers it seems, can only be retained by the payment of huge bonuses. How can this be? Don’t they talk of their salaries in millions rather than thousands anyway? Is it a question of scale? Is the banker just like me only with bigger bills? Does he suddenly find he’s half a million short?

It seems that certain types of ‘talent’ can demand salaries that the rest of us can only look at in amazement. Footballers fall into this category so do certain media celebrities. But just what are we paying for? If people are paid such amounts shouldn’t they demonstrate their all round worth too? Yet bankers nearly bankrupted several nations; footballers can behave like thugs off the field and ‘celebrities’ seem to have a talent for grabbing cash rather than displaying any real genius. I can’t think of anyone around today who has a fraction of the talent of, say, the various members of the Monty Python team but I don’t remember them demanding millions for their services.

What does this say about our values? How can we hand out such sums to the wreckless, the feckless and the callow while giving people who really contribute to society scarcely enough to live on? I’m not puritanical about money. I’d love everyone to have a good standard of living but can we really justify such a gulf between ‘real’ people and these go-getters? Let the bankers take their talents elsewhere say I.