Bosses keep paying themselves far more than their companies earn

This is what happens when there are no employee representatives on company pay committees which decide what executives are paid.

If Labour win they will ensure that worker representatives are elected to every large company pay committee.

This should help keep greedy snouts out of the trough.

"Briefing 57: Top pay increases are way out of proportion to company performance

 

Britain's top executives are supposed to be paid according to how their companies perform - but pay in recent years has increased far more quickly than performance.

 

Check out data at Inequality Briefing"

"Incredible wealth in the UK exists alongside unimaginable poverty"

Check out the latest Inequality Briefing "Since 2009 executive pay has soared and the number of billionaires has increased, while food bank use has rocketed and pay for ordinary workers has fallen".

If you want to really do something about this - then vote Labour. If you want inequality to carry on and get even worse - then vote for anybody but Labour or don't vote at all. 

The amount of cash benefits to rich has gone UP since recession

You don't have to be a raving leftie to think this is completely wrong and bonkers.

Inequality Briefing have found that the "Between 2007 and 2013, cash benefits paid to the richest fifth of the population increased by 42%. For the poorest fifth, benefits fell by 5%"

Tory Welfare reform has meant that the poorest have had their income reduced while the richest have seen their benefits increased.

This is mostly due to increases in the state pension to very rich (top richest 20%) pensioners.

"All in this together"? 

No wonder bosses don't want a Labour Government. Pure greed...

We are being taken for mugs. Workers and the share owners of companies (such as pension and insurance policy holders) alike are being ripped off. The father of modern day economics, Adam Smith, (not someone I usually cite and whose book "Wealth of Nations" was alleged to have been always in Margaret Thatchers handbag) warned the owners of companies in 1776 about the danger of Managers ("Agents") taking too much money for themselves at the expense of share owners ("Principles"). 

No wonder we are seeing a backlash by obscenely highly paid Chief Executives against the prospect of a Labour Government.

"Pay for Chief Executives of FTSE 350 companies has increased more than twice as fast as company profits... and around five times as fast as pay for the average UK worker".  Hat tip Inequality briefing.

Go Dutch to increase income equality by 99%

This is another important, short but clear, animation from Inequality Briefing.  If the rich continue to get richer and richer while the rest of us get poorer then unless we change, we are sleep walking into a disaster.

"The film highlights how: pay for top bosses nearly doubled over the past decade, while ordinary workers wages remained the same

a FTSE 100 CEO earns four times as much in one year as the average worker does in their entire lifetime

if total incomes in the UK were divided as evenly as in Denmark or the Netherlands, 99 per cent of households would be better off by nearly £3,000 per year".

 (Gentle hint to Inequality Briefing - I do think it would help if you referenced the data).

A CEO earns the UK average salary in just three days

Inequality Briefing have worked out that the average FTSE 100 Chief Executive earns the equivalent of the average UK salary in just 3 days.

"Explaining the data:
CEO pay of £4.25 million is take from the Manifest survey of CEO pay, while workers’ pay of £27,000 is taken from the Office of National Statistics Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings. To calculate hourly pay, we have (generously) assumed that CEOs take just 10 days annual leave and work an average 12 hours a day, 6 days a week".

Hat tip picture from twitter of US trade union @AFSCME

Who owns all the land in the UK?

So 0.6% of the population own 47% of the land!
Check out "Inequality Briefing"

Their source for this picture is "Kevin Cahill’s comprehensive analysis of land ownership in Britain, Who Owns Britain (Canongate, 2002)".

It makes you think about all the wealthy landowners who pay no tax on their land  receive large subsidies from the Government and the EU.

Then contrast with the rest of us who have to pay Council tax (a form of Land tax?) on our properties. This doesn't seem fair at all.

However, I am not sure what is the percentage of land is owned by collective bodies (Forestry Commission, National trust etc). I would have thought this would be quite significant?  Would this make any difference to the figures?

The UK is often portrayed as an "overcrowded" Island. Yet when you go walking in the hills and countryside or when you fly over the UK is often doesn't seem like this. Even 30 minutes drive from East London you can walk in relatively empty countryside and hardly see a soul.  Only 7.5% of the UK is actually "under concrete".

Is one reason for sky high house prices in the UK this huge inequality of land ownership?