City workers salaries

studentphil

magyar wrote:

Well I'm the borrower, not the investor, so you can save your waffle for them, but it's quite simple:

- with city money my company can build ten green energy projects in five years
- without city money we could build one.

So isn't it the moral thing to do to borrow money from these investors?

Of course that is good in itself, but it is only a splash in the ocean compared to all the other unethical investments made.

studentphil

quidsinquentin wrote:

Oh come on Phil - the company's willing to meet you half-way! You can have a taxi to work.

£100,000??? Not willing???

If the Taxi run on Bio fuels and I could be proven wrong about 2 or 3 then just maybe.

I would not do it for the money though, more that it would be something engaging to do.

studentphil

It does make you wonder if these city firms have Equality sections and are engaged in making themselves more representive.

Saucepot

You don't half talk some utter c0ck, phil. Whats more important, competance or skin colour?

When I go to the docs, I want the doc selected on the basis of who was the best doctor that applied for the position. Not some PC idiocy on the lines of "we need a white/black one to make us representitive"

Same goes for the mechanic that services my car or the broker that actions my deals. Pretty much anything, thinking about it.

Gabriel-Ernest

The company I work for is fully committed to equality; HR are up to their eyeballs in red tape and regulations. My co-workers come from a wide variety of ethnicities, nationalities, physical abilities, qualifications, sexual orientation, religions etc - the City does tend to be very diverse in that respect. Except they don't employ stupid people - they do draw the line at that. People are chosen for their ability to do their jobs.

studentphil

Gabriel-Ernest wrote:

The company I work for is fully committed to equality; HR are up to their eyeballs in red tape and regulations. My co-workers come from a wide variety of ethnicities, nationalities, physical abilities, qualifications, sexual orientation, religions etc - the City does tend to be very diverse in that respect. Except they don't employ stupid people - they do draw the line at that. People are chosen for their ability to do their jobs.

They certainly get many applications and these firms are always running events around universities, so they should find a few clever ones.

Gabriel-Ernest

Phil - how much are your views on this thread based on knowledge rather than supposition? Have you ever visited a City company? Done any work experience in one?

magyar

studentphil wrote:

Of course that is good in itself, but it is only a splash in the ocean compared to all the other unethical investments made.

But you miss my point, without the investors, the projects couldn't happen. Which brings me right back to my first point. You can't dismantle the whole apparatus of economy, but you can start making inroads into it.

studentphil

Gabriel-Ernest wrote:

Phil - how much are your views on this thread based on knowledge rather than supposition? Have you ever visited a City company? Done any work experience in one?

I have never been to a city firrm

I know from the careers stuff I have seen that you need to be good at sports or music or some hobby like that.

You need to be able to speak another language ideally.

You need top results

Doing something like to have been travelling the world helps you get a job too.

reduceditem

Been a wee bit busy today so I've not been able to contribute as much as I would like.

Gabriel-Ernest; your post #68 was a response to my post #67. You start by asking the question at what point does a salary or bonus become immoral? I would say that a salary or bonus could not in itself be immoral at any level. The ideas behind the granting of the salary/bonus and the methods by which it my be earned are what is morally relevant.

You later say; ''Like it or not, the financial industry is the 'backbone' of the country.''

I do not accept this. Morality and goodwill are the backbone of this country IMO. Without these society as we understand it would not exist.

You then say; ''So you do voluntary work or work for minimum wage, do you? At what point would you consider a salary unjustifiable?''

Not sure if this is refering to me directly (since I've made no mention of how I earn a living) but its a good question and harder to answer. I would have to honestly say that I don't know. I'll wriggle out of it a bit by saying that what is more important is how you earn a living, your reasons for doing it and how you dispose of the money that you earn.
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magyar; many good points in your posts. My only area of disagreement with you would be that a lot of what you say is a kind of moral discussion about the industry itself but falls a bit short of studying the morals of individuals, the, lets say, 1000 people that might make up an organisation. It's not valid ,for me, to use an organisation as a shield for your own possible lack of moral thinking (I'm not accusing you or any other poster of this BTW!)
I'm sure many of us have been in jobs or done things of a quetionable moral nature out of need to put bread on the table. But there's a big difference between that type of situation and the kind of jobs we are talking about.
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Saucepot; #82. You open this post as follows;

''What on earth has morality got to do with it?''

Everything.

You then say ...''and if it has then surely getting the best deal for yourself is morally acceptable.''

Not sure I understand that.

Further down you say....''None of you have a problem selling an item for as much as you can get off ebay''

I would have to disagree. It so happens I am advertising my car in Autotrader on Friday. I've put it in at a very fair price and the first thing I'll be doing if anyone comes round is pointing out to them the couple of wee faults that its got.
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sheraz; #90. In reference to my talk about the direction of my moral compass (I still hate that phrase!) you say....''Well I'm glad mine doesn't because these companies are worth 17% of the UK's GDP. They are wealth generators for the UK.''

I'm glad you feel comfortable about your compass!...but don't see the relavance of the rest of your post. If the figure was 50% it wouldn't change my thinking at all since the industry would still fall down on moral principles IMO.

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Gabriel-Ernest; #97........''Except they don't employ stupid people -they do draw the line at that''

I believe you are refering to the industry as a whole here (if you are only talking about your own organisation, I apologise). That does not tally with my own experience but your opinion is certainly more up to date than mine and I could be wrong!
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Sorry to all about the length of this post and my lack of pasting etc. I've got to start getting ready for going out to see 'Apocolypto' now (my bums already numb enough after sitting writing this post!). I really wish I had more time to contribute to this and other threads but I'm a bit frightened of what Mel Gibson might do to me if he hears I ducked out of seeing his film.

BTW Gabriel-Ernest...I'll try to get back to you on that other thread later.