Are you hard up?

[kwicky]

Britain is said to the the 4th of the world's richest countries. How does this work? Just looking round Europe or afar as Australia they all seem better of individually than us. Is it because the person who holds the purse strings is the government who spend this wealth for their own purposes?

[jno]

it depends exactly how you measure these things - do they mean average national wage, or gross domestic product per head, or land prices, etc? - , but I suspect you'd find a lot of rural population in places like Spain or France who live on very little (though they may produce their own food) and therefore drag their average national income down. Britain is fairly heavily urbanised. Also, we get freeish health care which Americans for instance don't, free motorways which the French don't, much cheaper world travel than Australians... and so on.

[crisgal]

depends on the individual -
i found out today that a friend of a friend who works in the civil service, admitedly high up, earns �750 AN HOUR!!!
absolutely disgusting when you think what nurses and firefighters get.

[Coobeastie]

Are you sure....if you're friend works a normal 37hour week that works out at nearly 1.5 million a year.

�75 an hour would equate to around 140k a year. If they are in a executive position that seems quite plausible and would be in line with council chief executives and chief fire officers.

[jno]

didn't some footballer, I forget which one, just sign up at �75,000 a week? Like hedge fund owners, these super-paid individuals also skew the averages a bit.

[crisgal]

yep, that's right 1.5 million a year.