[krd]

Originally Posted by andrew

I don't think I buy the idea that people thought a job in an MNC was at any point below them.

Oh I can tell you they very much did. My mother used to love rubbing my nose in how different school dropouts - some who'd even been in jail were doing great as bilders. Had their own bildin businesses - no training or apprenticeships just got their own van and started bildin. And then I stopped talking to her forever - I wonder what she'd say now.

Celtic tiger levels of unemployment were low partly because MNCs were large employers of Irish people.

Yes, that is true. If the breaks were slammed on the property bubble early 2000s, we really wouldn't be in such trouble. Those MNCs are very big employers and many are expanding the numbers they employ. Without the building boom, they would have probably increased their presence here.

While he might not like it, I really don't he'd rather the dole than a desk job for paypal. Even if 'manly men' do look down on desk jobs, they probably 'look down' on those on the dole too.

Paypal would probably not hire him because they would think he would not fit in. I don't think he'd like the relatively low wages or the indignities of customer service.

The quote you were responding to talks about wealthy people in general. There are many more sources of wealth than just property flipping.

During the property boom, many people abandoned productive enterprise and went mad.

That last decade saw a dearth of indigenous wealth creators. Anyone with any involvement in property was a wealth destroyer.

I know a few people who made millions property flipping, and they still have the money. And I know a few, who are essentially undeclared bankrupts - still living a high lifestyle with no visible means of support - I would suppose they're not paying down the mortgages with rent money they're collecting.

I believe you're mostly referring to america. As figure 3 at the end of this paper shows, wages havn't been stagnant or falling. Also, a transfer only occurs after income has been earned; if wealthy people are appropriating more and more of the pie, then it's an appropriation rather than a transfer.

Wages in the MNCs are kept tightly under control. For most of the 00s they were stagnant, even falling. I worked for a few and the wages were awful. Some had such a fetish for low wages they were losing money by not paying more.

In La La Land. The land of 4x4s and hi-vis jackets the wages were completely out of hand. Unskilled labours were earning as much as 70/80 thousand. Builders were building new ghost estates - borrowing money and paying themselves from the borrowed money, making themselves rich, without even having sold a house. Did it ever strike you as strange that certain builders, more or less undeclared bankrupts still have cash enough for driving cement mixers into the Dail and bildin Stone Henges.

Take out of the equation anyone who had anything to do with property - or selling bathroom tiles. Or any of the nonsense. And what you see is more or less wage stagnation.

[krd]

Originally Posted by andrew

I know. The operative factor is that it wasn't meant as a compliment.

It wasn't meant as an insult either. I had a brain bubble and that's all I could think of.