In message 4867c494@qaanaaq, Andy Hall writes
On 2008-06-29 17:21:08 +0100, Roger said:

The message 48679e62@qaanaaq
from Andy Hall contains these words:

It seems that an average public sector dentist earns about £45k,
which
is quite a comfortable salary.

By whose standards?
By most peoples.

To someone on minimum wage, I expect that the national average wage
would seem high.



It's the private sector ones at over £100k that I take issue with.

Why? There is no reason why a dentist shouldn't make a five figure
salary.
No reason why they should either.

Like all remuneration, it is based on what the remunerator is willing
to pay. If the asking level were too high, the customers wouldn't pay.

There is no restriction on people becoming dentists or doctors and
hence having access to this market. A would-be has to have the
academic and practical ability, work hard and achieve the exam results.

Perhaps not everybody is able or wants to do that. It doesn't give
them the right to criticise or complain about the income of others.



Incomes of over £100,000 are probably
still the preserve of less than 1% of the adult population and over
£45,000 probably less than 10%. My starting figures for those
assumptions are that in 2001/02 the top 10% got £640 per week or better
and of those somewhat less than 3% got over £1000 per week.

You could well be right. It would be better to encourage more people
to stretch themselves and to achieve higher earning potential provided
that they are actually creating wealth and/or benefit to their
customers.


I think you are living in cloud cuckoo land with remarks like that

Employers tend to pay what they can get away with paying - it's called
market forces, and a lot of people are already stretched or aren't going
to get a higher salary whatever they do

then there are others who aren't going to push themselves harder

Then there are e.g. shell drivers, nurses, teachers, police etc who
see their wages being eroded and put in for higher wages which ends up
with strikes for more pay which pushes up inflation - which erodes the
dentists' differential so they have even more grounds to say they can't
afford to perform NHS work - wage spirals

not everyone lives to work



It

--
geoff