Where do these CEO's live? What planet? Who do they ever talk to other than their wealthy brethen and women? Adele Horin, writing in "For richer and poorer, the battle goes on" in The Sydney Morning Herald takes up the issue in relation to the CEO of one of Australia's 4 major banks.
"The chief executive officer of ANZ bank, Mike Smith, whose annual salary converts to about $27,400 a day, thinks people on unemployment benefits of $34 a day get too much.
His prescription for prodding the jobless to move to the salt mines of Western Australia is to cut the fat from a stipend so stingy that paying the rent and eating are mutually exclusive. It's too sad."
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"Smith's remedy might make more sense if the Newstart Allowance were generous, and thus a disincentive to taking a job, instead of a below-poverty-level payment.
If the unemployed comprised only fit young men, starving them into mobility might be worth it. But the unemployed include young and older women, people with mental illness and intellectual disabilities, and physically worn-out older men, all unlikely to move to the mines no matter how low Newstart goes.
Harsh and simplistic solutions to complex social problems are still trotted out by the rich and powerful whose encounters with the lives of the poor are usually non-existent."
"The chief executive officer of ANZ bank, Mike Smith, whose annual salary converts to about $27,400 a day, thinks people on unemployment benefits of $34 a day get too much.
His prescription for prodding the jobless to move to the salt mines of Western Australia is to cut the fat from a stipend so stingy that paying the rent and eating are mutually exclusive. It's too sad."
****
"Smith's remedy might make more sense if the Newstart Allowance were generous, and thus a disincentive to taking a job, instead of a below-poverty-level payment.
If the unemployed comprised only fit young men, starving them into mobility might be worth it. But the unemployed include young and older women, people with mental illness and intellectual disabilities, and physically worn-out older men, all unlikely to move to the mines no matter how low Newstart goes.
Harsh and simplistic solutions to complex social problems are still trotted out by the rich and powerful whose encounters with the lives of the poor are usually non-existent."
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