Wanna get rich? Work for an anti-poverty charity

Before I do today’s post. please let me expose the utter absurdity of our politicians’ impotence in the face of our ever-growing public spending and debt. The great economic genius, George Osborne, has announced that the British Government will be selling its stake in Eurostar for about £200m “in order to reduce our national debt”.

Hold on a minute. We are borrowing £100bn a year. Thus our national debt is increasing by £100bn a year. If we’re borrowing this much, then that’s around £274m we’re borrowing every single day. Ooops. So, if the Government managed to get £200m for Eurostar, then that would pay for just 17.5 hours of our Government’s borrowing! How the f*** is selling Eurostar going to “reduce our national debt”? My worry is that some people are stupid enough to believe the imbecilic Osborne’s pronouncements.

Anyway, unlike our expenses-fiddling politicians who have just given themselves a massive pay rise, you might have been aware that there’s been a bit of an economic crisis and a recession and that many people’s standard of living has been stagnant or falling. But this crisis doesn’t seem to have hit the bosses of our biggest anti-poverty charities.

Since the start of the recession, Oxfam have been relatively frugal and only increased their top dog’s salary by 7%. But at Save the Children the highest paid executive is getting 31% more than they did in 2008. At the Red Cross it’s just 18% more. But at Christian Aid it’s 40% more. Here’s a chart showing the pay of the highest paid executive at our six main anti-poverty charities in 2008 and 2013 (click to see more clearly)

The message seems to be – “if you want to avoid poverty, then become a big cheese at an anti-poverty charity”.

Please remember these figures next time a tin-rattler or chugger tries to get you to hand over your cash.