I'm Rich!!!!!

Well it’s Friday for me and it’s my last day before joining a new team at work on Thursday. My working life is going to dramatically change. In many ways I’m taking a backward step but I’m going to look on it as a new opportunity.

I’ve had a very tough couple of years and it’s not easy when times are hard but I always try and count my blessings. It’s not as important as family, friends and health but one of the things I always remind myself is just how disgustingly wealthy I am. When I say this to people who know me they laugh. My wage is slightly below the UK average. I don’t live in a mansion; I live in a 2 bed terrace. I don’t drive a sports car; I drive a 10 year old Astra. Despite all this I am actually very very rich:


• The average person in India has to survive on less than $2 per day. In Africa it’s less than $1 per day. The average global annual income is thought to be about $5300 (£3385).

• I live in my own house and I have central heating, running water, electricity and piped gas. Many in people in the world will never have these things.

• I’ve got televisions, DVD players, an iPhone and a laptop.

• I can take holidays abroad and stay in nice hotels.

• I can afford to buy foods that are a luxury and a treat. Many people buy food to survive.

I know wealth is relevant to the society we live in but when I look at the facts I’m very lucky, in a financial sense, to have been born in one of the richest nations on Earth.

As we are one of the richest nations on Earth surely we can afford to provide a first class socialised health service, free education, decent residential care for our elderly and all the other things that make a society civilised.

Maybe, we could do even more!

If every country in the world stopped spending money on weapons to kill each other with we could afford to educate every child on the planet, provide a decent level of healthcare for everyone and still have enough money left to develop new types of energy so we can end our destructive reliance on Oil.

New Job

I’ve managed to get a new roll at work and it’s on my current grade. I’m pleased even though it’s not exactly the sort of roll I wanted. I must confess that I’m a little bit nervous. It’s always a bit frightening starting a new job with new people.

After what the banks have done to the economy I’m just happy to have a job. The thought of being unemployed, even with a redundancy payment, was terrifying. Cameron and Osborne have announced cuts which are so severe that an estimated 1.5m people across both the public and private sector are going to lose their jobs. My heart goes out to all those people facing a very uncertain future.