Estate Living Digital Publication Issue 8 August 2015 | Page 51

The answer to the first question is really
straightforward if you remember that it was on their
watch that we entered the darn brown creek in the
first place and, when they were still in charge, we
then also lost all the paddles! The second question
is more complex and needs to be looked at both in
a historical context and from a financial perspective;
i.e. the amount of bucks we give ’em for what they
do. In his piece, Echoes of the Jazz Age (a period
also known as the roaring 20s – the halcyon and
hedonistic social free for all between the end of the
Great War and the crash of 1929), Scott Fitzgerald
offered an interesting financial perspective on the
people we put in charge of our national well-being:
“...And so on up the scale into politics where it was
difficult to interest good men in positions of the
highest importance and responsibility, importance
and responsibility far exceeding that of business
executives, but which paid only five or six thousand
(US $) a year.” A banker in the same period whom
Fitzgerald references could expect to take home
upwards of US $ 20, 000 per annum – not that bankers
were ‘good’ men, but it does illustrate and highlight an
interesting discrepancy in perceived ‘worth’ and what
we value as a society, and demonstrates a mindset
and/or value hierarchy that has been perpetuated
over the decades.
The same discrepancy can also be applied to
teachers and medical professionals to whom we
entrust the minds of our children and our own wellbeing, but whom we seem reluctant to pay a salary
commensurate with their social value. However, as
the issues in this case relate to fiscal governance, we

must focus on ѡ