I have just finished watching “The Big Question” on BBC One and one of the questions posed was about whether multi-million pound salaries are ever justified and in particular in relation to the bankers.

There were a number of socialists on the show and what appeared to be people advocating communism, as they were saying that governments should cap what people are paid and that the likes of nurses and teachers should be paid more. I think it has been proven that societies that utilise communism are not popular and on the whole do not work – people are simply no equal and people have and should have choices!

I agree that nurses and teachers do a great job and we all need them and one could argue that we don’t need footballers on these huge salaries, but at the end of the day everyone has a choice. People that become a nurse, for example, choose to do this job knowing full well that their annual salary is what it is at the time; they also know that they will never get paid millions.

However, I would lay a bet that the majority of these nurses probably do the lottery every week too and if they were to be asked the question – “Would you like to earn millions of pounds?” the majority of these nurses would answer yes. Those that say no are simply not telling the truth!

The people that make millions or earn millions very likely do not do the lottery because for the first instance they don’t need the money, but secondly and probably more importantly they are prepared to go out and work hard for the money they have.

The other point that was not really picked up on The Big Question show was that the majority of millionaires create jobs. What was discussed is that if they earn more they pay more tax towards the government and society, which in turn pays towards nurses and teachers, but not that the likes of Richard Branson employ some 55,000 people who all pay tax towards the system.

There was one socialist person saying that the people that earn more seem to be able to avoid paying tax and yes this is true to a certain extent, but where they employ people there is no getting way from paying employment taxes under the PAYE system. So if a multi-millionaire is able to get away with paying a bit of tax through clever tax planning then good luck to him, as this simple goes with the territory. In other words a person that likes to make money also likes to retain as much of this as possible to re-invest in the business and so on.

Fair enough, millionaires may well save tax on their own income so as to get paid more, but why not, as they are the ones taking the risk and they are the ones employing hundreds and sometimes thousands of employees – who not only have tax deducted at source themselves, but they all then pay and contribute towards society from their net salaries.

Largely jealousy comes into the equation and people are simply not prepared to take the risk to set up their own business or to put their reputation on the line to go for these high paying jobs.

Nicky Campbell did ask a very good question to one socialist asking what should the likes of Paul McCartney be capped on what they earn from their record sales or that a book seller be capped on the sales of a best selling book. Should these people earn up to a certain level and then after that point the income be stopped? What Nicky Campbell didn’t ask is where this extra money should go if this were the case? What was interesting is that this person could not truly answer this question and quite frankly this would make a nonsense of any economy.

At the end of the day it is very unlikely that things will change from what they are now and there will always be a free market system through most economies and the world, subject to government meddling and intervention – case in point the recent government ‘nannying’ over the bank collapse with governments bailing out huge corporations in order to keep the capitalist wheel rolling!

Oil markets have continued to push the price of oil up this week yet again by a small margin of 2.1% to rest at just under $70 a barrel for crude.

It has been another good week for the stock markets again with all world indices rising on the week. The best performers were Japanese and Spanish markets both rising by over 4%.

End of the week saw:

If you want your customers to spend with you why not make it easy?

This may seem obvious to you, but it is not always obvious to most business owners and I would like to get you thinking a bit here. Let me explain by example…

I have just got back from a break myself and the guy that owned the apartments also owned the small supermarket down the road. The apartments were self catering so it would be good for the owner if the people staying there were to cook food and purchased from his shop.

When we arrived he took time to mention his shop so that we would visit, which we duly did and I am sure you are waiting for the but here…and there is and not just one the way I see it.

1. If the owner were to say to the people staying in his apartments…”should you buy from my store I will give you a discount off all of your purchases” This discount could be 5% or 10% or whatever, but it provides a sense of loyalty and this guy has a ‘captured audience’, albeit there are a number of other supermarkets around and some that I found to be cheaper. This business man has lost out on a significant amount of extra business, which is staring him in the face.

2. The facilities in the apartments were not what I would call ideal for self catering purposes and consisted of two electric hobs, a fridge and a few pots and pans – no oven or grill, no toaster, no kettle and no sufficient utensils for cooking a good meal. If he were to provide better facilities people might be more inclined to cook meals instead of going out for dinner, thereby giving the owner a better opportunity of extra food purchases.

3. The supermarket did not sell cold meats that could be cooked in the apartments – when I asked him where he had any meat or if there were any supermarkets around that did – he replied no and you would need a car to get to the nearest one. As it happens there was a discount store with a much better selection and at cheaper prices just a short walk down the road. So he has now not only lost out on potential sales and on holding his ‘captured audience’ by offering a discount to create some loyalty, but he has now broken my trust in telling me a un-truth about what is available locally.

This is just a simple story to try and illustrate a point about trying to make it easy for your customers to buy – one of the 7-ways to grow your business is to sell more to your existing customers and this business man failed badly in my opinion.

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