Accountants, Lawyers, Bankers and other non-wealth generating parasites ...

[sasguru]

Remember public sector workers as they are only redistributing the tax collections.

Some public sector workers are more productive and useful members of society than, say, a private sector accountant: doctors, nurses and teachers come to mind.
And university lecturers actually generate hard currency for the country via overseas student fees.

[Mich the Tester]

Remember public sector workers as they are only redistributing the tax collections.

Ah, but a doctor and a nurse are public sector workers. If a doctor and a nurse succesfully treat, for example, a car factory worker for his ailment, and because of their work he gts back to producing cars quickly, then they've made a contribution. Obviously, in the case of one car worker you don't get the returns, but seeing as they treat many hundreds of people each year, etc etc, you know what I'm getting at.

How about scientists working at universities? Again, they are public sector workers, but surely their work contributes to wealth creation?

[shaunbhoy]

The clue is in my username, but only after you shuffle most of the letters around a bit

Yes. But just what does an Assrug contribute?

[d000hg]

I didn't ask how useful they were.
I asked how will we generate money to pay off our national debt if everyone aspires to be an accountant, lawyer or banker.
These professions don't create wealth, they merely shuffle existing wealth around.

Of course they do. It's just not direct wealth-generation in a way your unsubtle mind can understand.

A UK-based bank can bring in massive profits from other nations, creating wealth within the UK. Even a dedicated accountancy or law firm can bring in money from overseas customers.
More generally a successful company needs accountants to keep it financially safe and solicitors to protect it, so ANY company which is generating wealth on a large scale needs people of these professions.

[d000hg]

The clue is in my username

You're an advisor to the SAS? Didn't have you pegged as a military man

[amcdonald]

You're an advisor to the SAS? Didn't have you pegged by a military man

FTFY

[shaunbhoy]

Didn't have you pegged as a military man

He attempted to join way back when. But baulked at the idea when his Psychometric Test Results bracketed him as having the same military effectiveness as a sandbag!!! But with less sex appeal!!!

[Bunk]

Perhaps I could switch the question and ask what HTML "coders" such as yourself produce?

Well, at a rough guess, I'd say websites

[Old Greg]

A good test, is to imagine what the impact would be if they all went on strike tomorrow.

would we even notice ?

teachers - yes
nurses -yes
binmen - yes

lawyers - yes actually
accountants - strangely yes
Bankers - no
philosophers - no


mind you, we pay people based on how hard it is to replace them, not on how productive they are

How would you know whether you were noticing that a philosopher was on strike if he was on strike? It could be a demon making you believe that you were noticing it.

Funnily enough, in my last contract I did a little work with a philospher, but we would have coped if he was on a one day strike. But if the Philospher's Union had been 'All out indefinite', we would have struggled.

[Paddy]

Funny how skewed the UK economy has become. The best paying jobs involve nothing very productive at all. While very lucrative for those who are accountants, lawyers and bankers how are we going to raise the cash to fill in the black holes of our balance of payments deficit and national debt, since they produce nothing we can sell to the rest of the world?

I have just had to sack a firm of solicitors who were acting for. They have been grossly negligent. I have regularly been pointing out their mistake in the case. What I diid in half a day, they could not do in six months.

What I have found out is that since Tony Blair QC came into power, many of the laws passed have lessoned the liability of solicitors, made them less accountable, more free to charge what they like. Conversely, the consumer has had their right eroded. Similarly the same goes for the banking industry and the rights of the consumer

On my phone call to the Law Society today, I told them that I would get a fairer deal from the Mafia than I would using a firm of solicitors.

My family friend solicitor retired early at 55 (now deceased) in his words “Solicitors are no longer professional. They are at it to get the maximum out of their clients.”