Why is pay between men and women so different?

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Female high school graduates, aged 21 to 24, earn an average of 92 cents for every dollar paid to their male counterparts. Curiously, in America and contrary to expectations, the salaries of female graduates, in general, are 79% of those of their male peers of the same age group. Only a year ago the figure was 84%. At 21-24 most women have yet to have to make choices about having a family and scaling their working hours back.

This growing disparity can only be accounted for for the big demand for young male graduates in technology and finance, regarded as male jobs. Women who majored in business studies, for example, earned an average of $38,000, compared with $45,000 for men. Across all fields, including the more feminine fields, and controlling for major, occupation,and grade-point average, women still earned 7% less than men. (Economic Policy Institute report co-author: Teresa Kroeger)

I have been a “feminist” since I was 17, in so far as I have always been convinced that the ability to do a job well trumps gender. If the employee is smart, hard-working, efficient and pleasant to work with, what difference does gender make? I think Epicurus believed this as well, and was known for welcoming women into his garden on equal terms with the men. But for some reason some men feel uncomfortable with clever women in a company if they perform well, and also feel uncomfortable with them in the office if they don’t. We really should be past this by now. I think it has a lot to do with self-confidence and amour propre, and the fear of being outshone or being ordered about.

Another take on the same subject, from The Times. Interesting! :

Is the gender pay gap just a myth?

Why do women in Britain still get paid less (by an average of 18%) than men? If you believe the “shock-horror headlines”, says Professor Alison Wolf, it’s proof of “pervasive discrimination”. Yet “study after study” has looked for evidence of significant gender bias in the modern workplace, and “there just isn’t any to be found”. If you compare like with like – employees of the same age, education and rank who put in equal hours at the office in the same occupation – the “gender pay gap” doesn’t exist. The real story here is of a much bigger social divide, between “the elite and the rest”. The vast majority of women in Britain work in low-paid jobs, often doing chores outsourced by richer families: cleaning, childcare, looking after old people, preparing takeaway meals. On top of that, low-paid women are far more likely than professionals to work part-time when they have children; they don’t worry about derailing their careers, because they know another low-paid job will be waiting for them. It is the inferiority of the female labour market itself that drags down average wages – and that is a much harder problem to tackle than misogyny.
(Professor Alison Wolf, The Times)

Which of the two points of view above do you subscribe to?

Epicurus and politics

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Epicurus was a strong advocate for the idea that people should reach and carry out agreements and promote fellowship and common sense cooperation. This implied a contractual form of government. Epicurus and his followers disapproved of agitation for social change because they saw political struggle as creating unnecessary stress. On the contrary, they advocated civic tranquillity, living unnoticed, abstaining from public life and the avoidance of anything that made enemies. This approach to politics suited those living under authoritarian (Alexander, the Roman Emperors) rule.

But is it appropriate for us today? We do not (yet)live under a totalitarian regime, although more and more people throughout the world are doing just that, or are threatened by dictatorial regimes. Our security and freedoms are being whittled away, both in the US and in Europe, and we are threatened by an unprecedented storm of bogus “news” and denigration of anyone seeking truth. Now unrestrained corporations and unscrupulous rich are endangering our health, safety and peace of mind. We no longer have thoughtful statesmen debating how to make life more happy and pleasant for the greatest number, but ideologues whose interest are power, money, keeping their jobs and drawing handsome pensions while kow-towing to their vulgar election funders. It’s scary.

I am personally worried that one party, controlling the Presidency and Congress and is busy berrymandering the constituencies and packing the Courts with lifetime political hacks calling themselves judges. This could presage a de facto end to democracy and the primacy of the Constitution. Gone are the wise men of honor. Perhaps we can survive a “Chinese Century” of hegemony, but can we survive a Mussolini style nationalism in America, the purge of liberals and progressives from public life? The world has seen turmoil before, but the last time (1939-45) a decent, democratic country was in the wings and came to the rescue of a Europe dominated by monsters. Now both the US and Europe are threatened, and possible help there is none.

How far can we be true Epicurians and ignore these threatening politics, and at what point do we get involved and resist? I wish I had the health and energy of youth, because there is only one responsible answer to this question.

Israel and Palestine. Enough is enough

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Just over a hundred years ago, Britain’s foreign secretary Arthur Balfour signed a 67 word long statement that committed Britain for the first time to backing “the establishment in Palestine of a national homeland for the Jewish people”.

Israel and its supporters duly celebrated “the anniversary of a foundational moment” in their nation’s history. Palestinian representatives, meanwhile, called on Britain to apologise for the declaration – because it set in train a process that eventually led to much of the Palestinian population being “uprooted from their homes and condemned to life in squalid refugee camps”.

It is true that at the time of its creation, in 1948, Israel served as a haven for a people who had so recently faced mass extermination at the hands of the Nazis. They deserved resettlement after what they had gone through. But Palestine? Had the pious words within the Declaration been honoured, i.e. “without prejudicing the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine”, then the situation would not be fraught. But they were not honoured, and the British could not keep the peace.

Balfour wrote the Declaration to raise money for the prosecution of WWI, but he gave inadequate weight to the fact that the land offered was already occupied. Some people believe that the present day Palestinians are descended from Jews left behind when their neighbours evacuated the area after the Roman invasion, and were converted to Islam at the time of the Prophet. (e.g they are historically Jewish). Correct or incorrect, it has all gone very wrong, and has been made very much worse by the advent of the Russian Jews, who have helped create a very right-wing and uncompromising (and corrupt) system (not me saying it – the President of Israel!)

Why mention this 100 year anniversary that has already passed by? This is the Epicurus blog, and Epicurus believed in moderation, discussion and compromise. Both sides in this dispute are stubborn and certain of their own rectitude. It is impossible even for people who are neither Jewish or Palestinian to have a civilized discussion on the subject, such are the passions aroused, especially among committed evangelical Christians. There has to be give and take. Trump’s intervention  changes nothing, except to announce his partisanship., unhelpful as usual.  The fact remains that the division of Jerusalem is perfectly possible, since both sides prize different bits of it.  The problem is Temple Mount, squabbled over for centuries.  The Palestinians have to accept the reality of the Israeli State, and share access to Temple Mount.  And the Israelis have to stop taking more and more Palestinian land, give the Palestinians an idependent state of their own – and share Temple Mount.  The rest of us are fed up with religion as manifested in that whole region.  Yes, it’s tribal, but we have had enough of it.

Is Israel ceasing to be a democracy?

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This a bit long but important to know:

Israel is in the news again these days. President Trump is proposing to move the US Embassy to Jerusalem, contrary to international policy. Is Israel the country that many Americans, particularly evangelicals. imagine it to be? Read on:

Arabs, peace activists and Israel’s left wing have long challenged as undemocratic the right-wing government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. But now that criticism is being leveled by former security officials and members of the right-wing establishment itself, including veterans of Mr. Netanyahu’s own political party and his Justice Department.
They say that the government’s efforts to control the news media, curtail the authority of the Supreme Court and undermine the military threaten the future of Israeli democracy.

Netanyahu and his colleagues are accused of corruption. A former chief of Shin Bet, the Israeli domestic security service, publically stated that if “the ethical and moral rot that leads us ontinues, this incredible Zionist enterprise will expire.” The attorney general has criticized efforts to thwart corruption investigations against Netanyahu, and the Israeli President, Reuven Rivlin, a member of Netanyahu’s party, has warned that “statesmanship has come to an end” and that Israel was “witnessing the winds of a second revolution or coup.” Rivlin accused those in power of working to delegitimize and weaken “the gatekeepers of Israel’s democracy,” and, crucially for a country that lacks a constitution, erode the justice system and the influence of the courts. The government, he said, was championing the will of the majority while weakening the institutions that protect the rights of the minority.

The internal politics of Israel has reached an unprecedented level of toxicity and partisanship. Netanyahu is responsible for attacks on the news media, efforts to impose sanctions on human rights organizations deemed to act against Israel abroad, and attempts to advance legislation in Parliament to override decisions of the Supreme Court. Politicians from Likud have maligned Shin Bet as cowardly and delusional, and branded former security chiefs critical of government policy as “leftists,” now almost a synonym for traitors in some right-wing circles. Netanyahu himself, under investigation in two graft cases, personally attacked the police in a Facebook post, accusing them of leaking details to the press. And Likud politicians are trying to prohibit the corruption investigations of a sitting prime minister.

“There is a clash not between left and right but between the values of the founding generation of leaders who put the common good and the interests of the state first and a newer, more populist and partisan politics epitomized by Mr. Netanyahu’s government.
Mr. Rivlin, 78, and Mr. Netanyahu, 68, though only a decade apart, reflect these two Israels. Mr. Rivlin champions the old-school nationalist but liberal democracy envisioned by the right-wing Zionist Revisionist movement of Zeev Jabotinsky and Menachem Begin, who pushed for a greater Israel territorially but were sticklers for defending minority rights and the rule of law. Netanyahu, who has been elected four times, reflects the ethos of the digital age, leading what many describe as the most nationalist and illiberal government in Israel’s history. Meanwhile the opposition is divided, weak, and has no influence.

Daniel Gordis, an author and senior vice president of Jerusalem’s Shalem College for the liberal arts, says he views much of what is happening in Israel “in the shadow of the Trump administration.” With all the differences in personality, Mr. Netanyahu and Mr. Trump have resorted to similar tactics, such as decrying the mainstream news media as purveyors of “fake news.”. Mr. Rivlin probably felt he had an obligation to speak up, Mr. Gordis said, because Israel was “inching ominously toward a watershed moment.” But unlike the United States, he added, “Israel is a 70-year-old democracy, not 250 years old.”

(An edited, shortened version of an article called “Is the End of Israeli Democracy Nigh? Israelis Debate Its Future” by Isabel Kershner in the New York Times, 31 October 2017)
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/31/world/middleeast/israel-rivlin-netanyahu-democracy.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Fworld&action=click&contentCollection=world&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=8&pgtype=sectionfront&_r=0

Death on American roads

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The United  States has the “most dangerous roads in the industrialised world”. The fatality rate in the US (per miles driven) is more than twice as high as in Britain or Sweden, and about 40% higher than in Canada or Australia. This isn’t one of those situations in which the US has long been an outlier – as is the case with, say, guns or the death penalty. As recently as 1990, America had a lower vehicle fatality rate than other affluent countries. So what happened?

The answer is that other nations decided that their road death tolls were unacceptable, and launched successful “evidence-based campaigns” to reduce them. America, where people are instinctively resistant to any perceived state infringement on their “freedom”, hasn’t taken this sort of concerted action. It is more lax about safety belts – and thus has more deaths – and needs more speed cameras and lower speed restrictions. Roll on, then, the days of the self-driving car. This technology promises to slash road fatalities across the industrialised world, but it will be a particular boon for America. (based on an article by David Leonhardt, The New York Times)

Good point. I live in the middle of a big city, but walk everywhere I can. Our car, bought four years ago has all of 12,000 on the clock. But walking here is a dangerous business. In Europe there are well- marked “zebra crossings” – fail to stop at one and you are in dead trouble with the police, heavily fined at the very least, and banned driving in some dangerous circumstances. In American cities  you take your life in your hands crossing the road. Getting eye contact with drivers is essential, because they believe they have the right of way at all times and that the speed limit is for the birds.  Add to that literally dismal or non-existent road lighting in the evenings, and drivers watching their cellphones more ardently that the road ahead, and you have the conditions for carnage.  I  have managed to stay alive for over 20 years, but it only takes a moment of inattention…… Rules of the road an infringement of personal freedom? Pah!

More on language ( re: grab it)

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An online petition calling on Italians to stop using English words for which there are equivalents in their own language gathered nearly 70,000 signatures before it was closed. The petition was called Dillo in Italiano or “Say it in Italian”, and was backed by the Accademia della Crusca, a language institute founded in Florence in 1583. Italians should not squander the “history, culture and beauty of our language”, said the campaigners, who highlighted the growing use of clumsy hybrid terms such as “footing” (jogging), “baby parking” (crèche) and “mister” (football coach). The issue seems to be one of mounting concern: the Italian navy recently caused outrage by using the English slogan “Be cool and join the navy” on a recruitment poster, while the government ran into trouble for referring to a piece of legislation as “the jobs act” rather than “la legge sul lavoro”. (The Week)

Italian is a beautiful language. English is, too, but why further undermine your own wonderful and ancient culture by using these silly expressions. The British use the word “creche” (which is French); now the Italians use “baby parking”. Kiddies produced by Toyota?

English has always adopted foreign words since the days of the Romans; it is expected. But the Italians have done this less. Their way of life is already under seige by a huge influx of people. Were I Italian I would protest these pseudo-English importations, too.

Grab it!

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Over the centuries I’m sure that what is acceptable and unacceptable to say has changed numerous times, and new modes of speech have been frowned upon or excoriated by older generation after older generation. So I am willing to accept that I sound a fuddy-duddy, or even an elitist (ouch!).

But one expression makes me cringe: “Grab it”. This phrase crops up all over the place, especially in advertisements: “Great pizza – grab it! (and enjoy greater sex,presumably).
I suppose “grab it” is intended to get impulsive people motivated to scamper off and buy pizza, or whatever, before anyone else can buy it. But to me it is vulgar. What it actually means is to snatch the product out of the hands of shop assistants, servers etc, without so much as a “thank you” or an “if you please”. This discourtesy is a further sign of the decline in manners. Many people couldn’t care less about the feelings of others; but so much the worse for them. Epicurus never used the word “courtesy”, but had he spoken English he would have agreed with me. “Buy it now” or “Order now!” has served us well enough for a Century. Dump “grabbit!”

Trickle up!

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Republicans, unbelievably, are once again forcing trickle-down economics on the United States, despite the idea being almost unanimously derided by reputable economists and financiers. It’s almost as if Republicans are unaware that the latest experiment in trickle-down has practically bankrupted the state of Kansas and has done little or nothing for North Carolina. They can’t leave this bogus ideology alone.

What does work economically is to put cash into the hands of the poor and not-so-poor, because they immediately go out and spend it, either on better health insurance, a real holiday, new clothes or something better than fast food. The bouncy resulting profits still eventually accrue to the donors Republican Congressmen adore so much in the form of dividends – it just takes a little more time to filter through. In the meantime poorer people have bigger incomes and, very importantly, feel better about the world, are not so resentful or prone to extremes, and even more tolerant of immigrants. But somehow the Republican politicians have an ideological aversion to the poor and middle class. They yatter on about the latter, but seem to secretly despise them as “losers”.

What is wanted now is not trickle down policies but the quickest and best way of fixing the country economically and helping the less fortunate at the same time: TRICKLE-UP economics.
Will we get it? Not until the issue of money in politics is corrected.

Is running a university worth such huge salaries?

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To The Times

From Louise Richardson’s complaint that her salary as Vice Chancellor of Oxford (£350,000 a year) is not in the same league as footballers and bankers, to the yacht-owning George Holmes at Bolton (£222,120 a year and a £1m loan to buy a house) saying he is underpaid compared with top US institutions, our university leaders have continually embarrassed the education sector with the arrangements for their pay. In the past five years, Vice Chancellors have enjoyed an average pay increase of 22%, despite pleading poverty every time it came to staff pay. More than two-thirds of VCs either sit on the committee that sets their pay or can attend its meetings. It is time to lift the lid on these secretive university remuneration committees, irrespective of how much charity work VCs may do. (An edited version of a letter from Sally Hunt, general secretary, University and College Union).

Young people are incurring sizeable debt in order to go to university, only to be taught, in many cases, by graduate lecturers who are paid a pittance. Some don’t encounter a proper professor face to face in the three (or four) years they are at the institution. The increase in the number of people going into further education has happened at a time when government has adopted a hands-off policy to funding, and the administrators have taken advantage of it all to pad their salaries, getting up to little tricks like accepting full-paying Chinese students at the expense of British citizens, or so it seems.

Justified criticism or no it is time to reform university administration and restore more realistic incomes and better teaching and services for those who pay – that is, the students. After all, universities and colleges are non-profit organizations, not tax-payimg corporations. If they have the cash to pay six figure salaries they should be paying tax. And I will refrain from commenting on the tired old cliche along the lines “my salary doesn’t match American pay”. I had this all the time at business school, where one was told that high top management salaries reflected the need to recruit the best people world-wide. Self-serving nonsense.

Minimum alcohol prices

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There’s absolutely no denying that the UK has an alcohol problem. The rates of binge drinking are amongst the world’s highest. A far higher proportion of Brits are addicted to alcohol than almost anywhere else. The result is a huge strain on the NHS, higher fatalities due to drink driving, and in some cases higher rates of domestic violence. The problem is particularly bad amongst the middle aged and older generations, especially those who live alone.

In response, many British politicians have proposed a minimum price on alcohol, which will take effect in Scotland in May next year. The obvious case for it is that by raising prices, fewer people will drink regularly. Proponents of a price floor point to cigarettes, where raising taxes on tobacco has reduced smoking rates. A minimum price would also discourage young people from drinking by making it a less attractive proposition when people can buy alcohol legally for the first time.

It’s true that a minimum alcohol price will probably reduce alcoholism by a little bit. But I doubt it’ll be all that effective. If someone is addicted to alcohol, raising prices will likely mean alcoholics will cut spending on necessities, damaging their health. A price floor ignores the fact that many people who drink excessively are actually quite well off people who wouldn’t be affected. In practice, I suspect the main effect of minimum pricing would be to reduce the disposable income of the poor and the young, while doing little to reduce rates of addiction.

Britain’s alcohol problem is not caused by low prices. In most European countries, particularly in the south, alcohol is cheaper, and yet rates of alcoholism are lower. The exception to that is the former Soviet Union countries which have a particular problem with vodka addiction amongst men. But in countries like France and Spain, alcohol is cheap and yet consumed responsibly. This is because alcoholism is caused by a toxic drinking culture. In Britain, it is simply socially acceptable to get hopelessly drunk, even in supposedly respectable places like Oxford and Cambridge university. Most shockingly of all, the elite Bullingdon Club glorifies drunkenness. If the ultra-wealthy can abuse alcohol, then why not the rest of the population? For rates of alcohol abuse to come down, there needs to be a profound shift in social attitudes. Minimum alcohol pricing simply papers over the cracks.

I’m afraid I don’t believe reducing poverty rates will necessarily reduce rates of alcoholism by all that much. Partly because as I mentioned earlier, many of those who drink excessively are middle class. (http://www.telegraph.co.uk/women/womens-health/10096120/The-ladies-who-have-too-good-a-lunch.html) Also, there are some very poor parts of East London and Norfolk where alcoholism is very low, and also some relatively well off parts of West London and Northern England where alcoholism is very high (http://www.localhealth.org.uk/#z=374097,465581,443482,315655;l=en;i=t2.bingedrinking;v=map8.) Obviously we should all  try to reduce poverty by as much as possible. But we will only solve our alcohol problem when we realise the issue is cultural, not economic.

The prosperity gospel

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The so-called prosperity gospel is a set of beliefs that says that God will reward faith , and very generous giving, with financial blessings.

Although proponents call themselves christian, there is nothing christian about this idea. The most prominent American prosperity gospeller is currently Paula White, white, married three times and accused of taking advantage of her African American flock in Florida and on Black Entertainment Network. Controversy swirls around her. Trump likes her (well, she’s a blonde with a good figure and an outgoing personality), and her philosophy suits him beautifully, for he can claim that it is God who has endowed him with billions of dollars. White offered the prayer at his inauguration and is a weekly visitor to the White House, with considerable influence. She is the head of a group of evangelical pastors who advise Trump, and it is she who alledgedly “personally led Trump to Christ”, (not cheating suppliers and ridding himself of debt by going bankrupt). She has been clever, never asking Trump for any favours, but buying a $3?5 m condo in Trump Tower. She is so well esconced in the White House that she is able to put in front of Trump a list of 130 peoplewho are “originalist, constitutional“ judges and pursue what matters to her: Supreme Court justices, religious liberty, Israel, human trafficking, coverage of contraception, and abortion. No other religious sect has similar access, even though the Constitution states that no Administration should favour one faith over another. She claims that Trump is fulfilling an assignment from God that is important to the church and to America”.

Here you have a clever woman who knows exactly how to manipulate the self-reverential Trump, who probably is now persuaded that he is the chosen of God, not only because of his wealth but because he has been personally chosen to return America to the path of righteousness. The abuses of religion! No wonder Epicurus was wary of it.

Epicurus and mumbo jumbo

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No one knows whether the Romans really believed in their gods. I doubt they believed that their Emperors were really transformed into gods on death. In a book by Daniel J. Gargola called “The shape of the Roman order: the Republic and its spaces”, the author points out that they believed deeply in the rites of religion, the attempt to discern the will of the gods, expiate ill omens, and discern whether a public act was within the bounds of divine law. Religious rites had to be performed with precision. Auguries were taken in templa, and the buildings they were taken in had to be in precisely the right place with the right geographical orientation.

Epicurus was quite definite: there may be gods, but they live on Mt. Olympus, bicker and chase one another around the mountain, but have no time for the pathetic concerns of Man.
He never, as far as I know, commented on the rites of religion, and we do not know what he thought of the Roman preoccupation with auguries and so on because he wasn’t there But most emerging societies had these rites and superstitions, including the Greeks. I do believe he would have, had he been there, laughed at them and called them “lorem ipsum asynartisies” which, loosely translated, means “mumbo jumbo”. The flight of birds, the neighing of a horse at dawn, or the direction a tortoise walks when released – all these are totally random, and nothing useful can be deduced from them. But they are sufficiently obscure, and the people sufficiently ignorant, that they do allow priests to use them to exert power over their flocks and frighten them into obedience. Sometimes that obedience is a positive thing, if it produces a kind, thoughtful, considerate and cooperative population. More often it is just about power.

Thought for the day

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When asked their views on the Ten Commandments, 8% of Leave voters, versus 4% of Remain voters, said that the commandment against lying (thou shalt not bear false witness) was no longer an important principle to live by. (YouGov)

How have we arrived at this situation? One should not need this part of the Ten Commandments to tell you it is wrong to lie. It should be common sense, instilled by parents. Decline in religious observation has nothing to do with it; upbringing does.

It’s started!

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Two agencies of the European Union are being pulled out of Britain in some of the first concrete signs of Brexit. The European Medicines Agency and the European Banking Agency, which between them employ more than 1,000 people in Canary Wharf, will move to Amsterdam and Paris respectively. “All of their work is firmly based on the EU treaties which the UK decided to leave,” said an unapologetic Michel Barnier, the EU’s chief negotiator on Brexit. Vince Cable, the Lib Dem leader, said Brexit secretary David Davis had tried to pretend Britain could keep the agencies, showing the government had little grasp of the coming “jobs Brexodus”.

In addition, the UK has lost a battle to remain part of the international court of justice (ICJ). It is the first time in the court’s 71-year history that Britain has failed to gain a seat. Incumbent judge Sir Christopher Greenwood stood aside for an Indian candidate after failing to win the support of the general assembly. It seems that some EU nations are no longer automatically supporting Britain at the UN. (Guardian 21 November 17)

The Guardian also comments that the EU appears to be firmly in the driving seat of negotiations as Britain’s red lines are rubbed out one by one, Meanwhile, David Davis apparently faces censure for hoarding secrets from MPs about Brexit’s economic impact – pretty grim, one imagines.

What did the Brexiters expect but a catastrophic decline in Britain’s influence worldwide and a major decline in the economy? Obvious to those of us on the sidelines, but then busting up the system is the name of the game, as it is in Trumpland.

Inequality in the United States

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According to the Guardian Weekly (November 11th) the world’s 1,542 billionaires increased their wealth this year by 17% to $6tn, a return impossible to get on most stock markets and rather a distance from the average interest income of 0.35% offered normal people by normal banks. The IMF has told western governments to increase taxes on the top 1% to reduce the dangerous levels of inequality. Keep trying!

At the beginning of the last century the railroad, oil, steel and banking robber barons were brought to heel by a Republican President Theodore Roosevelt. The chances of a real leader emerging today to do something similar look bleak. The more sensitive of the super-rich 1% are apparently getting anxious about blow-back from beleaguered taxpayers, fed up with the farce. They (some of them) are trying to disperse some of the money by buying art and making it accessible to the hoi poloi (72 of the top collectors of art are billionaires), and buying sports teams (140 of the top sports teams are owned by 109 billionaires). Billionaires also own the US National Basketball Association and the National Football League, and British soccer clubs are not only full of foreign players but most of the top clubs seem to be owned by foreign billionaires. Welcome to the 21st Century, where little British is owned by Britons.

Am I being too negative when I say that patronising art galleries and owning soccer clubs doesn’t quite do the trick. I would rather they paid a 40% tax per annum (that means every year!) and help improve schools, healthcare and other good causes. Because, of course, their clever accountants, helped by sleazy “banks” in Caribbean islands, Cyprus, Jersey etc make sure the huge incomes are tax free. If moderation is the key word in Epicureanism, then no follower of Epicurus can support the current situation. It is unhealthy for society.