The culture of greed and selfishness

If this is human nature, how do you control it?

What is it about some of today’s politicians, bankers, charity bosses and other heads of organisations?

Take MEPs for example. They can claim £120,000 annually in expenses without providing ‘real proof’ of how the money is spent, because EU officials don’t want to saddle them with an ‘administrative burden’ which would hamper their freedom. 

The EU expenses chief admitted he had never seen the bank accounts of long-serving Labour MEP Peter Skinner, who is accused of using his expenses to pay £10,000 to his ex-wife.

As for banks, the Royal Bank of Scotland paid its chief executive Ross McEwan £3.8 million for 2015, double the amount he made the year before, as the bank reported its eighth consecutive year of losses since it was bailed out by the taxpayer in 2008. Its total losses since the financial crisis amount to an an eye-watering £51.7 billion. 

And charities? Chief executives working for the UK’s top 100 charities had an average remuneration package of just over £167,000 last year. The highest paid CEO, David Mobbs of Nuffield Health, earned more than £780,000. Phew!

Too many charities have become vehicles for paying excessive salaries for ‘jobs for the boys’ under the pretext of paying ‘the rate for the job’ (in other words: everyone else is ‘at it’) for ‘talented’ people (BBC-speak for not talented at all). 

Remember what they said about highly paid bankers, (RBS, anyone?), that they had to pay large sums to get the best. And where did this ‘best’ get us? There should be a cap on salaries funded by charitable donations or government subsidy.

Speaking of the BBC, what about the recently published 1,000 report on the Jimmy Savile scandal? It concluded that his dreadful behaviour was noted many times but not once formally reported or investigated and that the BBC ‘as a corporate body’, had no knowledge of the sex crimes being committed over many decades by one of its most prominent celebrities.

Is it just the BBC that has put its best interests before the protection of children? Haven’t we heard similar claims about the Church and politicians? 

Are things different today, or is it just the selfishness and greed of human nature and, if so, how do you control this?

OK, rant over. Next scandal, please!

Nora Johnson’s thrillers ‘No Way Back’, ‘Landscape of Lies’, ‘Retribution’, ‘Soul Stealer’, ‘The De Clerambault Code’ (www.nora-johnson.com) available from Amazon in paperback/ eBook (€0.89;£0.79) and iBookstore. All profits to Cudeca charity.