Definitely not for the homeless

House hunting for a new home ??

10. 2 OSWALD ROAD EDINBURGH
Some buyers are looking for a house they can make their mark on, others are looking for a home that has already been renovated to the highest standard. This traditional Victorian stone villa in the perennially popular Grange area is in the latter category. From the outside, it has a traditional appearance, but the inside has been made over with a light, contemporary feel and state-of-the-art fixtures and fittings. It has a cinema room and substantial Victorian conservatory, and a guest flat was recently added above the triple garage.SOLD FOR £3,500,000 (April 07)

9. 37 DRUMSHEUGH GARDENS, EDINBURGH
A former architect's office over seven floors, this property was converted by its former owners into a family home. The house is now one of the biggest in the West End of Edinburgh and includes a fully-equipped gym with stunning panoramic views over the city. The garden looks out on to Dean Village and the Water of Leith, while the front of the house has views of the castle. Converting former offices into top end residential homes is one of the big trends at the top end of the market.Blair Stewart, who is head of residential sales for Strutt and Parker, said: "The beauty of the West End is the easy access to the financial district and to the airport."SOLD FOR £3,500,000 (Jan 07)

8. 22 HERMITAGE DRIVE, EDINBURGH
Buyers are sometimes willing to pay a premium for homes that have not been modernised and renovated to someone else's taste – which is one of the reasons this Edwardian property raised more than a million over the asking price.Properties in Hermitage Drive come on the market rarely and before it went up for sale, Allanton, built in 1904, had been in the same family for 40 years. A fine redstone property, it still retained a lot of the original features but was ripe to be renovated. It also features a ground-floor annexe.SOLD FOR £3,729,500, Oct 2007

7. GREEN GABLES, CALEDONIAN CRESCENT, GLENEAGLES
The fashion here is for huge American-style modern mansions, but there are a few older homes from the 1920s when the street was originally built.Green Gables, a large traditional family home, which dates from that period, is on one of the biggest plots on this private road, which enjoys a peaceful wooded setting.Recently sold, it is likely to be extensively remodelled or perhaps even demolished if the buyers want a home to compete with the vast marble mansions of their nearest neighbours.SOLD FOR £3,750,000 (Sept 07)

6. STRATHEARN LODGE, CALEDONIAN CRES, GLENEAGLES
Caledonian Crescent, overlooking the famous golf course, is the new must-have address for Scotland's multimillionaires.Built in 2004, Strathearn Lodge is, by our reckoning, the most expensive modern home in Scotland. With marble floors and a bright airy feel, it has everything the modern tycoon needs, with four huge bedroom suites, a games room, cinema and built-in three-car garage. Homes in this private crescent benefit from high security, with houses hidden behind huge hedges and electronic gates. SOLD FOR £3,750,000 (Dec 07)

4. WOODCROFT, BARNTON AVENUE, EDINBURGH
There were people who said David Murray had paid over the odds for Woodcroft when he bought it at the end of 2006. But he proved them wrong by selling ten months later at a big profit. The official sale of Barnton Avenue came on the same day as The Scotsman concluded its series of Scotland's most expensive homes in 2006 – so it was too late to make our list. But at the time, it broke all records as Scotland's first £4 million home.The new buyer was rumoured to be an Edinburgh businessman.SOLD FOR £4,500,000 (Oct 06)

5. FORDELL CASTLE, NEAR DUNFERMLINE, FIFE
A Fife property record was set at the end of last year with the sale of 16th- century Fordell Castle, which has been renovated to become a luxurious family home –owning it also traditionally confers the title of Baron and Baroness of Fordell. Set in 210 acres of woodland and formal gardens, it has an imposing great hall and oak-panelled bedrooms. Set in the gardens is St Theriot's private chapel, an aviary and an icehouse. Although both the castle and the chapel are A listed the building has been remodelled and modernised. SOLD FOR £3,850,000 (Nov 07)

3. 1 EASTER BELMONT ROAD, EDINBURGH
Secluded, private and with views across to the Pentland Hills, Easter Belmont Road is one of Edinburgh's most sought after addresses. In the words of Simon Rettie, of Rettie and Co: "This is the most exclusive residential street in Edinburgh."This property, which came on to the market a few months ago, is a large arts and crafts period family home, set in extensive grounds. The property needed renovation but attracted so much interest from buyers that it was able to attract a record price.SOLD FOR £4,875,000 (Sept 07)

2. WOODCROFT, 39 BARNTON AVE, EDINBURGH
The arts and crafts mansion on Edinburgh's "Millionaire's Row" was the first property in Scotland to break the £4 million barrier, when it was bought by Rangers chairman Sir David Murray at the end of 2006. But he never lived in the six-bedroom house, and it was sold ten months later for a £450,000 profit. Barnton Avenue is a secluded, tree-lined street with views over the Royal Burgess golf course. Popular with bankers and industrialists because of its proximity to the airport, it includes many huge family homes.SOLD FOR £4,950,000 (Aug 07)

1. SETON CASTLE, LONGNIDDRY
Built by classical architect Robert Adam using the stones of the ruined Seton Palace, this grand Georgian, 14-bedroom house, formerly owned by the Wemyss family, was extensively refurbished by an Edinburgh entrepreneur, who put it on the market for £15 million, hoping to attract an overseas buyer. After two years, the price was reduced to £7 million and more recently to £5 million, when it was snapped up by Stephen Leach and Heather Luscombe, founders of internet marketing company Bigmouthmedia.The four-storey house has a gallery, library, billiards room, nursery and staff quarters, which include a laundry room and butler's pantry. It is set in 13 acres of wooded parkland, overlooking the Firth of Forth and includes stabling for six horses, a coachman's cottage and the ruins of a medieval mill.SOLD FOR £5,000,000 (February 2007)

The criteria for what constitutes prime property is gradually changing, from homes above £1 million to those costing more than £2 million.

Gilbert and riches

Martin Gilbert, chief executive of Aberdeen Asset Management, saw the value of his overall remuneration tumble in the latest year despite bumper profits for the fund manager, but remained one of corporate Scotland's best-paid executives.The annual report of Aberdeen Asset Management, published yesterday, shows that Gilbert received total pay and benefits of £3,096,000 in the year to September, down from £3,951,000 in the preceding year . The fall in remuneration was due to the fact that Gilbert elected for employer contributions to his defined contribution pension scheme with the firm to cease. Aberdeen said following changes to UK pensions law on April 6, 2006, other employees had elected to follow suit. The A-day changes included the introduction of a £1.5m limit on individual pension funds.

Even at the reduced level, Gilbert's package makes him one of Scotland Plc's biggest earners. In 2006, Sir Fred Goodwin, chief executive of Royal Bank of Scotland, earned a basic salary of nearly £1.2m and a performance bonus of £2.8m, boosting his total package by over £1m on 2005 to just under £4m.Sandy Crombie, chief executive of Standard Life, earned a pay, bonus and benefits package worth £1.6m in 2006.

Stewart Milne of the building company took home more than £7.5m in salary, benefits and dividends in the year to June

Branson Virgin Rail - Just the ticket

While the Virgin Rail passengers face nine per cent fare increases ( an average of 4.8 per cent from Jan 6, with first class passengers facing rises of nine per cent) and some of the worst delays in the country (In its worst performing year in 2002, just 73.6 per cent of West Coast trains ,London to Glasgow, and 62.5 per cent of Cross-Country trains , Cornwall to Aberdeen, arrived within 10 minutes of the scheduled arrival time) , Richard Branson pocketed a £24 million dividend from Virgin Rail . The West Coast and Cross Country lines, have received more than £1 billion in subsidies from the Government since he took over the route in 1997.

Richard Murphy, the director of Tax Research, an independent consultancy firm, said: "He's stripping the company of cash while saying at the same time, 'I need more public subsidy'."

Capitalist Charity

Clive Cowdery, chairman of Resolution , announced yesterday that he planned to sell some or all of his holding and would transfer around £20 million to a new charity The Resolution Trust. The trust will ensure continued funding for the work of Cowdery's financial education project The Resolution Foundation .

The £5 billion sale to Pearl of the group he founded netted him a personal £150 million . Cowdery's stake grew in value by some £25 million in the few weeks between him announcing a merger with Friends Provident, with Resolution shares at 616p, and selling to rival Hugh Osmond of Pearl for 720p, thanks partly to sparking a bidding war between Pearl and Standard Life. So he can well afford to be generous with his philanthropic gestures . And what , pray we ask , is this charitable institution he is financing .

The Resolution Foundation is an independent research and policy organisation formed in September 2005 to study "how people on low to moderate incomes fair in the mixed welfare economy" with a particular interest in promoting increased social mobility. The foundation's first project was the forerunner of the government's review chaired by Aegon UK chief executive Otto Thoresen into the creation of a national advice service dispensing "generic" financial guidance. It commissioned a study from McKinsey and Deloitte, whose proposed model "led to extensive lobbying on the benefits to individuals and the nation", the foundation said. It is now embarking on a new project, "to promote a fair and efficient supply of elderly care, with a focus on people on low to moderate incomes".

Forgive my ignorance , but doesn't all that just add up to a fancy way of saying it does market research and offer financial advice for investment funds ? Tax-free , of course .

Chocolate Class War

Cadbury's announced this year that it would cut 7,800 jobs world wide and is currently fighting union resistance to factory closures in the UK .

However , billionaire corporate raider Nelson Peltz, who has been building a stake in the confectionery giant has been demanding that Cadbury Schweppes should return as much as £1.7 billion to shareholders after the spin-off of its US drinks business next year or face an attempted boardroom coup . He and his confederates dmand that by adopting more aggressive trading margin targets, Cadbury could push the value of its shares up to 970p and pay a special dividend of 80p per share – handing back £1.7bn in total – when the drinks business is spun off. The stock was up 15p to 623p yesterday. Cadbury's chief executive promised this year to raise the company's trading margins from about 10 per cent currently to a mid-teens percentage by 2011. Mr Peltz says the target should be closer to 20 per cent

The veteran financier made hundreds of millions of dollars in profit from previous forays in the food and drink business, most recently buying Snapple for $300m (£149m) and selling it three years later for $1.5bn.

So there is the answer to why jobs are lost or out-sourced - to fill the pockets of investors

Rich Pickings

Been a while since Socialist Courier revealed the take home pay of the the rich . So we now point to Stewart Milne who maintained his position as one of Scotland's best-paid directors by taking home more than £7.5m in salary, benefits and dividends . Between them, the company's directors shared pay and benefits of £4.4m, of which more than one-third, £1,547,498, was taken by Milne. The company also paid out dividends of £6.2m, of which £6m went to Milne himself.

Milne's total pay packet has actually fallen from last year when he was a beneficiary of a £10.8m package, but £5m of that was in the form of a pension contribution.

Nothing like whatis available in Wall St though .

According to the Independent "The young guns at the investment bank Goldman Sachs – none of them over 40 years old – were unmasked yesterday, prompting a wave of adulation and envy among their colleagues, and another bout of handwringing about Wall Street's ability to make multibillion-dollar profits even as millions of ordinary people face losing their homes

Dan Sparks and two underlings, Josh Birnbaum and Michael "Swenny" Swenson, placed what were in effect giant bets against the US mortgage market at the start of the year and watched their winnings tick higher and higher as the rising numbers of mortgage defaults spiralled into a worldwide financial crisis.

The trio themselves are in line for bonuses of about $10m apiece from a record bonus pool at Goldman of about $19bn

Tax and the rich 2

More than a third of Scottish farms sold this year have been snapped up by cash-rich businesspeople anxious to avoid paying inheritance tax .

According to the annual Scottish Estates Review by property agency Strutt & Parker, the number of farm buyers who cite IHT as a reason for their purchase reached 36% this year.

Prime Scottish arable land has now more than doubled in value since 2004, selling for at least £3,500 an acre, compared with £1,600 three years ago. Farmers have traditionally been allowed to pass on their land to their children without the value being calculated for inheritance tax purposes. Any assets above a threshold of £283,000 are normally taxed at a rate of 40%, but farms are excluded so that they do not have to be split up to pay death duties.

But the tax break is now being exploited by wealthy investors.

"These are people with maybe £20m, £30m or £40m and they are looking for ways to shield that money from IHT in the future. They are buying farms and sheltering some of their money that way." Strutt & Parker's farm sales specialist said "You can't let the land go unmanaged but you can employ a manager, so investors don't even need to get their hands dirty."

Tax and the rich

The Treasury has admitted its plans to clamp down on super-rich non-UK domiciled taxpayers are being hampered by a lack of reliable data

A little more than 15,000 people are thought to have a combined wealth of £140 billion, and that includes £65 billion attributed to a small number of super-rich.

The combined taxable annual income of this latter group is estimated at about £1.9billion and "non-dom" rules allow these people to avoid a £600m tax bill. The Treasury has estimated that it is losing £1billion a year to the "non doms".

The Super-Star Super-Rich

A report by the BBC on those super rich super-stars .

England captain Bobby Moore lifted the World Cup in 1966 he earned £100 a week. Today's England captain, John Terry, holds the same position, but reportedly earns over £130,000 a week. David Beckham earned over £11 million from endorsements alone last year.

Then there are humble cooks like Gordon Ramsay , wealth of nearly £70 million , James Oliver , almost £60 million .

Superstars are boosting the luxury goods market, with worldwide sales in the sector topping £75 billion last year. Its all Aston Martins and private jets .

Naturally , the apologists of this insane distribution of riches claim that there are the benefits of the "trickle-down effect " but other commentators are more observant .

"Although these are people who will clearly have significant interests here in the UK and invest here in the UK, they're also looking to place their money around the world," said Mr Charrington , head of Citi's UK private banking arm , adding that the super-rich are looking for opportunities in China, India and Latin America "whether that be in private equity or hedge fund businesses. "

The BBC Money Programme produced a few interesting facts . 1% of the British population controls nearly 25% of the wealth. The top 10% in the UK having nearly 7 times the disposable income of the bottom 10%, up from only 3 times in the mid 1970s.( In the US, for example, 1% of the population control almost 40% of wealth and 20% of income.)

The lowering of the top rate of UK income tax from 98% to 40% in that time, with businessmen and women now able to turn income into capital gains paying a special low rate of 10%, has also widened the gap between after tax pay of high and low earners. For many foreign-born super stars, London is a tax haven, with non-domicile status meaning that they don’t have to pay UK tax at all – apart from council tax.

All at sea

"I want to create my own monument," the 60-year-old Italian entrepreneur says as he gazes across the sprawling ship building yard . Mr Vitelli has chosen a relatively modest yacht; a 103 feet long Azimut sports yacht, with a list price of 7 million euros ($10m or £5m). Modest, that is, compared with some of the other yachts sold by Azimut-Benetti Group. As one of the world's biggest players in the fast-growing market for hyper-luxurious motor-yachts, its multi-storey crafts can cost as much as $50m (£25m) and stretch from 24 metres to 85 metres in length.

Some of the world's wealthiest people will travel here to commission their own life monuments . In the year to September, the group built 800m-euros worth of yachts for the world's super-rich. And with an order book worth more than 1.5 billion euros, at a time when the global yacht market is growing steadily at some 10-15% per year.

In order to get the super-rich's attention, Azimut-Benetti's well-heeled customers are also occasionally invited to lavish events, such as this summer's yachting gala, complete with concerts and live shows.
"We don't charge," Mr Vitelli says, though the company tends to get its money's worth. "Generally, they leave a cheque for a new boat,"

All we at Socialist Courier can say is - "Come in Number 5. Your time is up "

The Gravy Train

The highest-earning 300 bosses in the public sector saw their salaries increase by 12.8 per cent last year, raising their average to £237,564. Seventeen of the top bosses earned more than £500,000, according to the Taxpayer's Alliance second annual Public Sector Rich List.

The pay rises, more than three times the national average . The top 10 earn an average salary of £799,000 – more than 40 times the basic pay of a nurse or soldier.

Top of the league is Adam Crozier, chief executive of the Royal Mail. The only person on the list with a seven-figure salary. Strike-breaker Crozier has presided over the cancellation of the second mail delivery and an increase in the price of stamps. He saw his pay package swell by 21 per cent last year, taking his salary to £1,256,000. The report shows that it equates to earning £1,000 every 1 hour and 27 minutes and he had the gall and audacity to say that the ordinary postal worker was over-paid

It is expensive being rich

It seems, it is the rich who have it hard. Luxury goods are rising in price three times faster than their more mundane consumer counterparts.

Robby Hilkowitz, executive director of the Stonehage Group which helps the world's super-wealthy manage their incomes said ;-
"Global wealth is growing at an unprecedented rate and as it increases they want more luxury goods to meet their lifestyle needs. With status items, the more expensive they become the more desirable they become..."

There are some 800 US dollar billionaires in the world, a figure that rose by 15 per cent last year. They are among the class of ultra-high net worth individuals with a personal fortune in excess of £25m of net investable assets. The second tier covered by the survey, so-called high worth individuals with more than £5m to spare, grew by 20 per cent.

* School Fees (Up 6.8 per cent)
With a history dating back to the time of Pope Alexander III, Westminster offers one of the most desirable old school ties around. One term's fees for two seniors cost £17,304 in 2007.
* Outdoor activities (Up 8.3 per cent)
Blasting away on the grouse moors of northern Britain was once the preserve of the landed gentry. Today any old hedge fund manager can have a go with a two-day shoot costing £3,600 in 2007.
* Vintage wines (Up 116.9 per cent)
Surely there can be no more famous wine than that emanating from the Rothschild's family vineyard in the Medoc? But three cases of Lafite Rothschild 2000 will set you back £9,250 this year.
* Exclusive facilities (Up 20 per cent)
Sweat with the best, or at least the richest, of them at The Dorchester Gym and Spa. A year's membership cost £1,800 in 2007.
* Luxury accessories (Up 26.7 per cent)
Patek Philippe once made watches for Queen Victoria and Tchaikovsky. The Swiss manufacturer could make one for you too. A limited edition Calatrava cost £19,000 in 2007.
* Football tickets (Up 25 per cent)
Chelsea FC remains the footballing choice of the west London glitterati . One season's executive box hire at Stamford Bridge cost £117,500 in 2007.

The Rich List

The new Estate Gazette Rich List reveals that the 500 wealthiest UK property owners have amassed a combined net worth of £117 billion . The average individual fortune in Britain was just over £230 million for each of the 500 Rich List entrants in Britain .

Sir Tom Hunter , Scotland's first billionaire , yesterday strengthened his place as Scotland's most affluent man when a new rich list found the value of his land and property was 35% higher than last year. His holdings are now worth £1.05 billion and tops the list of Scots with the most valuable collection of properties in the Estates Gazette Rich List 2007.

Although the combined personal holdings of the head of the West Coast Capital investment firm has grown by £270 million since last year according to the research, it still only makes Sir Tom the 19th biggest land and property investor in Britain, a drop of one place from last year.

Nevertheless, Hunter's property pot remains only a fraction of the £7 billion assets credited to the most wealthy British magnate in the survey, the Duke of Westminster, whose holdings were worth £400m more than last year.

Sir Tom Hunter's property fortune is worth 30% more than the £810 million portfolio amassed by Scotland's second-richest magnate, Keith Miller, the 58-year-old who has spent 13 years as chief executive of the Edinburgh-based Miller Group, the UK's largest privately owned housebuilding, property development and construction business. Mr Miller's personal land and property fortune is thought to have grown by nearly £100 million in the past year but he has dropped from 22 to 30 in the British league table.

Rangers chairman Sir David Murray, who earlier this year bought what at the time was Edinburgh's most expensive home, in affluent Barnton for £4.5 million , slots into third place on the Scots property rich list, with a portfolio worth of £750 million which is £100 million more than last year. His fortune is ranked the 32nd highest in Britain after being placed 23rd in last year's survey.

SCOTLAND'S TOP FIVE

1 (19 in UK list) Sir Tom Hunter £1.05bn

2 (30) Keith Miller and family £810m

3 (32) Sir David Murray £750m

4 (76) Robert Adair £372m

5 (78) Brian Kennedy £350m

UK AND IRELAND'S TOP FIVE

1 The Duke of Westminster, Grosvenor Group £7bn

2 David and Simon Reuben, Trans-World Metals £3.5bn

3 Sean Quinn and family, Quinn Group £3.05bn

4 Earl Cadogan and family, the Cadogan Group £2.6bn

5 Simon Halabi, Buckingham Securities £2.5bn

More Pay For the Bosses

We previously reported how directors pay increases are much higher than their workers wage rises and today's Herald produces new figures that once again confirms that the rich always reward themselves more than those that produce the wealth .

Chief executives enjoyed an average 16% rise in total remuneration in 2007 - a marked acceleration over the prior year's 9% increase - according to accounting giant KPMG's .Moreover, other executive directors on company boards saw their base salaries increase at a similar rate, although finance directors are seeing bigger increases in pay. KPMG noted that the rate of increase in directors' pay is far higher than the national average .

The median total remuneration for FTSE-100 chief executives in 2007 - including new hires as well as promotions - increased to £2.6 million, compared with £2.3 million last year.

Whereas today's Independent is reporting of the story is that The bonanza in boardroom pay has become even more spectacular, according to the latest figures from the accountancy firm KPMG. The typical chief executiveof a FTSE 100 company has seen their total remuneration rise by 12 per cent in the past year, to reach over £2.6m. That's four times the rate of increase in average earnings, leaving the business elite on pay over 100 times what most of their employees earn.

Britain's top corporate earner is probably still Bob Diamond of Barclays Capital, who took home £22.9 million last year, including a performance-related bonus of £10.4 million.

Bart Becht, chief executive of Reckitt Benckiser, the man behind Mr Sheen, on £22 million; Giles Thorley, head of Punch Taverns, making ends meet on £11 million; . Mr Thorley's package is equivalent to 1,147 of his staff's pay.

Taken together, the directors of FTSE 100 companies collectively earned £515 million lastyear – exceeding the GDP of the likes of Eritrea and the Seychelles.

More pay for company directors

It is reported that the typical salary increase of executive directors was 7 per cent last year, well above the UK average of 3.7 per cent.

Potential bonuses were an average 130 per cent of salary, up from 115 per cent the year before - but the actual bonus payout rocketed from 75 per cent to 94 per cent.

"Increases for executive directors are still significantly ahead of those received by the general workforce" the report by accountancy firm Deloitte said.

Gold-Plated Pensions for the Few

We have been hearing a lot about the pensions "blackhole" and how we are all living too long to receive an adequate pension , and how we have to work until we are even older before we retire and even then pay more into the pension schemes .

Yet , the average company executive can now retire at 60 on a final salary pension worth more than £3 million , says the TUC's latest annual PensionsWatch survey. This works out at £193,000 a year, says the study, more than 25 times the average UK pension of £7,500 a year. The biggest executive pensions are now worth £320,000 a year, more than 42 times average staff pensions . One pension was found to be worth more than £1 million a year.

Directors of the UK's top companies have amassed pensions worth £891 million.

"Top executive pay has already created a new group of the super-rich who float free from the rest of society," said TUC general secretary Brendan Barber. "This report shows that this does not stop with their retirement. Too many top directors have gone on closing or cutting schemes for their workforce, while keeping gold-plated pensions for themselves."

No mourning here

One of Scotland's biggest landowners, the Duke of Buccleuch, has died .

As recently as 2005, the duke was believed to be Britain's biggest private landowner, owning 270,000 acres, mostly in the Borders.

The Sunday Times Rich List estimated his wealth at £85 million .

Born in 1923, the oldest son of the eighth duke - whom he succeeded in 1973 - Johnnie Buccleuch was educated at Eton and Oxford and became director of the Buccleuch Estates in 1949. He later became a Tory councillor in Roxburghshire and subsequently Tory MP for North Edinburgh. In 1978 he was appointed a Knight of the Order of the Thistle - the highest honour in Scotland.

He is succeeded by his eldest son, the Earl of Dalkeith.

Socialist Courier will definitely not be wearing black

The inequalities of the UK

From The Independent :-

Britain may appear to be a richer country than a decade ago but the gap between the rich and poor has reached levels not seen for more than 40 years. The highest earners are being dubbed "the new Victorians" as they take an ever-greater slice of the wealth pie, leaving mere employees and white-collar workers sharing the crumbs.

Government statistics show that the richest 10 % of the population control 53 % of the wealth of the country, with the 1 % jet-set elite controlling no less than 21 % .

In the City, fat-cat pay awards, with top executives earning 100 times more than their employees, are merely the most obvious examples of where the balance has become skewed. The kingpins of Britain's opaque private equity and hedge funds are earning considerably more while simultaneously paying "less tax than a cleaner", according to Nicholas Ferguson, chairman of private-equity and fund management group SVG Capital. In the UK, Peter Taylor, chief executive of Duke Street Capital, has admitted that the tax paid by private equity companies such as his is "unnecessarily low". The number of billionaires born, living or making their money in the UK has trebled in the past four years, and the number of millionaires is expected to quadruple to 1.7 million by 2020. Sir Ronald Cohen, one of the UK's richest men, founder of private equity group Apax, whose non-domiciled status has caused controversy, has said the wealth gap could lead to rioting in the streets.

In the US a report from the Institute for Policy Studies last week showed that the average chief executive of a Fortune 500 company now earns 364 times the pay of a typical US worker, while four hedge fund and private equity bosses took home more than $1bn (£500m) in the past year. The investment guru Warren Buffett, the third richest man in the world, has criticised the US tax system that allows him to pay less tax than his secretary.

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation, the social policy research organisation, says that society is becoming polarised. Its latest report states that "wealthy households in already wealthy areas are becoming disproportionately richer compared with society as a whole."

The level of social mobility in the UK – the ease with which the next generation can expect to become more affluent than their parents – is among the lowest of any developed nation.

65% pay rise

Further to our previous posts on the pay rises that company executives generously award themselves , we read that directors at Dawn Group, one of Scotland's largest privately-owned construction and property companies, gave themselves a 65% pay hike in a year in which profits fell.

The remuneration of its highest-paid director, assumed to be Macdonald, climbed to £228,830, from £219,341.

Capitalism -Good for a very few - Bad for the many

THE average pay for directors of the UK's biggest firms has soared to £2.87 million after seeing their salary packages rise by over a third in the last year, as reported in the Edinburgh Evening News .

The 37 % rise outstrips average inflation of 2.3 % and is 11 times the increase in average employee pay of 4 % .

The total pay packages of the 1389 FTSE 100 company directors last year broke through the £1 billion barrier for the first time, totalling £1.01billion - enough for 15 hospitals or 50,000 nurses.

The top-paid UK executive was Bob Diamond, head of the investment banking arm of Barclays Bank, who earned £23 million. Although his basic salary was only £250,000, Mr Diamond was awarded a performance bonus of more than £10 million and over £12 million in share awards.

Bart Becht, chief executive of household cleaning company Reckitt Benckiser, was not far behind with a total package worth £22 million , nearly 80 per cent of the firm's total executive wage bill.

Among the other biggest earners were Giles Thorley, who heads the Punch Taverns pub group, which owns one in eight of all pubs in the UK and has more than 160 pubs in and around the Lothians. He took home a salary package of £11 million .

The highest paid woman, with a package worth £2.1million , was Dame Marjorie Scardino, chief executive of Financial Times publisher Pearson

Jann Brown, finance director at Edinburgh-based oil and gas explorer Cairn Energy, was the UK's third highest earning female executive, with a total salary package of £1.7 million.

Two Royal Bank of Scotland heavyweights also made the top ten in terms of the biggest cash bonuses paid out, with chief executive Sir Fred Goodwin bagging £2.8million and Johnny Cameron, chief executive of the RBS global banking and markets division, raking in £2.3 million.

Meanwhile the paper also reports :-

THE number of people declared bankrupt in Edinburgh has soared to almost ten a week, as rising interest rates start to bite. The number of people declared bankrupt in the Capital has nearly doubled in two years. Most cases involved people struggling with credit card or loan debts .

Debt management experts today warned the problem will worsen as homeowners come to the end of fixed-rate mortgages and house prices stabilise. Lenders are also being blamed for "exercising their muscle" by forcing people into court to be declared bankrupt, rather than letting them pursue voluntary insolvency.