On David Cameron. And Salaries.

In an Economics Seminar at the start of term, we were asked to define whether the following question is a Micro-topic, or a Macro-topic:

Is David Cameron's salary fair?

To my surprise, an alarming number of students in the class claimed that since his salary-level is his own business, that it is clearly a micro-economic issue, whereby it only really refers to him and the decisions of a small number of people around this.

On appearances, I presumed that this response was most likely from the right-wing, Conservative minority. But, in my opinion, this is actually a macro-economic issue. Yes, I can see why David Cameron's pay would be considered his business, but doesn't this only really apply to private sector employees? After all, when you are the leader (Prime Minister, no less) of a country, your take-home salary is a question that affects not just you and those in government, but all the inhabitants of your country.

For example, David Cameron's current level of pay is around £143,00-per-annum, which is remarkably low considering he is the current Prime Minister and some CEO's earn ten-fold that. Think what this salary tells you about him and how it alters your opinion. Now I think that for a statesman, this is modest and reasonable amount (though it doesn't include other allowances he may have within overnment Administration, ie. Drivers, food allowance, travel costs paidf for, etc. ), but what if he earned $50,000,000-a-year? How would that alter your opinion of him?

In the current economic climate, people most likely would shudder at the unfairness and adbsurdity of this amount; and rightly so. I would; may even physically be sick. That's because this amount of money brings into question his political integrity. And in this case, we would consider it rich that he is preaching to others on how to accept public spending cuts gracefully and positively, while he lines his pockets with the public cash. This would affect opinion on him and in turn may affect his vote at the next election, which would affect government policy and have consequences for the country's economy as a whole.

So you see, it is a macro-economic issue when referring to public sector pay-levels.