What's in a million?

Now I don't want to be thought a sympathiser with the banks and financial institutions. Like pretty much everyone I think they have spent the past decade behaving appallingly and largely unprofessionally. But I do think we might need a sense of proportion over the bonus issue.
First I think we have to accept that while the bonus might have been virtually unheard of outside the world of sales until the early 80s, since then motivation by reward has become a by-word in management terms and it is a global reality. So bonuses won't easily go away now.
It is, however the scale that causes the greatest reaction among the public and the media. I would suggest we are getting it wrong. The issue of the crippling of western states by financial greed and idiotic risk taking is not about bonuses in reality. We can fix the risk factor and the under-secured assets by regulation - or rather by actually having some decent regulation. But I suggest we won't fix it by denying decent reward for success. Which is not the same of course as bonuses that are given regardless of performance. They are indeed fraudulent in name if not in intent.
No, the issue is the amount and to be precise the perceived value against the actual buying power. To put it bluntly today's millionaire is not much more than an averagely well-off person in the 60s or 70s because today's million won't make you rich.
Basic online research shows that today one million pounds will buy the following and leave no change: A Rolls Royce Phantom (£300k); a detached house in Buckinghamshire (£400k); a Rolex Oyster Daytona (£10k); a Sunseeker Predator 56 yacht £290k (but secondhand!). And that's it; all spent. Very nice too if you are already very well off because the running costs are ridiculous.
Now let's scroll back to when a million really was a million. Let's try 1970, forty years ago. That house in a leafy suburb would have been about £10k. The Rolls Royce about £5,000. A similar Rolex would have been about £250 and while actual prices for boats in 1970 are a bit elusive the change in buying power suggests a similar ten year old boat then would have cost about £25,000; memory suggests about £6k actually. A grand total of just over £40,000. Indeed, taking the change in purchasing power overall the £million of 1970 would be worth about £10 MILLION today.
So its about time we stopped treating million pound bonuses as quite so obscene. They are worth less than £100,000 in real terms. Too much? Maybe but today's thousands of millionaires are not what they were.
So, until we have QUINTILLIONAIRES with more than £5,000,000, we are not really talking rich at all. Mind you, a million would still change my life bit.

A question of necessity

There is a rather heated debate under way just now about just how much information the police need to keep on file about apparently innocent people that may, or may not, help in the detection of crime.
Indeed little mention is made that this same evidence might lead to the rejection of allegations against innocent people.
There are two distinct but entirely similar strands to this dilemma. The one is that the DNA of people cleared of a crime is being kept on the police database. Some five millions files in all we are told, of which a significant number concern those who were found innocent by jury.
The other issue is that of what material should appear on the criminal record checks made about people being hired in positions of authority and responsibility over children and other vulnerable people; teachers, social workers and the like. In this case the issue is not only about those cleared of any allegations but others who may have merely helped police with their inquiries.
The problem is that in both cases the public good may well be served by retention of this data. Indeed there are cases where DNA held on file has been associated with someone connected to a crime many years in the past. Since these crimes have tended to be rape or equally heinous offences there is inevitably a strong motivation for the police and others to want this data retained and available. In the same way it is hard to say with any certainty that information held about someone questioned in connection with a sex crime may not help to prevent an unknown paedophile from being employed in a position that exposes vulnerable individuals to risk.
But surely this is an easily solved dilemma. This data, whether evidential or DNA can easily be retained and available for reference and comparison without any actual identity attached to it at that stage. Then, if the investigators find a reasonable ground for suspicion they could apply to a magistrate or judge for a warrant permitting the identity to divulged and matched to the data, and thus possibly resolving a crime.
It seems to me that we are in danger of allowing the quite reasonable argument that freedom and our principle of innocence before the law is at risk is getting in the way of a proper solution. The problem is that politicians may all too easily in the current febrile atmosphere bend to what they see as public will - either way. And as usual the extreme position is not the best one. A little sane compromise is needed, I suggest.