Middle income earners - the real middle Britain earning median incomes around £22,000 a year - have been doubly squeezed as:

• Their wages have fallen behind productivity. Since 1980 their wages have risen by 1.6 per cent a year, while productivity has been growing by 1.9 per cent a year.
• They have also been hit by growing inequality as the better off have grabbed a growing share of wages. From 1978-2008, real earnings at the 90th percentile doubled while real median earnings grew by 56 per cent and those at the 10th percentile by only 27 per cent. The report shows that some groups of workers, from fork-lift truck and bus drivers to bakers and low skilled factory workers, have enjoyed little rise in real earnings at all.

But the rising tide lifts all ships... sigh.

When TUC releases such studies, are they routinely thematised by Labour backbenchers or someone from the opposition? Or is there just big silwence in Westminster?

*Traitor*, n.
A benighted individual who perceives an illusory distinction between serving his nation and abetting the criminals who govern it.

I'm doing 'God's work'. Meet Mr Goldman Sachs

I ask him the question that, in these troubled times, you'd think anyone -- from the guy outside 85 Broad selling 99-cent chilli dogs to the gazillionaire King of Wall Street sitting 30 storeys above -- would pause before answering. And then, perhaps, offer an equivocal, on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand answer, whether he means it or not. Is it possible to make too much money?

"Is it possible to have too much ambition? Is it possible to be too successful?" Blankfein shoots back. "I don't want people in this firm to think that they have accomplished as much for themselves as they can and go on vacation. As the guardian of the interests of the shareholders and, by the way, for the purposes of society, I'd like them to continue to do what they are doing. I don't want to put a cap on their ambition. It's hard for me to argue for a cap on their compensation."

So, it's business as usual, then, regardless of whether it makes most people howl at the moon with rage? Goldman Sachs, this pillar of the free market, breeder of super-citizens, object of envy and awe will go on raking it in, getting richer than God? An impish grin spreads across Blankfein's face. Call him a fat cat who mocks the public. Call him wicked. Call him what you will. He is, he says, just a banker "doing God's work"

Goldman chief defends employees' pay

Goldman Sachs pays its employees more than other financial groups because its employees are more productive, declared Lloyd Blankfein, Goldman chief executive, at an industry conference on Tuesday.

(...)

"I often hear references to higher compensation at Goldman," said Mr Blankfein. "What people fail to mention is that net income generated per head is a multiple of our peer average. The people of Goldman Sachs are among the most productive in the world."