What can you buy with 82p?

When MG Rover collapsed John Tower and the other members of his Phoenix Consortium promised that £50m of the car-makers assets would go toward compensating the 6,000 or so men and women who lost their jobs.

Today, as the Times reports, the 'Phoenix Four' have instead offered the grand total of £5,000 of their own money toward a compensation trust fund - that's a grand total of 82p each per worker. Remember this is the same group of people who have between them have taken some £40m in pay and pensions since they took over...

This news comes on the same day that the Guardian reports that 'Directors' pay at Britain's top companies climbed an average of 16.1% last year - four times faster than average earnings and eight times the rate of inflation.' What's more at a time when many workers are facing the threat of having their pension schemes closed, or having to work through into their old-age, more than £880m has been set aside by the UK's top 100 companies to finance the pensions of their directors. Nice work if you can get it I suppose! Even (Sir) Digby Jones has been forced to admit this is probably a bad thing.

What's happened over the last 12 months... Have British bosses suddenly become 16% more productive in the space of 12 months? Hmmm yes, please don't bother to answer that. No in fact - please do. (Unspecified) prize to the person who can come up with the most imaginative reason why British bosses feel they deserve such a hyper-inflationary pat on the back. Submissions in comments please!