Shopkeepers vs Stockbrokers

I was going to use this opportunity to discuss the rights and wrongs of inheritance tax prompted by the news that David Cameron has just trousered £300k tax free following the unfortunate death of his father.

Daily Mail's take on it

A lot of the comments seem to think this is a none story and according to one contributor;

"£2,696,771 is a nice windfall but it's hardly a fortune these days. It's certainly not a life-changing sum to anyone who has managed to accrue a bit of personal wealth, now is it? - Stu Stu "




I disagree, I think the almost £3m estate is considerable. He earned this money as a stockbroker and this got me thinking about stockbrokers in general.

Stockbrokers buy and sell stuff, much like a corner shopkeeper. Subsequently they can only really work as hard as a shopkeeper. In fact less hard as I imagine their day has considerably less heavy lifting and driving to Cost-co to stock up on cases of Lucozade.

Also they're buying and selling with someone else's money so any losses will hurt someone else much more than themselves.

We often hear of the long hours and pressure that these fellows have to endure for their massive paypacket, but what would a day actually involve for a less scrupulous man than Mr Cameron?

Got into the office at 6am, the Asians have already started trading so I need to know what they're into today. So I spend the first couple of hours reading the internet and MSNing my mates to see what they think.

About 10 o clock (After I've had breakfast delivered) I notice that some stock I bought in Puffin futures in Iceland have plummeted. It may be because people there have recently had their first KFC franchise. This means they have cottoned onto the fact that puffins taste like tyres dipped in putrid fish guts, even compared to a family bucket of the Colonel's finest.

Anyway I need an out as I'm haemorrhaging money. Easy fix though, I ring round the good ole boys and get them to buy into Puffins for me. The sudden interest by so many people in these worried looking birds fires the price back up and I sell as soon as I can, even making a small profit. Close call there.

I buy the boys lunch somewhere expensive to thank them and we celebrate with some of Columbia's finest. Back at the office I buy into Puffin futures as they seem to be going through the roof for some reason and then continue my celebrating by raping one of the cleaners in the toilets...

And it continues like this I imagine until he can't fit any more cash in his bank account... Tweet