Snakes and Ladders - Times Online - WBLG

Give away your bonus

Do the big bonuses paid to City folk make them happy? Not necessarily so.

Research published in the Harvard Business Review this month shows that it is what workers spend their money on that determines happiness.

"We found that people get no meaningful boost in happiness by spending money on things like new clothes, TVs and iPods. They do tend to feel better, however, if they spend even a small portion of a windfall on others," say the authors.

Could porn replace pensions?

I don't know about you lot, but as things stand I don't have a monkey's of surviving on a pension when I retire. To be honest, given the way that things look at the moment I am not entirely sure that I'll even get a pension when I retire.

As far as I can tell, my only option is to keep working until my fingers are too arthritic to type and then to win the lottery before I run out of baked beans.

Or I could follow the example of 73-year-old Shigeo Tokuda and begin a second career as a porn star. Time reports that the Japanese market for elder porn has doubled in the past ten years; in that same time "mature women" has gone from meaning "in her late 20s" to "possibly even older than your gran". Tokuda himself, a former salaryman, plans to carry on until he's at least 80.

He doesn't, however, intend to tell his wife what he really does when he heads off to the office these days.

Picture credit: these little monkeys, who are almost certainly pensionless as well, are from floridapfe at flickr.

Planet recession

A crystal ball would be good right now, you could predict what's going to happen should a recession hit. You could safely take a punt on stocks that plummet in the knowledge that they will rebound, sell your house high and rent before buying again when the price is right and other such dodgy dealings.

Brandsmiths, a brand management company, appear to have that crystal ball and have sent out a press release telling us all who will survive and thrive, and who will wither and die, during the big R.

Survivors are tipped to include Ikea, Starbucks and Tescos and witherers could include Haagen Daas, KFC and Woolworths. Except that being a creative group of people they have gone for a more out of this world approach. 

A buffet with Warren?

There are just two days and ten hours to go if you and your friends would like to have lunch with the Oracle of Omaha. Warren Buffett, the chairman of Berkshire Hathaway and one of the richest men in the world, is auctioning lunch with himself on eBay in aid of charity.

At the time of writing the bid stands at $77,100 (£39,206.17) for the bidder and seven friends to enjoy a bite and banter with Mr Buffett at the Smith & Wollensky Steakhouse in New York. But as anyone who has any experience of eBay will be able to tell you the serious bidding will happen on Saturday in the last few moments of the auction.

This is the sixth year Mr Buffett has auctioned lunch with himself for the Glide Foundation charity. Last year the successful bidder and friends forked out $650,100 for steak and shares advice with the 77-year-old billionaire.

It will be interesting to know whether in these cash-strapped times this year's auction will raise a similar amount. In 2006 the lunch raised $620,100 but in 2005 it was a mere $315,100 (which wouldn't even buy three shares in Berkshire Hathaway at today's prices).

But if you are interested in meeting Mr Big then take note: the auction closes at 7pm on Friday (PDT) which is 3am on Saturday here in the UK (European readers should bear in mind that 'free shipping' probably doesn't mean Mr Buffett will fly you over in his private jet...probably).

Update 3.30 pm June 27 - After 44 bids the offer stands at $255,500

Update 8.30 am June 28 - There were 71 bids in by the close of the auction. The winner, greenteabug, offered $2,110,100. Gracious.

Looking after the family silver

If you have a bit of dosh you probably have a savings account, if you have a lot you may have a private banker, but if you have squillions then the only way to go is a private bank - as in one just for you and a few of your seriously rich relatives. 

A study by the Wharton Global Family Alliance, a collaboration of American and European business school researchers, offers a rare insight into the world of the uber wealthy. The researchers write in IESE's Insight newsletter that "Extreme wealth carries with it obligations and privileges. The super rich must often continue to operate their business while managing their mounting wealth and planning for future generations." You could almost feel sorry for them.

Bankers: guilty as (not) charged?

Bankers. The money-loving types have taken a fair amount of flak for their role in the topsy turvy economic climate. But could some be engaging in criminal behaviour without even realising it?

Fortune magazine (June 9) reports on an incarcerated US banker who was made an example of for taking part in illegal practices purportedly common within the industry's culture.

In 2007, Charles Craig Gile, a former Citigroup commodities trader, was sentenced to a year and a day in prison for conspiracy to falsify bank records and commit wire fraud. Together with his boss, Gile was accused of overstating the value of his trading position in order to boost his end of year bonus, alledgedly inflating the department's profits by a total of $20 million.

Less housework, more money

Don't wash up. Order a take-out for supper. And tell your partner to wash his own underpants, ladies, for all our sakes.

Working women who do the lion's share of the housework at home - which is most of us - are contributing to the gender pay gap according to research by the Institute for Social & Economic Research.

Research authors Mark Bryan and Almudena Sevilla Sanz say that in the short term a redistribution of the chores at home "would probably lead to a modest reduction in the gender wage gap". But in the longer term could give women access to better paid and more responsible careers.

The tutti-frutti approach to pay

The news that the outgoing Italian administration had released the salary details of its citizens online, in a bid to cut tax evasion, sent me off into a daydream yesterday. If it happened here, would I rush to discover what my neighbour earned? Probably not. How about my editor - or a male colleague who I think should earn less than me, but actually earns more? And once armed with this fact, what could I usefully do next? Knowing precisely what someone else earns doesn't tell you anything about the reasoning behind the figure. Though it would be helpful to have some nice woman (probably) in HR reveal how the boxes are ticked and all the sums worked out. Until then, employers will continue to have an unfair advantage over us all.

Of course in this fantasy world, employees would have to be prepared to show off their pay packets - or at least be outed via pay grade. Sixty per cent of UK workers would not mind revealing what they earn in order to achieve parity, a survey by Hudson, a recruitment consultancy, has found. Tellingly 62 per cent of those surveyed said that managers should have to disclose what they are paid. It could be worked into a team-building exercise, perhaps? And what would bankers do come bonus time? Though given the banks' current state of self-inflicted woe, perhaps such disclosure is a necessary thing. 

Top 12 tax evaders

With Wesley Snipes soon to be banged up for three years for deliberately forgetting to file a tax return, our thoughts have turned to other dastardly dodgers. Carol and I have put our heads together and come up with a list of our favourites. In no particular order, they are:

Now's a good time to buy a yacht

It's hard not to notice that we are in the grip of recession - depression, if you believe the real doom-mongers. But as homeowners anxiously calculate the effect of interest rates on mortgage repayments and food prices soar, feel sorry for those bearing the worst of the brunt. Those 'champagne and caviar' corporate types, who once had it so good, are having to cut back.

Fortune (April 14) carries a (we hope) tongue-in-cheek report on The Luxury Recession. At Pilates on Fifth in Midtown Manhattan, for example, clients are foregoing $90 private lessons for cheaper group classes. Steak restaurants say diners are shunning prime cuts for lower grade meat, while in Fort Lauderdale, yacht sales are down 50 per cent - causing prices to drop by as much as a fifth.