The myth of the ‘deserving rich’

Sir, – It is a funny world, with Louise Phelan of PayPal, calling for deeper Government spending cuts in order to pay for tax cuts for higher paid workers (Business + Your Money, January 21st).

Was it not the higher paid executives who brought Ireland to its knees? Now it is the mostly lower paid workers who are paying for their unbridled greed.

The "plutocrats [are] on the attack" (Paul Krugman, Business, January 1st), blaming the lesser paid for higher taxes. The basic question should be asked: do these people deserve to be paid so well? As Krugman writes, we have "the myth of the deserving rich" versus the undeserving lower paid. – Yours, etc,

JOHN KEANE,

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Hanover Square, Dublin 8.