Latest news with #privilege
South China Morning Post
3 days ago
- Business
- South China Morning Post
Fury as Chinese bank offers to help rich clients' kids gain top internships
A Chinese bank has triggered outrage by offering to help its rich customers secure prestigious internships for their children, prompting a heated debate about privilege and inequality on social media. Industrial Bank, a regional lender from Fujian province, said in a now-deleted post on the social platform WeChat that it could arrange for its clients' offspring to gain work experience at top firms including Google and JP Morgan, according to screenshots circulating online. To qualify for the scheme, households would need to deposit large new sums with the bank: 10 million yuan (US$1.4 million) for non-private banking customers and 5 million yuan for private banking clients, the post added. The scheme quickly went viral and triggered intense backlash on Chinese social media. The reaction has been particularly fierce given China's sky-high youth unemployment rate and a spate of recent scandals involving nepotism in the job market On Tuesday, Industrial Bank announced it had paused the offer and apologised for any 'misunderstandings caused by incomplete descriptions', according to the state-run news outlet Securities Times. In the statement, the company claimed it had not directly arranged internships for its customers' children, but had merely intended to refer them to external recruitment consultants, Securities Times reported.
Daily Mail
5 days ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
Tradie sparks fierce debate after revealing why his salary isn't enough
An Aussie man who swapped an office corporate job for a construction site has expressed his shock after learning that a $120,000 salary wasn't enough to live on. Jack, 29, divided TikTok viewers when he recently shared a video about how wealthy his teenage self thought a six figure income would make him. 'A hundred grand a year, you'd be driving a Mercedes and living in a luxury apartment. That's what I thought,' he said. 'The only thing I can buy with my six-figure salary is groceries without flinching.' Some viewers slammed Jack for being privileged by complaining about how far his money went. 'My partner and I are on a combined income of $145k. To me this is wild,' one commented. Another said: 'I make $50kish a year, can get by just fine and still saved good, I guess the more you earn the more you spend.' But other Aussies sympathised, saying they had experienced similar financial struggles on six figure salaries. 'I used to think $100k was going to be good. Now I'm like $200k is adult money,' one wrote. Another added: 'Bro I made $230k (pre tax) last year and I can tell you, I do not feel rich. 'I live alone and have a new VW because the 15 year old one was done. I also bought a unit but I'm essentially stretched.' In a follow up video addressing the comments calling him out on his 'privileged' position, Jack agreed that it showed the dire experience of the average Aussie. 'The level of income that I've had to achieve to be able to do that is quite high,' he said. 'My parents think I'm rich, they think I'm minted. 'That gives you an understanding of how bad things have gotten for the average Australian that the bare necessities not being a problem for you, is a point of privilege.' Now earning more than $140,000 a year, Jack is still struggling to scrap together a decent deposit to buy his first home, even after moving to regional Victoria. He currently pays $2500 per month in rent but would be forking out $7000 in mortgage repayments if he bought in the same area. 'I'm in the top 10 per cent of income earners, so how screwed is everyone else?' Jack told 'If you work your butt off in Melbourne or Sydney and have a household income of $300,000 and you're both killing it, and if you're really lucky, you might be able to buy a home an hour away from where you work. 'That is just awful. That is so rough.' Jack was previously earning between $50,000 to $60,000 a year in a corporate job after he graduated from university with an economics degree. But after complaining to his uncle about his pay, he decided to ditch his suit for hi vis workwear three years ago so he could more than double his income. 'My uncle told me to get a pair of work boots and a white card and come and jump on a worksite and make $2000 a week,' he recalled. 'I will break up pieces of asbestos and throw them in a skip bin if I don't have to be in debt anymore.'
Times
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Times
Trans children more likely to be white and privileged, says head
Transgender children tend to be 'white and privileged', Britain's so-called strictest head teacher has claimed. Katharine Birbalsingh, head of the Michaela Community School in Wembley, northwest London, said her school was unlikely to have any trans pupils because of its mainly ethnic-minority intake. Birbalsingh, who previously worked as the government's social mobility tsar, told The London Standard: 'If one actually did a survey on this sort of thing nationally, I think you would find that white privileged kids would be more likely to be doing that. No question.' • Birbalsingh: Gentle middle-class parenting can be harmful She added: 'Our society is such that victimhood is admired. And if you feel that you're white and privileged, then you don't have much of a victimhood narrative to
