The TUC has a complaint with reality

The Trades Union Congress has a complaint it would like to make to someone about the reality of our universe. We're not sure they're going to get very far there being no central ruler but they want to complain nonetheless:

In 2014 the UK was home to 2,926 €-millionaire bankers, according to new report published by the European Banking Authority.

This is more than ten times as many as Germany, who come in second with 242.

If we could just draw attention to some of that reality?

London has more than 40 percent of the global market for currency trading. Almost half of the world's interest-rate swaps business takes place in the City, as does a third of European equity trading.

It is, of course, wholesale finance that pays the big money. And it wouldn't be all that much of an exaggeration to state that London's part of the global wholesale financial industry is some 10 times that of Germany. Nor that London is home to the majority of the EU's wholesale financial industry.

Wholesale financial services is just something that Britain does rather well, thus the number of people here who are highly paid to do it. The complaint is akin to shouting about how the UK and France have almost all of Europe's highly paid rugby players. When, to a significant level of accuracy, they are the only two countries with paid rugby players.

That international playing out of comparative advantage has just left us doing the high finance and Germany doping the dumpling making. The bulk of highly paid dumpling makers being in Germany, the bulk of highly paid bankers being in Britain. To complain about this is to rail against the universe. And to no very great end either.