Why doesn't he work for himself? If there were no benefits for the work shy he would have to wouldn't he? He could create his own job.
Education education education, no mickey mouse two week course, but a year long re education course that provides an employable skill at the end, taylored to whatever skill is needed and to his or hers desires/wants.
I don't begrudge ceos/bosses earning a lot more then the guy on the shop floor how ever it has gone way past sustainable, and the fat cats bankers call them what you will don't pay enough tax, to think that this isn't hurting the economy is foolish, the gap is getting wider and wider between the low or average pay and the top bosses. Coupled with the way they avoid paying tax. Heres a thought, if you were one of the average paid workers, whose pay has increased less than inflation over the last 30 years how have you maintained or improved your standard of living. 1 Wife goes out to work, in my parents day this was unheard of now its the norm, and its mainly to achieve a decent standard of living. 2. Work longer hours, there is a 37.5 hour working week but how many now work longer or do overtime to improve their lot, the transport industry average is a 48 hour week. 3. Debt, this happened a few years ago, house prices rose people borrowed on the equity, and are now living with the effects of the crash. So if your an average joe who earns an average wage how do you improve your standard of living, one of the causes of the recession was because Mr Average Joe no could no longer afford to replace or upgrade his belongings, cars, white goods etc etc. Until he feels more confident, has more money in his pocket the recovery is a pipe dream. Greater minds than mine have looked at the problem and the conclusion is pretty much the same.
after almost losing my job earlier this month checked online benefits calculator guess what i would be £300 better of a month now thats just daft...........
Generalisation, most pay tax at the top rate, it's the billionaires you are complaining about and the non-domiciled. Can you give us your source for this? The ONS says the average full time employee earns 62% more than they did in 1986 after taking into account price rises from the consumer prices index. Are you quoting the Guardian & the TUC? http://www.ons.gov.uk/ons/rel/lmac/...arnings-in-the-uk-over-the-past-25-years.html You must be bloody old then, my mother worked when I was a child and she's 90 this year! Most of my aunts did the same and I'm talking late 1950's and 60's. Most of the rest of the world(not Europe) puts us to shame. Americans work longer hours and take less holidays than we do. I work when I need/want to, but generally do 60 hours a week. I'm not averse to building up a pot and taking a few months off though. I realise most don't do this, but they could. So it's not the bankers fault then it's the greed of the population in general? You change jobs or take on more work or take on another job or cut your outgoings? I think there's a diverse range of opinion on 'the conclusion' between the coalition parties themselves and labour, each with their own view (views analysed by armies of very bright economists interned by the big 3 parties). Lest we forget who left the note in the treasury saying 'there's no money left' having sold our gold reserves at the bottom of the market, taxed the pension funds creating a real problem for those in their mid employment years who have to work longer to build up a decent pension? Mr Brown & Mr Balls really did a great job!!!! That's not to say the current lot have a great raft of ideas, Dave and Tony could almost be clones!
But Royum, this thread started as an illustration of extremes, and no, I certainly don't put you in the Goodwin camp, but any man with a desmosedici and the position to work as he needs to and take 'a few months off' is in a privileged position in my eyes (not that I'm deriding or care how you came by the means, I get the impression your work your bollocks off and have achieved a good position which alows you to take advantage of these things, and more importantly view things from a perspective that I haven't a clue about). The question wasn't supposed to be malicious, I genuinely don't get it. I have a very good friend who is a company director of his own business, I know how hard he works with his one employee and how tough its been for him, but when the likes of a bank or other huge company employs a director or such on a six figure sum, I do genuinely wonder what the worth is. What is their measurable?. It fills me with a wonderment, and a disbelief that an individual can be worth that much, but it's not jealousy. As for life choices, that's a rather black and white statement isn't it, I would have loved the privilege of a public school education, but choices far beyond my control prevented me from ever getting that. I would have loved to sit in an investment bank spunking other people's money up the wall and being paid six figures for it - but again my circumstances didn't allow me to pursue those avenues. And as for severance packages, sorry but failure is failure, and should not be rewarded or paid for. I once heard a very well educated and silver spoon individual talking about the director ideal of large salary, severance and having the contract paid off and then getting a similar role in a different company and beginning anew - no different to those who play the system on the lowest rung in my eyes. But that's for a different thread. As for the Uber-Director and his salary, sorry - I just don't get it. Just like that. So within everyone is a sleeping Steve Jobs or Bill Gates? - unfortunately some people are born foot soldiers Whether this is right or wrong or generalisation, its how the majority of the plebs see it. Its how I and many others see it. For many of us Joe averages this is how things stand. And no you can't change jobs, because you can't flop open a job page and see the swath that used to be there. Its an employers market now and I know of many who have been beaten with the 'lucky to have a job' stick, both as a means of getting more out of them and also as the mechanism to deny payrises and bonuses which would barely fuel their journey to work for a month. Nobody wants credit debt, but its a mechanism by which people can afford things which they normally couldn't have, and going on your train of logic, they shouldn't have. Yet the price of that, is that they pay probably half as much again for it in interest, or over a period of time pay for it twice over because they couldn't afford to buy it initially. Naturally its a shit thing, but its also shit when someone has no choice but to put their necessities of living on the plastic just to get by from day to day. Yes, people's greed does have a lot to do with it, the necessity to have the latest, but that's also human nature as much as nurture. As you say, there is a diverse range of opinions, and nobody will have the right answer. I know that my industry is suffering because even the affluently wealthy are guarded about showing it, therefore our product hasen't achieved the sales figures which were hoped for- or so the marketeers keep telling us, whilst still totting up huge expenses claims. The filthy rich of course and the square mile boys don't care and just rub it in your face. Cut outgoings... yes have done. Second Job, wouldn't be adversed to it or even a job before work, but lets face it even a cleaning job is hens teeth these days. I concur
It is when it is contended that "in a democracy right is what the majority makes it to be" that democracy degenerates into demagoguery. Oh and I no longer have a Desmo, I did my 3 year stint on her, now have an Aprilia V4. No one is born a foot soldier, we are all born much the same. I certainly did not go to public school, I did go to a school with superb teachers though.
Have to disagree there. Humans are famously varied. Each individual has some random combination of the following: strong, weak, disabled, tall, short, intelligent, stupid, well-balanced, psychopathic, brave, cowardly, etc. Each person tries to make the best they can of what they have, but a lot of people have been dealt a poor hand and it is so easy for a person who has been dealt a good hand to sneer at the rest. IMHO those lucky enough to have notable abilities and opportunities ought to use them for the benefit of everyone, not just their own personal selfish ends. It's a basic ethical issue.
We are all born much the same, sure there are variances in intellect and physical prowess that shows through later, but we are born much the same. We can have a nature/nurture debate if you like, but we all have 24 hours in each day, if you choose to spend them doing something that brings little reward or little development that is up to the parents or the individual themselves once older. We need to stop wanting government to do things for us and get on with doing it for ourselves. The one thing I hope we can agree on is that most politicians are pretty poor self serving pieces of sh*t? They are poor role models and shouldn't be trusted beyond the milk monitor tin and even then we should count it's contents on the hour!
"Whether this is right or wrong or generalisation, its how the majority of the plebs see it. Its how I and many others see it. For many of us Joe averages this is how things stand." I have taken just this quote, as this was one of the ideas I was trying to get across, at the moment not many people have realised the issue, they know there is one but have not quite grasped it or been able to focus on it. In America where they are a bit further along the road some experts are claiming by 2020 the problem will be big enough to cause a sea change in politics if the inbalance between the middle/working classes and elites is not addressed.
There's hardly a gap between the haves and have nots in the UK an USA compared to the rest of the world. Brazil, Russia India and China have far bigger variances between the vast % of the population who have little and an elite who are as wealthy and as powerful, if not more so than this country. You seem to be suggesting some form of revolution is coming for which there is very, very little evidence.
Remember the riots about 18 months ago?? How long do you think it will be before the same disaffected and the general poor pull up sticks and say, 'enough'? How long Roy? If you've got fuck all, you're not going to be deterred by prison. For some it's a meal ticket. Added to which, how long before those very same disaffected and poor people get organised and trundle off up the M1 and M6 in convoys of LDV 7 ton trucks, paying a visit ...........................???? Extreme yes. But I am prepared to have a wager? The future's so bright you've gotta wear bench/nike/adidas etc etc ...
And the riots in 81 etc etc etc, it takes a lot more than a bit of looting and ineffective policing to to have a Menshevik and Bolshevik welling.
How else is the recession going to end unless people start spending, the government can only spend so much to help, QE is just going to add to inflation.
In the US average pay of a ceo is 380 times that of the average worker, except also the top 1% of americans earn 23% of the US total income. In 1965 it was roughly 20 to one and up un till 1980 the top 1% earned only 10% of the total income. So there has been a massive disconect between Americas working class and the business class. I'm not suggesting a revolution but maybe a political upheaval, and not one for the better.
As a self employed person and one who has had to diversify more than ever in this recession i felt compelled to answer. The bottom line is that there is no one answer and many posts look too narrowly at a wide issue, but creating a job is what people are doing. Self employment accounts for a large part of the reduction in unemplymenbt figures we have seen recently. Now here's the rub. Most of those created jobs rely on the very people who are most squeezed in society. Anything that involves non necessity spending is a hard sell in the current climate. I'm in IT and a very large number of customers do not collect items for months because they do not have the means to pay. There is merit it starting your own business and many on benefits milk the system but it's the system that gives them £400K houses for 11 kids etc not the guy in the street. The guy in the street who has his head down but gets made redundant needs and should get every bit of help they can because they are victims of circumstance not greed. They just need supporting whilst they get on their feet again. They can be tomorrows customers or tomorrows next evicted homeowner. Which supports the economy most ? Saying they should create their own job is a good suggestion but that cap does not fit all and can be very area specific. Selling tat or anything in sunny suburbia can be somewhat easier than in a farming community where most barely earn minimum wage. The system needs changing but pulling the ladder out from under the guys trying to climb it is foolish and self defeating. It's the ones making no attempt to climb we should be after. As for the CEO's etc i'm sure there are good ones the angst seems to stem from the bad ones having win win contracts. Rewarding an employee for being completely useless or even authorising criminal business behaviour somehow goes against the grain for most people.
I live in a farming community, most do not 'barely earn the minimum wage', it incredibly vibrant, busy and affluent. This thread is a pointless circular conversation so I vote that we drop it as it must be boring for someone to read.
