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local magazine article

Discussion in 'Serious' started by Teelzebub, 13 Apr 2014.

  1. Teelzebub

    Teelzebub Up yours GOD,Whats best served cold

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    Every month we get the local community magazine, it's not often I agree with this bloke but this time he's bang on imo, The governments tactics is to blame the poor and the disabled and make all the working people hate the people on benefits while all the time they are making themselves and the rich richer.

    Who said you cant fool all the people all the time

    [​IMG]
     
  2. Rhydian

    Rhydian What's a Dremel?

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    As I've experienced these issues first hand, I can completely agree with the article above.

    I would like to see an argument from the top 1% who can justify why the poor are becoming worse off and the rich, well are rolling in tax breaks?
     
  3. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    You won't get one. Psychopaths get all the cake. Why? Because they simply take it.

    This is capitalism, dude. Market forces. If we want a fairer, more balanced society we'll have to embrace a more socialist system. Moreover we'll have to work together and minimise our dependencies in the commercial systems that exploit us.

    Take an average street on a sink estate, with high unemployment. If all the gardens were turned into allotments, with a few hen houses and beehives, the whole street could keep itself in vegetables, eggs and honey at practically zero cost. Add to that a barter system of skills (from hairdressing to plumbing/electricity to DIY to IT support to child care) and that's many living costs taken care off. Don't visit the bookies. Don't blow your money on fags and cheap alcohol. Learn to cook.

    And here's a tip for the parents: teach your kids to respect education. Actually show up at parents' evening. Invest some volunteer time into your local school. It's still a free resource you can maximise. So is the public library.
     
  4. supermonkey

    supermonkey Deal with it

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    Your point is spot on, but it also highlights a characteristic of the other player in the game. While the psychopaths are taking the cake, your point about the average sink estate seems to be more on the subject of personal accountability. They could learn to cook, but they won't. They could plant a garden, but they won't. They could become more engaged with the school, but it's easier to assume their children are perfect and the school administration is just bad/inept/out to get them.
     
  5. TheStockBroker

    TheStockBroker Modder

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    I'd like to see, and this isn't aimed at your or your comment Rhydian, but more your style of question - facts and figures surrounding the persistent regurgitation that "the poor are getting poorer" that isn't related to C/RPI or cost of living increases.
    If you were on the breadline before, you're still on the breadline now, the definition of the breadline has just changed.

    My annoyance with the article is that it is equally guilty of bias as the "right wing" papers it tries to call out, in using a factual figure to support a completely irrelevant argument. Yes, there may only be 0.7% fraudulent claims, but when 0.7% already equals billions, 100% = 100's of billions. The reforms to benefits affect the full 100% of claimants. There is taxpayers money to be saved, and it needs to be done urgently - we remain on the brink of global economic collapse and this directly relates to our (and the USA's) national deficit which we desperately need to reduce, as the consequences of not doing so are more dire than most realise.
     
  6. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    Indeed. I get the soul-sucking grind of poverty, and I understand that I am proposing a level of insight and initiative from people who basically grew up with little chance to develop any (I covered two sink estates in community mental health, and before that, I was homeless once). It is hard to think straight and motivate yourself when you're living on cheap, low quality food in a cold hovel. But in the 1900's people did hard graft in the pits, but on weekends the public libraries were also full of workmen studying and trying to better themselves. I get that it is bloody hard, but what other choice do you have?

    It's futile to demand fairness from a player who has no conscience. If the other player cheats, stop playing the game --or at least stop playing it as much as possible.

    Last week I was talking to a ward manager in hospital. She was browsing through twenty-odd applications for an admin assistant post. She complained that they all looked perfunctory, short, mediocre. Not one stood out. She sighed: "If only one of them had called to have a chat about the job, or had arranged a brief visit to have a look, I would have picked them right away. At least they would have shown some initiative". Now I realise that these applications may have been written by people who apply to 20 jobs a week, and they cannot pitch up on spec to all of them, but this is an NHS job: relatively well-paid, steady work, good experience, good pension scheme. Priorities.
     
    Last edited: 13 Apr 2014
  7. mucgoo

    mucgoo Minimodder

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    How is barter more efficient than employing money as a medium of exchange? It does allow avoidance of VAT and income tax which is rather ironic. Otherwise perfectly reasonable steps.
     
  8. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    Unemployed people don't have money. They do have time and skills.
     
  9. mucgoo

    mucgoo Minimodder

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    They can obtain money by selling there time and skills. Its a much more versatile item than a barter promise. Admittedly the entire area could have a shortage of money. In that case moving is probably the best choice.
     
  10. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    And how do they pay for the move? ;)

    This is about decoupling one's life from a financial system that screws the poor over. Banks control the money. So bypass the problem of needing money. A local neighbourhood could barter, or (as has happened in some areas), create their own local 'currency', the economic value of which is naturally determined by people doing the bartering. It's VAT free and tax free --why should the poor pay taxes if large companies can dodge it?

    There is already a shadow economy of the poor --mostly floating on loan sharks and stolen goods. Just more exploitation by different psychopaths. Why not take control of your own economy?
     
  11. Corky42

    Corky42 Where's walle?

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    The problem is that the amount of people on the breadline has increased year on year since 2007.
    https://uk.finance.yahoo.com/news/how-poor-is-britain-now-122632356.html

    Percentage of population unable to afford key items, UK 2005-2011
    [​IMG]
    If we want to quantify 'the breadline' or poverty, first we need to define what those words mean. It's no good asking for facts and figures unless we are clear on where we personally are drawing the breadline.
    If for example we use the ONS's figures we would find nearly 60% of those in poverty are homeowners. The official measure of poverty is households earning less than 60% of the median income, so if the median income (average UK household income) goes up we find more people in poverty.
     
  12. supermonkey

    supermonkey Deal with it

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    This is correct even for people who are employed. We are lower middle class, so while we do have some expendable income we can't afford a lot. We've made acquaintance with some of our neighbors who also have children in the same school (some in the same class as our daughter). Among our neighbors we have a fairly diverse skill set, and numerous times we've offered our services to each other for the nothing more than a 'thank you'. It works on a couple of levels. Not only does it free up resources for other things, it helps build a sense of community.
     
  13. MightyBenihana

    MightyBenihana Do or do not, there is no try

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    Divide and conquer tactics, its the poor, it's the blacks, it's the immigrants, it's the students, it's the single parents etc etc. We are sliced into a hundred different pigeon holes as those in power know that they have no real power, just the illusion of power. If Gandi taught us nothing else, he taught us this. 10000 British troops couldn't control 100 million Indians through force, and when this was realised things changed very quickly.

    The illusion of democracy and, in America, what they call 'The American dream' keep people under the belief that they control the system, and those that don't believe this aspire to be one of the ones shitting on everyone else.

    You want change? Real protest, civil disobedience, is the only answer, united under one banner. Oh they will scare, seperate and intimidate you, a few may even die and be tortured as they try to do this but until those in power really fear the masses then they have no reason or motivation to do anything.
     
  14. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    A government should be afraid of its people. Unfortunately it has bigger guns and the people are stupid.

    Civil disobedience is just a rebellious child kicking off against its parent. It's not grown-up behaviour. If the population stops voting for every sociopath who comes along and promises them to be their big daddy, fairy godmother and strong leader rolled into one, and starts acting like self-regulating, responsible adults, then they'll be masters of their own fate, captains of their own lives.
     
  15. Teelzebub

    Teelzebub Up yours GOD,Whats best served cold

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    Hitler made it work so why not the conservatives :worried:
     
  16. erratum1

    erratum1 What's a Dremel?

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    We got a posh public school boy running the country.

    The poor can all die in the gutter - Cameron.
     
  17. Nexxo

    Nexxo * Prefab Sprout – The King of Rock 'n' Roll

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    Godwin's law! :D
     
  18. AlienwareAndy

    AlienwareAndy What's a Dremel?

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    How the **** can they blame the disabled when they've pretty much cut all funding?

    As a long term mentally ill person (IE all of my life) I can truly say that the mental health system in this country absolutely ****ing SUCKS.

    I have Asperger's and Bipolar 2 (my co-morbidity as my psych calls it). I've been suicidal more times than I can remember, and each time I've just been fobbed off and told to stay at home in the care of my fiancee or mother. There have been times where I've desperately needed to be sectioned and looked after (when I lose my mind and start to think the whole world wants me dead) yet they just fob me off.

    I was told over three years ago that I desperately needed CBT in order to just live day to day as I was so ill that each day was so much of a struggle for me that it was leading to my suicidal thoughts. My Pdoc said over and over that he would bring in a guy from another clinic to do it... Never happened. Now whilst he can't sit there and slag off the government he can drop hints.

    I'm not getting any better. In fact, as each year passes the struggle to survive gets harder and harder. I feel (I'm 40 now) that I am just waking up and going through the motions just so that my family and fiancee don't have to get that knock at the door. I know, that sounds defeatist, but when you consider that I've lived forty years like this and it's only getting worse.. Yeah, both conditions constantly leave me with absolutely no hope at all for the future.

    Yet I don't get any real help, all I get is a mouthful of pills three times a day and ATOS continually ****ing checking up on me in the vain hope I may be able to return to work and they can save £123 a week.

    It's a disgusting state of affairs tbh. I can't say for sure that I would be any better if there actually were real help out there but the option would be ****ing nice !!

    Politicians do not see the world as it actually is. They sit there in their expensive houses in areas a far cry away from reality living their lives, driving their Chelsea tractors and not seeing the results of their cuts.

    **** the lot of 'em. I have never, and will never, vote for any of the C U next Tuesdays. They belong at the bottom of the ocean with lawyers and estate agents.

    As my old pal Cecil once said...

    Andy, son, it's turkeys voting for Christmas....
     
    Last edited by a moderator: 15 Apr 2014
  19. megamale

    megamale Minimodder

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    I am a bit surprised by the tone of the commenters.

    I will just mention in passing agriculture. Yes. Agriculture. There is a massive shortage of personnel for harvesting. And I mean so big that they need to bring bus-loads of (legal) immigrants to do the job. It's paid minimum wage, it's above board, and accommodation is included (at least it is in the one example I know of, but I am told it's standard).

    I believe it's in the benefit of the country to help people over in adversities, that if you are, say, an architect, it's better to help you find that other job in your field than force to go pick berries in a field. I also believe it's our duty to maintain disabilities, the NHS, etc. It could happen to any of us after all, and we can take more (business) risk knowing that you won't end up in the street if it goes tits up.

    That said, it's undeniable that there is a sort of "scrounger" sub-culture in UK. It's completely distinct from the "working classes" before anyone jumps at my throat. Read this blog post from a previously anonymous police constable:
    http://nightjackarchive.blogspot.co.uk/2009/06/darkness-at-edge-of-town-170608.html

    So a branch of this government is trying to root out benefit cheating, it's their job, and given they stated it in their manifesto, you could say that they were mandated to do it. Whether they are doing it in the best way is another story.

    And now regarding the "rich". This hated 1% pays for "a third" of all tax receipts. The 50p tax, given few people were liable for it brought very little, and may even have ended up in a negative as many rich people just left for that fiscal year. You can call it a fine rather than a tax and it was the last ditch political maneuver from the exiting government.

    The rich didn't steel from you. Stop looking for someone to blame.
     
  20. Porkins' Wingman

    Porkins' Wingman Can't touch this

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    Browsing this thread, the speakers in my head are playing this quite loudly:



    My own view: The concept of society plays on an ideal, an ideal that will never be realised. By all means play along and debate how such and such a policy will change this, and how an improved system for x will improve that, but it's really just a whole load of diversion.

    This suggests something that I'm not sure you've previously supported, Nexxo. It seems to encourage disengagement from conventional notions of political government, which is what I support: don't vote, don't legitimise the rule of somebody over you and don't submit to someone else's authority. Take full responsibility for yourself.

    But I'm not sure that's what you personally espouse, do you? You've said not to vote for the bad guys, but does this mean vote for the good guys, or vote for no-one at all? As I'm sure you've said before, power corrupts, and if we elevate anyone above the stature of anybody else, regardless of their credentials, we're asking for trouble.
     
    Last edited: 15 Apr 2014

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