Families must accept partial blame for recession?

[Shadowcat]

Re: Families must accept partial blame for recession?

The millionaires I refer to on this thread are ministers who have never for a moment been in touch with my reality yet who pretend to care about my life and worse still, pretend to understand it. I am not generalising about the wealthy, I'm generalising about politicians who were born with a silver spoon and where their priorities lie, they have been cocooned and I firmly believe most of them possess no empathy skills whatsoever because of this. Some of them may as well come from Mars.

[labman]

Re: Families must accept partial blame for recession?

Totally agree with you there Shadowcat. I say this about my brother who, while not a millionaire, is certainly very well off and earns a huge salary as a Director at the Department for Work and Pensions. Sadly he has lost touch with reality as he's gained his money, even though he h worked for it and was brought up in a household with little money to spare. It would do him the world of good to go through what I did and lose everything, have the debt collectors, bailiffs etc... pursuing him. If he could then go back from that position straight to being a Director again, he might do a far better job.

Similarly, I'd love to see the people who set the benefit levels have to live on them for a short, but extended time - say about a year. Long enough to get a taste of reality. Whatever the talk, they cannot ever understand the issues affecting us normal folk without living them.

[meellis]

Re: Families must accept partial blame for recession?

I currently have 5 customers with a estimated worth of £850million between them. You can tell the ones that are born into money and a priviliged lifestyle and you can tell the ones that have earn't there money. Thankfully none of these customers are in the banking or related finance industry. I have never had anything against rich people the same as I have nothing against poor people, white people, coloured people, males or females. I have always said that I dislike everybody until they show me they are worth liking and I am afraid that would also run to ministers and bankers, I would not generalise. I have nothing against the rich being offered any benefits if they have paid into the system but the one thing we need to change is the feeling that we have to have these things because we are entitled to them not because we need them. One of the reasons I say this is because there are a lot of working class people who have retired abroad but still claim things like cold weather payments, these are not all the rich people we would generalise about.

[labman]

Re: Families must accept partial blame for recession?

There's also the issue of the growing culture of people who think they have a right to benefits when they have no intention of working. That culture is rife where I live.

Many of these people actually work cash in hand for companies. At one stage I used to report them religiously, but I've given up now as absolutely nothing was ever done. What does one do about these benefit thieves?

[lee1972]

Re: Families must accept partial blame for recession?

You know, I read this thread and a few points spring to mind
1) Just how jealous are some people (there will always be people at the top of the pile and we are not all born with equal ability)
2) Just how political, some blame maggie&co yet I don't remember Labour changing anything. If there was an economic system that worked I think the world would have found it. Oh maybe China has but who would want to live under their social policies?
3) We, as a population have been told we can have it all and have it now, we were told we had the right (no the duty) to own our own home, we had credit thrown at us , human nature being what it is , is it really any wonder we took the offers
4) I can remember (not really that long ago that you couldn't use a credit card at a supermarket or when my mum was refused an additional card to go on my dad's long standing and perfectly run account
5) In the effort to become PC and a caring society we went too far, but how do we now stop it. My OH says remove the children from the parents and put them up for adoption
6) We wanted equality and told women that they had the right to want a career, in fact we told them that they were traitors to the sisterhood if they didn't want a career. So they work and buy big houses and have nice lifestyles and then realise they have no choice but to carry on working

There is no quick fix, there may be no fix at all. We have let ourselves get here by believeing what we are told but also by envy.
So much as I hate to admit it, yes we do have some responsibility to bear, but not just us, our parents and granparents and the politicians who went before .

[labman]

Re: Families must accept partial blame for recession?

That's interesting Lee. What are your views about the realism of someone like the minister in this article saying these things so factually? Do you think he actually understands the reality of living on benefits, being in debt, etc....?

I actually agree with much of what you say, and have thought, if not written it in various parts of the thread. I do question though the wealthy making massive statements about the 'normal public' and I question how in touch they are with that public.

Democracy? Not really, as where is the choice - as I have certainly stated somewhere, normal, honest folk don't stand a chance in politics in my opinion.

On a totally different note re credit cards, remember 'your flexible friend Access' that helped start all this off (issued by Nat West I think?????)

Also the not The Nine O'Clock News sketch about American Express? Classic!

[meellis]

Re: Families must accept partial blame for recession?

It is nice to see these ministers haven't decided to join the real world yet. Now we have them saying we have to work harder to get out of this postion and they have decided to spend money on parenting lessons. Listening to Cam-moron on the news he said

I wish I had more advice when I was younger.

The first thing my dad said is that he probably would have ignored it like all the advice he is receiving now. I have also heard them blaming the queens jubilee for problems now. I dont remember much of the jubilee happening yet, I thought it was in a couple of weeks time.