'Collossal cuts' on the way.

[tzijlstra]

Sit on a spike?! You're lucky, I have to stand on a spike and I don't own any shoes!

 

---------- Post added 08-12-2014 at 10:23 ----------

 

 

Not true. I was born with a loving family (well, loving mother), she gave me a home, fed me and looked after me (still does ). However, some people are born into much less and some are born into much more!

 

You're far more likely to be rich if you're born into a wealthy family.

 

It is irrelevant what others have, whether they are lucky or not, you have to make your own luck. I was born to a loving mother and in a great family, but money skills were definitely not high on the agenda. What was high on the agenda was the fact that you have to make a go of it yourself. Nobody is going to help you if you don't help yourself get further.

[Bonzo77]

it is the government's role to make sure you have something.

 

Yeah, pretty much. I think it is the governments right to make sure people don't live in poverty. This system which we live in at the moment wasn't put in place that long ago. It's not a natural phenomenon, it exists because someone decided that's how things should be. Even when capitalism is working well, it's still as cruel and destructive as it is rewarding and beneficial. Something needs to be in place to make sure we all have a minimum level of living standard.

 

---------- Post added 08-12-2014 at 10:31 ----------

 

It is irrelevant what others have

 

If that's the case, why are wealthy parents more likely to have successful children? I wonder whether it's got anything to do with the fact that they can send them to public schools?

[L00b]

If we want to reverse that trend we have to begin digging up green-belts and start building houses like mad.

There's square miles and square miles of brown-belt land available to get started on, before even looking at the greenbelt. This obsession with greenbelt development reeks of the usual leftist politics of envy. Most brownfield sites are ideally located as regards amenities, utilities, travel networks, etc. for historical reasons, because industries on these sites yesteryear needed these just the same then.

As a society we have to accept our cosy lifestyle of the 80s/90s is gone.

I was still quite young then...but I don't recall that the 80s were particularly cosy at all. Certainly not the early to mid-80s, and certainly not in this country, with employment and industry in the doldrums and interest rates in double digits.

 

It will start to get better once most of the baby boomers are gone

Edited December 8, 2014 by L00b

[Xt500]

There's square miles and square miles of brown-belt land available to get started on, before even looking at the greenbelt.

I was still quite young then...but I don't recall that the 80s were particularly cosy at all. Certainly not the early to mid-80s, and certainly not in this country, with employment and industry in the doldrums and interest rates in double digits.

 

It will start to get better once most of the baby boomers are gone

 

yes itll be great when all the babies belong to immigrants.

[L00b]

yes itll be great when all the babies belong to immigrants.

Do you really have to bring your xenophobic bile in every thread, Xt?

 

I was a French baby of an Italian economic migrant (who was himself a baby of ex-colonial Italian economic migrants), my daughter is a British baby of a French economic migrant: how far back can you trace your British lineage, Xt?

Edited December 8, 2014 by L00b

[Bonzo77]

As a society we have to accept our cosy lifestyle of the 80s/90s is gone.

 

No we don't! As a society we have to ask ourselves why things are like they are now and question whether things can be changed. The answer is simple.....yes they can be changed. To simply accept defeat is ridiculous.

 

---------- Post added 08-12-2014 at 10:45 ----------

 

yes itll be great when all the babies belong to immigrants.

 

As long as they're making a positive contribution (which immigrants are), I don't care if they are from Mars!

[tzijlstra]

Yeah, pretty much. I think it is the governments right to make sure people don't live in poverty. This system which we live in at the moment wasn't put in place that long ago. It's not a natural phenomenon, it exists because someone decided that's how things should be. Even when capitalism is working well, it's still as cruel and destructive as it is rewarding and beneficial. Something needs to be in place to make sure we all have a minimum level of living standard.

 

---------- Post added 08-12-2014 at 10:31 ----------

 

 

If that's the case, why are wealthy parents more likely to have successful children? I wonder whether it's got anything to do with the fact that they can send them to public schools?

 

Careful with cutting quotes Bonzo, I know you mean no harm, but my point is that it ISN'T the government's job to provide. The way you cut that out of context makes it sound like I do.

 

In regards to the second point: It is irrelevant, why should we have a right to something because someone else has it? If you want something you have to work for it. This society is going under because people expect certain perks as part of life's gift-package. Tough luck, the gift-packages have long since run out.

 

There's square miles and square miles of brown-belt land available to get started on, before even looking at the greenbelt. This obsession with greenbelt development reeks of the usual leftist politics of envy. Most brownfield sites are ideally located as regards amenities, utilities, travel networks, etc. for historical reasons, because industries on these sites yesteryear needed these just the same then.

I was still quite young then...but I don't recall that the 80s were particularly cosy at all. Certainly not the early to mid-80s, and certainly not in this country, with employment and industry in the doldrums and interest rates in double digits.

 

It will start to get better once most of the baby boomers are gone

 

You get my point regarding the house-building though. Simple fact is that we need more houses if we want affordable housing.

 

Regarding the 80s - I was young too but it was the first decade where consumerism really took hold. I raised it because that is what this thread seems to be about: the entitlement to goodies.

[L00b]

You get my point regarding the house-building though. Simple fact is that we need more houses if we want affordable housing.

Absolutely. The Gvt could do worse than look at containervilles as a stop-gap. There's some really nice and smart ones about these days, urbanism is now a long-tried and tested science.

I raised it because that is what this thread seems to be about: the entitlement to goodies.

I certainly get your point about that too. It's a core benefit of being born to a multi-generational family of economic migrants: the work(-for-it) ethic

[Bonzo77]

Careful with cutting quotes Bonzo, I know you mean no harm, but my point is that it ISN'T the government's job to provide. The way you cut that out of context makes it sound like I do.

 

Unintentional, sorry. I think it still reads they way you wanted it to, but I apologise.

 

In regards to the second point: It is irrelevant, why should we have a right to something because someone else has it? If you want something you have to work for it. This society is going under because people expect certain perks as part of life's gift-package. Tough luck, the gift-packages have long since run out.

 

Your earlier point says we're born with nothing. Yet now you are saying we are born with the right to be public schooled if we are born into a wealthy family?!

 

The fact is, if you're born into a wealthy family and sent to public school, you're far more likely to be successful than someone who is born into poverty. Yes, there are exceptions, some of them quite notable, but on the whole, my point is true.

 

---------- Post added 08-12-2014 at 10:52 ----------

 

You get my point regarding the house-building though. Simple fact is that we need more houses if we want affordable housing.

 

You do realise that the whole housing shortage thing is a total myth.

[L00b]

Your earlier point says we're born with nothing. Yet now you are saying we are born with the right to be public schooled if we are born into a wealthy family?!

It's not a right, Bonzo, it's a life perk. Nobody chooses which family they're born to, still to this day. But they can certainly choose what they do with that advantage.

 

And those born to nothing who make good also have a choice about how much of a leg-up they give their offspring: there's this great story (probably invented) about Bill Gates and his son, and a waiter who informed Mr Gates that his son tipped him $500 for the same restaurant table, when Mr Gates had just tipped him $5. To which Mr Gates allegedly replied "he is my son...but I am the son of a woodcutter"

 

In this day and age, there's precious few left who are born to a silver spoon due to nobility (or the like) alone: those born to privilege are so because someone of much lesser extraction made good sometime ago somewhere, and managed to hang onto it. If you weren't born to privileged, and this annoys you so much, it's up to you to become that someone for your descendants.