A fair society ...

[????]

200

[Brendan]

???? Wrote:

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> You know what the fellow said ? in Italy, for

> thirty years under the Borgias, they had warfare,

> terror, murder and bloodshed, but they produced

> Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci and the

> Renaissance. In Switzerland, they had brotherly

> love, they had five hundred years of democracy and

> peace ? and what did that produce? The cuckoo

> clock.

And who would you rather trust with your pension Quids?

[louisiana]

???? Wrote:

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> HAL9000 Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > Spot on DJKQ. My work brings me into contact

> with

> > the rich - almost every one of the ones I've

> known

> > was in the right place at the right time.

> > Shakespeare summed it up beautifully in Julius

> > Caesar:

> >

> > "There is a tide in the affairs of men. Which

> > taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;

> Omitted,

> > all the voyage of their life is bound in

> shallows

> > and in miseries."

> >

>

>

> Cock. I've met and worked for plenty of people who

> have made some serious money on their own back,

> including a couple in the top 20 Times list...and

> they all take risks and many have turned their

> backs on relatively prosperous conventional

> careers (wage slavery as they see it)or

> no=prospect dead end jobs. 99% of people just

> haven't got those balls.

There are of course also plenty in the top 10, 50, 100 200 that, say, were born wealthy and happened to marry the sister of a very rich person who have them top jobs on corporate boards, so double whammy (very nice chap despite wealth), or, say, happened to be the grand-daughter of the inventor of a packaging product (likewise).

[????]

You're saying some people inherit wealth...well I never

[louisiana]

... and the ones who go to the school that daddy says, and do the uni degree that daddy says, and do everything that daddy says, because they're terrified of not getting all of daddy's money... while absolutely hating daddy and his schoolgirl-style girlfriend. Not much risk-taking there.

[????]

er....that wasn't my point.

[DJKillaQueen]

Just to go back a few pages (sorry haven't kept up with the debate)....

This is the benefit of having a successful financial services industry in the uk.

Ask those with poor performing pensions just what a successful financial services industry has done for them...check out last weeks Panorama for the details of the scam going on there...and oh then there's the mis-selling of PPI and insurance. In fact one industry insider told me that charges and mis-sold PPI is where the banks made most of their money.

This so called finacial services inducstry has serviced those at the top of it most and left the rest of us bankrupt.....there can be no argument with that.....and were banking not given the special treatment it were they'd be non-existent now...relegated to the dustbin of bankrupt companies.

That's what people, are angry about (especially the poor who don't have loans and mortagaes in the first place), and rightly so.

[????]

sigh...and if the banks had all gone bust and the global financial system collapsed all would be tikkity boo then?

[????]

...still your rants keep me amused if i'm in my Jesus mood....ask Narnia/Declan

[DJKillaQueen]

Emerson Crane Wrote:

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> *Bob* Wrote:

> --------------------------------------------------

> -----

> > But of course they didn't get around to doing

> it

> > before they had children or mortgages either.

>

>

> Nonetheless a sweeping and lazy generalisation,

> which seems to hold up those that have made the

> gamble as superior beings worthy of puting up on a

> pedestal, and something we should all aspire to.

And of course most people that do set out on the road of entrpreneur fail. If we all followed that road who would drive the buses, or nurse the sick, or teach our kids? Again we have a problem im his country where only wealth is deemed to have worth or be any kind of measure of success.

[DJKillaQueen]

???? Wrote:

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> ...still your rants keep me amused if i'm in my

> Jesus mood....ask Narnia/Declan

That's no rant.....it's not even A4 !!!! ;-)

[SeanMacGabhann]

I didn't see anyone wishing the banks had gone bust quids

But it would be nice if having fucked up and still so well paid they weren't exhonerated quite so much (even if I get that it's a counter argument to those who decry the banks too much)

[????]

Do we? The evidence on this thread is that most middle-class lefties detest wealth.....

[????]

Last post at DJ

Sean, I'm not sticking up for them just pointing out DJKQs mad rant was just that.....

[waynetta]

CONVINCE friends you've joined the Socialist Worker's party by becoming unsociable, giving up work, and standing on street corners ranting away on subjects about which you know very little.

[DJKillaQueen]

Mad rant? I'm sick and tired of people exonerating some of the behaviour of banks (MP in his earlier posts described exactly how banks had moved goalposts (after lobbying for deregulation) to maximise their profits with no regard for the stresses and risk they put on the economy). They need regulating...end of.

And no-one is against wealth.....to argue for a fairer society isn't anti-wealth either. But there is a problem with any society where the cost of living is kept so high (housing being one example) that too many people struggle to afford it.

[SeanMacGabhann]

Gross misrepresentation. Huguenot was at the same game. Wishing individuals well on their way to a Ferrari is well and good. If he fails he fails and apart from him and his noone needs to give a shit. I hope he suceeds an I wish him well.

When institutions are based on the same premise and dwarf many whole nations then it's madness to apply the same criteria, even if that institution is made up of many individuals

[HAL9000]

DJKillaQueen Wrote:

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>... there is a problem with any society where the cost of

> living is kept so high (housing being one example)

> that too many people struggle to afford it.

You have identified the very essence of capitalism: an essential commodity like residential property tends to lie beyond the means of everyone except those willing and able to spend a lifetime in debt-bondage to acquire it.

Capitalism demands the existence of substantial inequalities between the poor masses and a rich minority otherwise it falls apart. It was an ill-conceived attempt to put an affordable roof over everybody's head that brought the system to the verge of collapse in 2008 - don't forget.

Carl Marx predicted its self-destruction years ago - he may still get the last laugh.

[Mick Mac]

Was that Karl's brother. Were they both clever?

[HAL9000]

Ha ha ha - your post will look quite silly if I were to edit mine :)

[Huguenot]

"I hope he suceeds an I wish him well."

When accent invades grammar. All you need now is *wags finger in air*. I heard you saying it ;-)

Besides, I wasn't 'at the same game'. Other people have merely recognised an underlying truism.... that 'fair society' is often a disingenuous dinner party rationalisation of 'punish the rich'. The very fact that 'bankers' have been mentioned so much in this debate demonstrates that it's really nothing to do with the 'poor' at all. It's about envy.

My only argument is that this is an essentially pointless and destructive ambition. There is no opportunity for fair society lobbyists to pursue their ambitions until they focuses their energies on the people they want to help, instead of the people they want to hate.

[SeanMacGabhann]

Bal

O

Ney

[Huguenot]

Which bit Ravenelli?

[????]

and my argument was that seriously wealthy people WHO HAVE DONE it themselves aren't on the whole just lucky - that's all. No - ohh they're great, they're my heros; they should be what we all aspire to. Fairly predictably - this has been ment with

1) "Lots of people inherit their wealth" - er, no sh1t sherlock

2) "God what a narrow aspiration...who'd drive the busses. you shallow person"Was never put forward as an aspiration for all just a fact.

3) "bankers are all w*nkers", may or not be true and gawd knows we've raked over it a million times, but not what I was talking about

I'd reiterate - self-made millionairres may not all or always be pleasant, moral or anything to aspire to bUT they've by and large had the balls, drive, willingness to take risks and yes a bit of luck to get there. Most peole don't even try- and that's not a problem, they don't have to, many don't want to BUT they can't just dismiss those that do and make it as 'being lucky'.

[DJKillaQueen]

that 'fair society' is often a disingenuous dinner party rationalisation of 'punish the rich'. The very fact that 'bankers' have been mentioned so much in this debate demonstrates that it's really nothing to do with the 'poor' at all. It's about envy.

That's an unfair dismissal of the debate. The only reason why banks are getting so much criticism is because of the part their practises have played in the recent catastrophe. And it's a pretty global view on just what part they played (not some dinner party rationalisation) by many economic experts some of whom were ringing alarm bells long before the crisis. The banking community were designing products with ridiculous risk attached and seeing the profit and bonuses before the risk they were putting their own companies at. No one can argue with that.

Had there been another underlying reason for the crisis then the criticism would be different and lobbied at different organisations.

It's nothing to do with envy at all.

We don't want it to happen again.....we want stable banks with practises that both serve the economy (in wealth creation) but at the same time don't lead us down the same road we've just gone. It's not a difficult thing to solve. They did it after the Wall Street crash for example.

With regards to a fair society, I and others are arguing for fairness of opportunity, especially for young people. That means closing the gap between state and public school education for a start. Some of you mention entrpreneurs...well if you want to set up a business that requires money, and if you are from a poorer background with no assets you are not going to get that investment unless you have some great unique idea and then only at a high price. The dice is always loaded so that you will get less return for the work you put in if you try, and you'll only get to fail once (because of our stupid laws on banckruptcy in this country that lock people out for seven years).

This discussion is not about making everyone millionaires anyway (that could never happnen). Most people just want to be able to make ends meet and provide for their family. That's not too much to ask. But HAL is absolutely right in how the current system is designed to enslave everyone in masses of lifelong debt. Capatialism has other forms. It's doesn't have to be so debt ridden.

I don't have all the solutions for what we do to level the paying field but there has to be some recognition that the playing field isn't level and that there are some things that can be done for those that truly would benefit and use the opportunities given.

But to pretend there are no other options for a healthier, more stable and fair economy, is just nonsense.