Society's Ills - A study in the perceived inequalities between the "haves" and the "have nots" - The Bear and Badger

Yossarian

mk64 wrote:

You create your own luck. Not being defeatist and negative proves that. Did you read the last paragraph where the "evidence" is essentially created to reinforce his left wing ideology?

Eh? No, I missed that.

And once again, you do not have empirical evidence, you have anecdotes. Anecdotes are not evidence.

And, whilst I'd be happy to have a beer with you, your situation is not analogous to mine. As I mentioned earlier on, I suffer from a disability - dyspraxia - which often comes with feelings of low self-esteem and depression. I, on paper, have an awful lot going for me. Apparently, my IQ makes me eligible to join MENSA, I have people skills, at least on the superficial level needed to get on at work, I have a degree, I have a loving and supportive family and I'm a good looking man (superficial I know, but studies have shown that attractive people do tend to be seen as more trustworthy and get on better in life). But, none of this takes away from the fact that I pretty much hate myself and consider myself to be worthless. If anything's holding me back, that's it, and no amount of 'well, you could do X' is going to change the fact that, on a very deep level, I do not believe that I deserve anything better for myself.

[Deleted User]

This thread fell down a well a long time ago.

Brooks

Has "hard work" ever been a necessary minimum to enjoy significant wealth?

mk64

Liveinadive wrote:

These people - and there are alot of them, then need to retrain for jobs which pay more money. Its not an overnight thing but its what they would need to do.

Is that really realistic though? or even fair? Why should one career choice be paid significantly more than another of equal skill?

Yes a brain surgeon should be paid more than a bin man but why are bankers paid more than programmers who are paid more the engineers?

supply and demand as much as anything.

Its not for me to say why bankers are paid more than binmen, thats the society which has developed.

Coming back to the op, my point is that yoss says that the socio-economic gap is widening and thats a bad thing. I'm saying people who want to change their situation can to a larger extent than people think.

Also I think people need to realise that "the poorer are getting poorer" are still compartively doing ok in this country compared to other countries.

And why has no one mentioned the fact we are in a recession?

Tempy

@Liveinadive I've rolled my eyes so hard so many times that I had to go to the doctors

[Deleted User]

Its not for me to say why bankers are paid more than binmen

I didn't say that, but carry on being wrong.

Plus it isn't supply and demand at all. There is a much higher demand for people who actually produce something, sales and bankers just get to set their own salaries and cream off the top before passing what is left down to the people who actually add something to the world.

Brooks

On the one hand, trying to follow the convolution in Kart's posts in order to correct him isÂ exhaustingÂ to the point of abandoning the entire exercise.

On the other, if we don't attempt it, absolutely no-one else will.

Gamble is: How representative is he of anything more dangerous.

[Deleted User]

Tempy wrote:

@Liveinadive I've rolled my eyes so hard so many times that I had to go to the doctors

That is really holding you back, stop rolling your eyes and you could get a house!

Skerret

Brooks wrote:

Has "hard work" ever been a necessary minimum to enjoy significant wealth?

This might be a good time to put the dual narrative contingency into effect. Â We carry on along one tangent while others pursue their own, er, discussion.

No, no it has not.

[Deleted User]

And why has no one mentioned the fact we are in a recession?

Because the recession has nothing to do with a widening gap in salaries. If everyone's pay was going down it would be relevant to the topic.

In fact the "work harder" thing doesn't address a widening salary gap either as it isn't a solution to a national problem. There is X amount of money being unfairly distributed, if everyone get's a better job the money is still being unfairly distributed.

Tempy

I'm one of the few who would be happy to rent forever, conditions being comfortable enough. Re: home owning of course.

monkey

mk64 wrote:

supply and demand as much as anything.

Its not for me to say why bankers are paid more than binmen, thats the society which has developed.

Incorrect and the crux of this thread. Both wealth and poverty are self-sustaining. It is not supply and demand that inflates pay in finance. It is from control over the machinery of wealth. Bankers control the supply. Their wealth is not beholden to market forces in the same way as a footballers wages might be.

[Deleted User]

Tempy wrote:

I'm one of the few who would be happy to rent forever, conditions being comfortable enough. Re: home owning of course.

I would be fine renting, as long as you land decent landlords then why not. Unfortunately there are many a cunt lord out there, the type who take 3 days to send a guy over to fix a boiler mid-winter.

mk64

yoss, you've just summed up your situation very well.

And, whilst I'd be happy to have a beer with you, your situation is not analogous to mine. As I mentioned earlier on, I suffer from a disability - dyspraxia - which often comes with feelings of low self-esteem and depression. I, on paper, have an awful lot going for me. Apparently, my IQ makes me eligible to join MENSA, I have people skills, at least on the superficial level needed to get on at work, I have a degree, I have a loving and supportive family and I'm a good looking man (superficial I know, but studies have shown that attractive people do tend to be seen as more trustworthy and get on better in life). But, none of this takes away from the fact that I pretty much hate myself and consider myself to be worthless. If anything's holding me back, that's it, and no amount of 'well, you could do X' is going to change the fact that, on a very deep level, I do not believe that I deserve anything better for myself.

I dont know much about what jobs people can do with disability x or y. Make the best of the situation you are in is the only thing I would expect. And again, in your specific example of wanting to buy a house, find someone else to buy with. Not doing/allowing/accepting that, is what is currently holding you back from doing that. It might be a short term move for a longer term plan.

Coming back to DS's point in line with this. Being born or getting a disability is not what i'm referring to about making your own luck. Of course you dont luck yourself to a disability. But i am saying that if you have a disability you can still create your own luck/make the best of the situation, even it appears to be a more limiting starting point.

Brooks

Is that a platitude, well gosh.

A thing of possible use to take from what Griff's been trying to articulate is how teachable restraint/self-control/heightened responsibility is in 2013. My suspicion is the world is simply too noisy withÂ aspirationalÂ distractions for any such programme to work out. Expecting people to scale back in a context which has no interest in lowering its incentives to consume? Really?

mk64

Liveinadive wrote:

Tempy wrote:

I'm one of the few who would be happy to rent forever, conditions being comfortable enough. Re: home owning of course.

I would be fine renting, as long as you land decent landlords then why not. Unfortunately there are many a cunt lord out there, the type who take 3 days to send a guy over to fix a boiler mid-winter.

speak to your landlord, explain to him that you would like the details of the guy he uses so you can contact them directly on his behalf when something goes wrong. That way you have the control and yet he gets invoiced.

Tempy

My dad works with people who have zero muscle control in their entire body, and are fed through tubes. Luck!

mk64

where's luck there tempy?

mistercrayon

Rent forever is fine until you retire and your income evaporates and that place you rented your whole life is taken from you.

Dark Soldier

mk64 wrote:

I'm implying he's off topic. Nothing more.

How is it off topic when its my own views?

SHIT I'LL TRY HARDER AT THIS THREAD

To give a more on topic view point, my dad was a tank commander for eleven years. He got offered training and such to become a helicopter pilot thingy guy for the Army when he was time was up, something he still bangs on about to this day as one of his few regrets. He turned it down as my mam had just given birth to me, he wanted time with the family and knew he'd end up overseas quite often, and upon leaving the Army he ended up unemployed for nearly two years with my mother on minimum salary, before he was forced to take a job in a toilet roll manufacturing plant. He tried daily for work, he's highly intelligent, but I guess he shoulda just taken that dream job because ACHIEVEMENT

Fucker didn't try hard enough innit. Now I know.

Skerret

@Brooks: I seem to be heading in that direction.

Brooks

Does anyone actively choose to make less than "the best of a situation"? By what metric? Incredible.

[Deleted User]

mk64 wrote:

Liveinadive wrote:

Tempy wrote:

I'm one of the few who would be happy to rent forever, conditions being comfortable enough. Re: home owning of course.

I would be fine renting, as long as you land decent landlords then why not. Unfortunately there are many a cunt lord out there, the type who take 3 days to send a guy over to fix a boiler mid-winter.

speak to your landlord, explain to him that you would like the details of the guy he uses so you can contact them directly on his behalf when something goes wrong. That way you have the control and yet he gets invoiced.

Is the sensible answer and certainly the route I would take but you would be suprised how that doesn't work.
Next solution is find somewhere else of course but you will have to wait until that 6 month contract expires, then have no idea if the new landlord will be better/worse/the same.

This is another topic though for another time really.

mistercrayon

mk64 wrote:

where's luck there tempy?

don't you get it? For every hard work story you blather on about actually peoples circumstance is almost entirely dictated by fortune. You could get hit by a bus tomorrow and then see where your twenty quid lunches comefrom.

Dark Soldier

mk64 wrote:

But i am saying that if you have a disability you can still create your own luck/make the best of the situation, even it appears to be a more limiting starting point.

I'll just tell the depression to fuck off as well and tell myself I'm an artist.

FUCK YOU ALL I HAVE MILLIONS LALALA

Yossarian

Brooks wrote:

Is that a platitude, well gosh. A thing of possible use to take from what Griff's been trying to articulate is how teachable restraint/self-control/heightened responsibility is in 2013. My suspicion is the world is simply too noisy withÂ aspirationalÂ distractions for any such programme to work out. Expecting people to scale back in a context which has no interest in lowering its incentives to consume? Really?

It's not even a context which doesn't want to scale back incentives to consume. Our entire economic system is built on needing a growth in consumption year on year to keep itself ticking over.

Brooks

Erm, Yoss that is the context. Anyway, we're on the same page so no worries.

pantyfire

Tempy wrote:

@Liveinadive I've rolled my eyes so hard so many times that I had to go to the doctors

You rolled your eyes so hard they actually kept up with your spinning dog body.

Brooks

Actually up until recently I did wonder how necessary growth in consumption was to keep those with significant capital happy, but then when you look at the Billionaires lists and that, a good chunk of them are bosses of major retail entities, so.

Of course focusing on the gigarich isn't quite as useful as examining the couple rungs lower.

mk64

so are you all now saying that all of those in the lower half of the socioeconomic gap (if we view it as wealthy and poor as seems to be the polarised point of view - not that the middle class is growing...) are all people with disabilities stopping them from achieving?

And I also infer from the uproar is that the wealthy should create more high paid jobs for people with disabilities?

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