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Rich and the Poor
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Rich and the Poor

litkey
Kant's retarded son

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Posted 09/29/08 - 04:12 PM: Subject: Rich and the Poor	#1
Here is a report that I cut and pasted from the BBC news page: the intro - Millions of children in the UK are living in, or on the brink of, poverty, a report claims. The Campaign to End Child Poverty says some 5,500,000 children are in families that are classed as "struggling". The parliamentary constituency with the highest number of children in, or close to, poverty is Birmingham Ladywood, with 81% (28,420 individuals). The campaign classes households in poverty if they are living on just under £10 per person per day. - - - - And here is a snippet from the Times onLine: --The richest 1,000 people in Britain have seen their wealth quadruple under Labour, according to The Sunday Times Rich List published today. Even under Gordon Brown’s brief premiership their fortunes have soared by 15%, just as the financial squeeze and faltering house prices have hit ordinary people. Now. how can this be? The labour party said, that when they were coming into government they were the party for equality (""), the party to end child poverty - retrospectively one can only think this a heap of stinking horse manure. Ok, outside my own political views - 1) isn't it the job of government to try, to make attempts to end poverty. 2) If a party makes the claim that there is growing poverty in the country, and that they will do something about it, then shouldnt they be held accountable for their lies? Throw them out? But, it seems there is no other party - except the Eton Rifles. A sad state of affairs. Personally I'd rather turn into a radical communist that watch that bullshit prevail.
That's what tyrants get! - John Wilkes Booth Something cannot come from nothing. Nothing can only come from nothing.

Invictus_88
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Posted 09/29/08 - 05:21 PM:	#2
Where is your philosophical point? I must be missing something.

litkey
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Posted 09/30/08 - 06:05 AM:	#3
Well, you clearly missed it good buddy. But, allow me to restate it here for you: A government comes into power on XYZ promise. But, it does not carry out its promises. A "labour" government infact. With a specific history. Specific values. Since coming to power the people at the top in society have grown fatter; while those at the bottom have grown thinner. It is a dark, gloomy, and treacherous situation, a situation contradictory in its very nature.
That's what tyrants get! - John Wilkes Booth Something cannot come from nothing. Nothing can only come from nothing.

unenlightened
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Posted 09/30/08 - 06:58 AM:	#4
Mind if I widen the topic a little? I have been on the edges of poverty most of my life, and there has been a change. It used to be possible to be poor but honest, poor but virtuous, poor but rich in culture, poor but happy. But wealth has become the measure of virtue, happiness and everything 'real', so that there is no longer any alternative but for everyone to 'struggle' to become wealthy. This is unfortunate, because wealth is always relative. If everyone has it, it has no value, and the result is that the whole of the society has become impoverished culturally at the same time as it has become more wealthy in resources. The robber barons are ever with us, and I do not deny that we need a new party that can oppose them, but as long as we accept their values, their materialist and mechanical attitude, then even as we destroy them, we become them. Does not the revolution have to start with a new sense of value? £10 is livable if a widescreen tv is not the centre of your life, I have managed on less, but you have to be intelligent and resourceful, and you need the support of the community.
The observer is the observed. J Krishnamurti "Philosophy, to the Philistine, is an evolutionary process, watched over by some sort of brisk dynamic Providence, and culminating in the supreme insight of modern thought." John Cowper Powys

Benkei
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Posted 09/30/08 - 08:21 AM:	#5
Personally, this sort of news makes me want to set fire to our parliament, destroy all the laws and write up new ones. There's so much poverty that can be avoided if there would be a better long term approach. Government debt and inflation would not be burdening future generations, where inflation hurts the poor the most. VAT is a basic flat tax. I'd get rid of it and get the income through direct progressive income tax. The sheer waste because of incremental legislation catering to one side of interest and then to the next has led to a ridiculous patchwork of laws. I've combed through the Dutch civil code during my study and some of the articles thought "most important" by many scholars are in fact entirely redundant. Back when my dad used to study, there was no college tuition but also no government funded student loans. Now there is college tuition and student loans to pay for tuition (and living expenses) AND administration to book these transfers and inspectors to check whether you are really studying and really living with your parents or not (if you live with your parents you get a lower loan). Just there I can save money. In 1995 1400 people were in the business of transferring these sums from the State to students, costing us 3,4 million in taxpayer money in wages. We can assume the same amount of money is spent by the private sector in wages, transferring these sums to the State-owned Universities again. There's a saving of 7,8 million right there. Now, if these Universities were solely funded through tuition and private donations this would make sense but instead the government also pays the Universities directly. So we have two systems of funding, which is inefficient. Another saving to be made. Or the fact that civil servants are taxed. Really. Why? They're paid with taxpayer money. Just pay them less and fire the tax inspectors we need to keep on the payroll for that. They can get nice taxable private jobs or get social relief, which is cheaper than having them do worthless jobs. Then there are the conflicting rules between labour safety and other measures, such as food and drug safety in restaurants, where one inspector tells you do A and the other tells you to do B. The overregulation due to the tendency to want to rule out every type of risk. Apparently, we always need a culprit and simple accidents don't exist anymore. Or another avourite example: After a big accident with fireworks in a fireworks warehouse in the middle of a residential area, instead of a general rule of not allowing explosive or combustible materials to be stored in residential areas if this would lead to unreasonable risks for the safety of the people living there, we got a specific rule for fireworks that were not allowed to be stored in residential areas when the quantity was heavier than X kg. and sprinkler installations had to be installed. Water and Magnesium? Morons. Or how about the fire regulations requiring all doors of pubs, restaurants and the like, to open outwards and then the local ordnance forbidding it because a person might get a door in his face when walking on the sidewalk. Really. Who fucking cares which way a door opens as long as it fucking opens when it should?! It is interesting to see how government only becomes bigger and bigger and that no restructuring in which people are laid off ever takes place. Civil servants are moved around given different or new responsibilities but never someone ever comes to the conclusion that some of the work is entirely useless. Companies seem to be able to make decisions like that all the time but government seems to magically exempt. Give me 10 years with any Western country's laws and I will save several billions just by updating regulations and improving procedures. The problem is that nobody gets the power to do this because it requires legislative approval and the regular legislative powers are already overburdened with constantly creating new laws. I see no reason, however, not to mandate a single group of people to repeal conflicting, inefficient laws and to have a corrective measure afterwards. Democratic control, to the extent it exists, already is after the fact, when politicians are "punished" for bad performance by not being re-elected. Simply require that repeal of laws shall not negatively affect the rights and liberties of people and shall not improve the economic position of one group at the expense of another. Any measures that would have that effect shall be notified to parliament and submitted to the vote. Oh yes, one things we do need to take into consideration when looking at statistics of poor people is that a number of them are only temporarily poor. In the Netherlands about a third of the poor in a given year is no longer poor the year after (but having been replaced by others). The average stays around the same (we've had a reduction from 2000 to 2004 but no recent figures) but I'm not sure it's correct to consider these transient poor as poor. I do agree with unenlightened's point that the idea of money being the end-all-be-all of social standing nowadays has a negative influence on social cohesion and support. It's not merely a dichotomy between haves and have-nots but also between successful and unsuccessful... it's the latter connotation that is often unjustified.
- How are you doing? - I'm doing good. - No, Superman is doing Good, you're doing well. You need to brush up on your grammar.

Erik
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Posted 09/30/08 - 01:34 PM:	#6
unenlightened wrote: Mind if I widen the topic a little? I have been on the edges of poverty most of my life, and there has been a change. It used to be possible to be poor but honest, poor but virtuous, poor but rich in culture, poor but happy. But wealth has become the measure of virtue, happiness and everything 'real', so that there is no longer any alternative but for everyone to 'struggle' to become wealthy. This is unfortunate, because wealth is always relative. If everyone has it, it has no value, and the result is that the whole of the society has become impoverished culturally at the same time as it has become more wealthy in resources. The robber barons are ever with us, and I do not deny that we need a new party that can oppose them, but as long as we accept their values, their materialist and mechanical attitude, then even as we destroy them, we become them. Does not the revolution have to start with a new sense of value? £10 is livable if a widescreen tv is not the centre of your life, I have managed on less, but you have to be intelligent and resourceful, and you need the support of the community. Nice post unenlightened. I agree, if there's to be a lasting and meaningful revolution, this is where it will take place, i.e. in the "minds" of people. It will not primarily a politcal and social revolution based upon envy and hatred of the "haves" by the "have nots", but one based upon a new understanding of what is of "true" value in life, based upon a new understanding of ourselves and our world, basically. When this happens, living in relative poverty doesn't feel like such a shameful, humiliating thing which spurs one on to become "successful" in the eyes of his or her peers, but rather as a source of liberation from the dominant paradigm. In Nietzschean terms, it will be active and creative rather than reactive and resentful. Until that happens (if it ever does), those of us who think this way will continue to be seen as deluded, unrealistic fools who deny the common sense understanding of "human nature" as being grounded in greed and acquisitiveness.
An enemy is someone whose story you haven't heard - source unknown

yiming
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Posted 10/09/08 - 03:43 PM:	#7
litkey wrote: Well, you clearly missed it good buddy. But, allow me to restate it here for you: A government comes into power on XYZ promise. But, it does not carry out its promises. A "labour" government infact. With a specific history. Specific values. Since coming to power the people at the top in society have grown fatter; while those at the bottom have grown thinner. It is a dark, gloomy, and treacherous situation, a situation contradictory in its very nature. Do you think it is a good idea to flush out the crooks who run for public office by giving them only £10 a day, common public housing and free rides to work on the bus and a stiff jail sentence plus whipping if they fail to deliver on their election promises?

litkey
Kant's retarded son

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Posted 10/12/08 - 10:06 AM:	#8
unenlightened wrote: Mind if I widen the topic a little? I have been on the edges of poverty most of my life, and there has been a change. It used to be possible to be poor but honest, poor but virtuous, poor but rich in culture, poor but happy. But wealth has become the measure of virtue, happiness and everything 'real', so that there is no longer any alternative but for everyone to 'struggle' to become wealthy. This is unfortunate, because wealth is always relative. If everyone has it, it has no value, and the result is that the whole of the society has become impoverished culturally at the same time as it has become more wealthy in resources. The robber barons are ever with us, and I do not deny that we need a new party that can oppose them, but as long as we accept their values, their materialist and mechanical attitude, then even as we destroy them, we become them. Does not the revolution have to start with a new sense of value? £10 is livable if a widescreen tv is not the centre of your life, I have managed on less, but you have to be intelligent and resourceful, and you need the support of the community. Let's get it clear, poor people are more likely to turn to crime, are more likely to turn to drugs, and are more likely to be found in our jails up and down the country. The wealth "masters of the universe" have the cake my friend, and they have both hands on it. From what you say I hear "Golden Age!" You say " it used to be possible to be poor but honest..." etc., when was this, and when did "poor" people start changing from honest to dishonest? Are all poor people criminals? Are they criminals for stealing the bread? I heard on the radio the following words "the rich [your barons] will fight like tigers to keep their empire..." etc., There are individuals out there, like our crazy friend "Cortes" who thinks there is no society, and that each man should build an empire and if it means stepping on necks then this is just something as a means to the end -Empire, Wealth, Dominance, So, you're right, it is about revolution, if these people exist, and are willing to forgo morality -to care nothing for society/step on necks: then what should be done with them? Do they deserve our sympathy? For my money we don't become like them, and your right, it is a change of values that is important.
That's what tyrants get! - John Wilkes Booth Something cannot come from nothing. Nothing can only come from nothing.

unenlightened
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Posted 10/12/08 - 12:14 PM:	#9
Hi Litkey, I'm not talking 'golden age'. Let me put it this way; under the anciene regime, we 'knew our place'. And there is a certain comfort in that, one can be a 'successful' peasant by living out one's life and bringing up a family of successful peasants... That changed finally with Thatcher, though it had been dying for some time, and 'the bottom line' became the only measure of value and virtue. Poverty itself became a crime, or at least immoral, and wealth the only virtue. litkey wrote: So, you're right, it is about revolution, if these people exist, and are willing to forgo morality -to care nothing for society/step on necks: then what should be done with them? Do they deserve our sympathy? For my money we don't become like them, and your right, it is a change of values that is important. If it was the case that the problem was a few people who care nothing for morality, while the rest of us are the virtuous oppressed, then I think it would not be so hard to deal with. The problem is that we are nearly all greedy and selfish; we nearly all want to be rich and powerful and famous and think well of ourselves. The main difference between the rich and the poor is that the rich have more money, whereas the poor want more. Cortes simly articulates the motivation of every lottery player (another sign of the times - they used to be illegal) 'If I lose, I have the virtue of charity, and if I win I have the greater virtue of wealth. How to change that? I don't know.
The observer is the observed. J Krishnamurti "Philosophy, to the Philistine, is an evolutionary process, watched over by some sort of brisk dynamic Providence, and culminating in the supreme insight of modern thought." John Cowper Powys

johncee1945
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Posted 10/13/08 - 02:40 AM:	#10
"The main difference between the rich and the poor is that the rich have more money, whereas the poor want more." There is nothing wrong with the poor wanting more after all they are poor. The problem is these finance speculators who do not work are taking everything. Those who do work are penalised every step of the way and are called the working poor today. The main difference between the rich and the poor is that the rich have a plan to loot the wealth of the taxes through their servants in parliament with all the glib lies they can muster. As well, not content with looting society and creating this economic crisis with their worthless toxic paper they also intend to dump this economic crisis on the backs of workers. Everything workers have fought for - the rich want to plunder including pension funds.

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