Poverty in UK

[Mr Kobayashi]

Did it ever occur to you that 'the filthy rich bastard' might be a good person who didn't shaft anyone on the way up?

Or is that too nuanced for your simplistic world view?

You said it was easy to get rich with hard work. Which rich British people would you cite as positive examples?

It's not that easy to produce a new product, secure funding, take it to market and still retain a controlling interest and get rich.

Or you could exploit labour by running down terms and conditions and exploit others' hard work.

 

[117 M34]

How about we bring back workhouses.

Could make a re-make of Oliver but a real life version.

 

[Indaparkside]

Last weekend i was down on the lyn peninsular, staying in a village known as Cheshire by the Sea on a prestige holiday park where beach front chalets sell, and sell quick for £1.1m. I might add that i got a freebie off a customer in return for doing some maintenance whilst there.

I saw numerous situations, but one in particular, that does make me question the system.
I saw a chalet that i know to have cost £500k. The owner had a £250k speed boat, 2 jet skis (£30k a piece) and a mazeratti parked up, plus a little jeep for towing the boat and jet skis which cost £20k+.
Thats over a millions quids worth of kit/toys just parked up. Mentioned it to my customer and he said “yeah they are just there for when he comes down about 6 times a year. Half the site is like that”.

Now im pretty down the middle like most, im not a socialist, im just a working class grafter, but when i see a situation like that it does make me question that it cant be right.
If this guy has over a million pounds worth of ‘stuff’ just there for him 6 times a year , what else has he got? Whats his house like? A holiday home abroad?
How much brass has he got? Does he need it all?

Give me the details know a few lads who will relive him off these

 

[BeerIsTheBest]

Last weekend i was down on the lyn peninsular, staying in a village known as Cheshire by the Sea on a prestige holiday park where beach front chalets sell, and sell quick for £1.1m. I might add that i got a freebie off a customer in return for doing some maintenance whilst there.

I saw numerous situations, but one in particular, that does make me question the system.
I saw a chalet that i know to have cost £500k. The owner had a £250k speed boat, 2 jet skis (£30k a piece) and a mazeratti parked up, plus a little jeep for towing the boat and jet skis which cost £20k+.
Thats over a millions quids worth of kit/toys just parked up. Mentioned it to my customer and he said “yeah they are just there for when he comes down about 6 times a year. Half the site is like that”.

Now im pretty down the middle like most, im not a socialist, im just a working class grafter, but when i see a situation like that it does make me question that it cant be right.
If this guy has over a million pounds worth of ‘stuff’ just there for him 6 times a year , what else has he got? Whats his house like? A holiday home abroad?
How much brass has he got? Does he need it all?

The Warren perhaps? If so, you buy and then pay a rent for a chalet and then give it back at the end of the lease or renew. Prestbury by the sea. Full of the insufferable with more cash than sense and chocked full of entitled kids like Rock in Cornwall.

 

[I'm With Stupid]

They’re being taxed heavily though and actually working. Of course the money they’re earning is mental but the premier league also brings in a fortune to the country. The very elite are able to avoid tax or pay very little and just snap up all new properties, forcing up house prices and rents. That’s plain wrong as if it carries on the country will end up completely on its arse.

It’s bad for many now but it will be far worse in 10/20 years as house prices will continue to rocket and government debt will carry on rising. When the government brought in stamp duty on a 2nd home they also added in the small print that if you bought 6 houses you didn’t pay any. The current chancellor bought 7! Do you think that’s right and fair?

Yep, and very few people are playing Premier League football because their daddy had some contacts. The people who do regularly get into the game through nepotism (i.e. agents) are routinely condemned by football fans.

 

[GortonBlue62]

You said it was easy to get rich with hard work. Which rich British people would you cite as positive examples?

It's not that easy to produce a new product, secure funding, take it to market and still retain a controlling interest and get rich.

Or you could exploit labour by running down terms and conditions and exploit others' hard work.

I'll give you an example of a guy I used to work for in Blackburn. His name was Tony Cann and he was a serial entrepreneur. The company was called Promethean and it made smart whiteboards for schools. He always maintained he was trying to change the world through education. Not sure if that was true as it didn't explain all the other companies he'd founded that were much less philanthropic.

When it came time to float the company he gave all the employees shares in the floated company. The longer you'd worked for him the more shares you got. There were people who'd been there for 10 years or more who were well happy. It must have cost him and his family a fortune, and he didn't have to do it.

I bet there's loads of Tony Canns out there who don't fit your 'rich bad poor good' view of the world.

In fact now that I think, the two guys who started the company I currently work for made a pile too when they sold out. Both extremely decent blokes.

 

[I'm With Stupid]

If you chose to be a nurse or care worker you're not really pursuing riches are you? And I'm making no judgement on people's choices.

No, but you're also not making a choice to spend your entire life renting because you've been priced out of the city you grew up in. But that's what's happening. Why shouldn't someone be able to be a nurse or a postman or a binman and be able to buy a house for his family in one of the richest countries in the world on that salary? It was possible 50 years ago.

 

[I'm With Stupid]

I'll give you an example of a guy I used to work for in Blackburn. His name was Tony Cann and he was a serial entrepreneur. The company was called Promethean and it made smart whiteboards for schools. He always maintained he was trying to change the world through education. Not sure if that was true as it didn't explain all the other companies he'd founded that were much less philanthropic.

When it came time to float the company he gave all the employees shares in the floated company. The longer you'd worked for him the more shares you got. There were people who'd been there for 10 years or more who were well happy. It must have cost him and his family a fortune, and he didn't have to do it.

I bet there's loads of Tony Canns out there who don't fit your 'rich bad poor good' view of the world.

In fact now that I think, the two guys who started the company I currently work for made a pile too when they sold out. Both extremely decent blokes.

There are plenty of perfectly decent rich people. The problem isn't the people, it's the system. We congratulate super rich people for giving money to charity to pay for the services that can't exist because of all of the tax they avoid (and in many cases, are legally obliged to avoid if they're the director of a company).

Bill Gates is your typical example of a philanthropic rich person. I have no doubt he genuinely cares and attempts to use his vast fortune to change things for the better. And yet how many countries does Microsoft avoid tax in? How many nurses haven't been hired or kids haven't been educated properly because of that? How many Americans have to get into massive debt for an education because the government "can't afford" to fund the universities any more?

The ones like you talk about tend to be smaller scale. The bloke who runs Timpsons is another example. But for every one of them, there are plenty of selfish bastards, and there are plenty of people put into positions where they're obliged to be selfish bastards or lose their jobs.

 

[bluemanchester]

In the end we all die no matter how much money you have. My outlook is work and be happy within yourself, really its worth more than money.
Remember the old sayings;
No pockets in shrouds,
No banks in graveyards.
Feel free to add other old sayings.
I do feel sorry for todays young people as it gets more difficult to get on the housing ladder unless you can get help from family. Probably explains the falling birth rate which will be a catastrophe for the west.

 

[GortonBlue62]

No, but you're also not making a choice to spend your entire life renting because you've been priced out of the city you grew up in. But that's what's happening. Why shouldn't someone be able to be a nurse or a postman or a binman and be able to buy a house for his family in one of the richest countries in the world on that salary? It was possible 50 years ago.

With the obvious exception of vending machines, change is inevitable.

We live in a much better world than 50 years ago, ask any woman, homosexual or member of an ethnic minority.

I don't think owning your home is a god given right, but if that's what floats your boat you still have a great chance of achieving it in the UK.

 

[GortonBlue62]

There are plenty of perfectly decent rich people. The problem isn't the people, it's the system. We congratulate super rich people for giving money to charity to pay for the services that can't exist because of all of the tax they avoid (and in many cases, are legally obliged to avoid if they're the director of a company).

Bill Gates is your typical example of a philanthropic rich person. I have no doubt he genuinely cares and attempts to use his vast fortune to change things for the better. And yet how many countries does Microsoft avoid tax in? How many nurses haven't been hired or kids haven't been educated properly because of that? How many Americans have to get into massive debt for an education because the government "can't afford" to fund the universities any more?

The ones like you talk about tend to be smaller scale. The bloke who runs Timpsons is another example. But for every one of them, there are plenty of selfish bastards, and there are plenty of people put into positions where they're obliged to be selfish bastards or lose their jobs.

And the people that are employed by Microsoft and other huge companies have jobs that wouldn't have existed without Gates et al.

Those employees pay tax and spend money in the local communities. Schools (not the local bog standard comprehensive), car dealerships (that double garage won't fill itself), travel agents (trophy wife needs at least three holidays a year), etc.

Even if modern day robber barons were all as bad as you think, I'd say their contribution to society is overwhelmingly positive.

You are aware, I hope, that Bradley Hardacre and Alan B'Stard were fictional characters in sit coms, and that Brass and The New Statesman weren't documentaries?

Anyway I'm going back to worrying about the PL case against us.

 

[horlock_was_super]

"Many can't go there; and many would rather die."

"If they would rather die," said Scrooge, "they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.

Scary that this still ring true today.​

Dickens words would be relevant for almost every single year since he lived.

 

[Saddleworth2]

If you chose to be a nurse or care worker you're not really pursuing riches are you? And I'm making no judgement on people's choices.

If you have a clearly defined goal, which in the narrow context of this discussion is to accumulate great wealth, then hard work is a pre requisite.

Wealth accumulates wealth. Often hard work doesn’t come into it. If you mean it is possible to start with nothing and become wealthy through hard work then I agree it is possible. But no easier than any country that is fundamentally capitalist.

 

[Bill Walker]

And most of that land was originally stolen.
The perimeter of the land owned by the Duke of Buccleugh is 3,000 miles long. He owns about a third of Scotland.

I don't get why people in the UK think it's ok for these entitled few to own all this land in the United Kingdom.
I'm not bothered by the guy in Wales who has a holiday home with 2 jet skis and a Maserati. he could've inherited his parents house to pay for that. I don't mind anyone making money legally with a business, employing people.

Th aristocracy are worth billions, they are born as the Earl, the Duke, the Marquis of bollocks.
It starts with the Royal family and goes all the way down. The Prince of Wales owns 133,000 acres (but he won't fix the roads and he won't allow any farmer to buy his farm or make improvements), and yet most young nurses, teachers or care workers can't afford a terraced 2 up 2 down in a working class town. Let alone the fucking rates and heating bills, It's a preposterous state of affairs.

Surely it's time for a reset with all this unfairness, class system snobbery and land ownership. Starting with becoming a republic and getting rid of titles. Nobody should have a title. Release 20 million acres of Britain for the people who actually deserve a slice of it.

 

[mexico1970]

I don't get why people in the UK think it's ok for these entitled few to own all this land in the United Kingdom.
I'm not bothered by the guy in Wales who has a holiday home with 2 jet skis and a Maserati. he could've inherited his parents house to pay for that. I don't mind anyone making money legally with a business, employing people.

Th aristocracy are worth billions, they are born as the Earl, the Duke, the Marquis of bollocks.
It starts with the Royal family and goes all the way down. The Prince of Wales owns 133,000 acres (but he won't fix the roads and he won't allow any farmer to buy his farm or make improvements), and yet most young nurses, teachers or care workers can't afford a terraced 2 up 2 down in a working class town. Let alone the fucking rates and heating bills, It's a preposterous state of affairs.

Surely it's time for a reset with all this unfairness, class system snobbery and land ownership. Starting with becoming a republic and getting rid of titles. Nobody should have a title. Release 20 million acres of Britain for the people who actually deserve a slice of it.

Mate some people make out that British people live in some Victorian nightmare, it just isn't true. Workhouses and forced prostitution and children sleeping on flea ridden beds not knowing when they are getting their next meal.

 

[Bill Walker]

Mate some people make out that British people live in some Victorian nightmare, it just isn't true. Workhouses and forced prostitution and children sleeping on flea ridden beds not knowing when they are getting their next meal.

Haha, I have plenty of lifelong friends and family in England (and Scotland) I know exactly how they live, some well, some not so well.

So do you think it's fair, I mean the aristocracy owning on third of Britain ? Having enormous wealth while the working class struggle through life.

Kings & Queens have been completely screwing the working class for centuries. It's time it stopped and every time I see the gaumless twats standing outside the palace waving their little flags, hoping for a glimpse of some upper class snobby billionaire **** who wouldn't spit on them let along befriend them, it makes me wanna puke..

 

[Gaylord du Bois]

I preferred the Sex Pistols version.

 

[Deleted member 13905]

Kings & Queens have been completely screwing the working class for centuries. It's time it stopped and every time I see the gaumless twats standing outside the palace waving their little flags, hoping for a glimpse of some upper class snobby billionaire **** who wouldn't spit on them let along befriend them, it makes me wanna puke.

word of the day :)

 

[Stoned Rose]

I don't get why people in the UK think it's ok for these entitled few to own all this land in the United Kingdom.
I'm not bothered by the guy in Wales who has a holiday home with 2 jet skis and a Maserati. he could've inherited his parents house to pay for that. I don't mind anyone making money legally with a business, employing people.

Th aristocracy are worth billions, they are born as the Earl, the Duke, the Marquis of bollocks.
It starts with the Royal family and goes all the way down. The Prince of Wales owns 133,000 acres (but he won't fix the roads and he won't allow any farmer to buy his farm or make improvements), and yet most young nurses, teachers or care workers can't afford a terraced 2 up 2 down in a working class town. Let alone the fucking rates and heating bills, It's a preposterous state of affairs.

Surely it's time for a reset with all this unfairness, class system snobbery and land ownership. Starting with becoming a republic and getting rid of titles. Nobody should have a title. Release 20 million acres of Britain for the people who actually deserve a slice of it.

The Marquis of Bollocks would be a great name for a racehorse.

 

[mexico1970]

Haha, I have plenty of lifelong friends and family in England (and Scotland) I know exactly how they live, some well, some not so well.

So do you think it's fair, I mean the aristocracy owning on third of Britain ? Having enormous wealth while the working class struggle through life.

Kings & Queens have been completely screwing the working class for centuries. It's time it stopped and every time I see the gaumless twats standing outside the palace waving their little flags, hoping for a glimpse of some upper class snobby billionaire **** who wouldn't spit on them let along befriend them, it makes me wanna puke..

I don't think life is fair mate, it will never be fair no matter what system we live under and whoever has privilege, my point on this thread about poverty is that it's highly exaggerated to make it sound like people are genuinely starving and living in workhouses.

Just because someone is wealthy it doesn't mean that I automatically dislike them, this also applies to poor people.

The mantra IMHO of let's make all the rich people poor people is a bad one, most of this furore is caused and promoted by people who have a comfortable life and sneer at the real working class anyway.