Pensions

Lots of people work their arses off and get rewarded with peanuts. This idea that some people are poor because they aren't working hard enough really boils my p!ss.

 

No point grafting hard with your hands, I do that and don't earn much. Got to work that grey matter.

 

Wealth is vile. Wealth is selfish. There's people that don't have food and shelter in every part of the UK and all over the world. That's not right.

 

Strange that the only people against wealth are those that haven't any...

 

I wouldn't be against capitalism as such if the system was fair. But, as I was told by an experienced economist a few years back, you can't have both. Capitalism works by screwing the ones at the bottom, for every pound or dollar your investments, pensions etc make for you while you sit in your backsides, someone, or millions of these people, are working their arses off for a pittance to make you that profit.

 

An example of exactly what I'm talking about Hooch. We can spunk £37 billion in a lot of cases with no questions asked as to which politicians mates the money is going to but after all the campaigning by the likes of Rob Burrow, Doddie Weir and our very own Stephen Darby, this pathetic excuse of a government can't find a fraction of that money for funding into the awful disease of MND. I try not to think ot things like this because it makes me really angry.

 

All systems work like that. No system in history has worked by screwing the people at the top.

 

Which is why it is an incentive to work to get away from the 'bottom'
Give folk a hand up by all means but not a wasteful handout...

 

If there is a way to end poverty, inequality and injustice humans certainly haven’t figured it out yet. It’s nonsense to think something like communism could be the answer, go ask all those who have suffered through communist regimes the past 100 years. Capitalism and fascism don’t fair better. I can’t see there ever being a time where everyone has plenty of food in the fridge and a nice car and home it’s a nice dream but that’s all it is.

In the words of ferris Bueller words that end in ism are usually bad, it would take some serious out of the box thinking to tackle and end those issues.

 

Give me some credit, I did know that. Mistakenly for some years I thought you could have a fair system that benefitted all but capitalism doesn't work like that. And yet saying that I'm not against people making money, but the stuff I see with the track and trace, the corruption within the public sector that's not right.

 

Most 'handouts' aren't wasteful though Tone. Just look at how much people benefitted from the £20 credit handouts. We then take that back off the poor and give mulit million pound contracts to companies who don't even have to justify it. The system is flawed.

 

I definitely didn't mean that in a patronising way so sorry if it came across like that. It kinda is the flaw though, but every system is flawed, there is no system in the world that eradicates the fact that some people will have more than others.

As for the wider points you raise I'm as skeptical as you about the £37Bn but even forgetting the tracing element what would be the "correct" amount to be spent on setting up a brand new testing infrastructure for £325 million tests?

The £20 UC is interesting as well because all the criticism actually does is stop governments giving out temporary increases in the future because the criticism of stopping it is more politically harmful than the boost in giving it in the first place.

 

I admit that there are injustices at both ends of the scale, some people DO need help but others also have to help themselves...

 

You and Tony both make valid points, if we want to know how the world works just see how much richer the wealthy have got through this pandemic. I just find it quite depressing how this has happened.

 

And I think this is fine but there's two further bits that I think has to stem from it.

1. If you create a company that is so useful to the world and is used so extensively that it is worth £1.7 Trillion Dollars, for example, do you not deserve the proportional fruits of that?
2. If the answer to that is 'no' then how do we actually fix that fairly? I'm not sure giving governments shares in Amazon every year is the answer.

People are getting richer basically because more people are buying their products but isn't that the actual fairest way for the system to work? If people don't like it then don't use their products or services.

 

It's not a fairy story - it's true.
Most of the people that go around moaning about 'lefties' have no idea that most of the social gains that make our current society so civilised and bearable compared to pre-WW2 times, were fought for and brought about by left of centre activists and governments. And all of those things were doggedly opposed by the Tory Party.