What has happenned to people's character?

WRINKLES

I am sorry if some of my posts have offended anyone ,this was never my intention we are all human ,I fell for the lure of the have now pay later syndrome , and boy did i pay ,untill i started to understand life a little more .

WRINKLES

Laurent wrote: »

MAGS30: you should not have bought a house if you could not afford to run it and other things you KNEW you had to do with your life. If you cannot save or keep savings for things that might go wrong in the house you have bought, then you were a fool for buying it. You knew that you would need the dentist at some point in your life when you bought the house, so yet again having no money for the dentist is YOUR own fault for buying the house. Medical is free , NHS. You made a bad decision when you decided to buy the house, and like so many people you are not prepared to accept your own failings. Admitting one's mistakes is a sign of maturity and honesty; being honesty with and to yourself. Think about it MAGS30.

WINKLES: we can still have capitalism without CC and Store Card debt; I remember the days before ANY CC were issued and we had capitlalism then, just smaller. My thread is NOT about the banking crisis, banking debt but about peoples personally lack of backbone. Whether we are in a recession, stability or boom, high personal debt other than for needs, i.e. affordable mortgage, affordable loans for absolute needs, car for work for example, high personal debt that CANNOT be cleared every month is a severe problem and a failling of an individuals character and intellectual thought process. The CC companies still make their 1.5% - 2.5% on the transaction even if the consumer pays off all the debt every month.
If you cant afford something don't buy it; affording the minimum monthly repayment is NOT "I can afford it". You are not entitled to anything on this planet, except perhaps your human rights.
Your first reply is entirely wrong.
Second reply: Greed is a BAD thing, WINKLES, and it's a big human failing when people succum to it.

CLAPTON, Orpheo, Hannah_10: Well said!

Finally: I wonder how many people who are in debt problems still have Sky/cable TV, a mobile phone regardless or PAYG or monthly contract, a car they don't need, a subscription they don't need, a night out once a week with the girls/boys, a holiday once a year that they seem to think they are entitled to and cannot go without.........? None of my list are needed :mad:.

H ow about coming down of your high horse , and walking a mile in their shoes , this forum is all about mutual support and help , although i gave my opinion on the matter it was not intended as a high and mighty holier than thou stance , AS THE POET SAID gently scan your fellow man .

exil

Credit has always been available to the rich and powerful - on the basis that should they be unable to pay, they can sell their stately homes or rich relatives will step in to rescue them.

The working class has in contrast tended to steer clear of debt. Only in recent decades, with the expansion of home ownership, have 2 trends emerged
1. people are more comfortable with being in debt
2. banks have realised there are profits to be made in lending money to the average person rather than just the wealthy

A blanket condemnation of debt ignores the fact that if you buy a house you MUST use credit. By doing so you save money in the long term so it makes sense (as long as you anticipate being in employment long enough to pay off the mortgage).

A car is now a necessity for many people - to get to work for example. If you cannot lay your hands on the cash - then again it makes sense to borrow money to buy one. Within reason!

Borrowing for immediate gratification, however, has always seemed a risky business to me. However I can understand why people do it. If you work all hours in a soul destroying job for a pittance, have no savings, and a leaflet drops through the letterbox suggesting you can have a world cruise by remortgaging your house, it must be very tempting to reward yourself in this way.

So, I can see where the OP is coming from, but since economic growth is measured by money spent, not saved, it's not surprising lending has been encouraged by governments, banks and businesses. Perhaps we're weak willed in not being able to resist the flood of adverts for loans. However it seems to be part of human nature to give in to temptation, whether financial or otherwise.

Interestingly, the abolition of imprisonment for debt in the 19th century coincided with the idea of limited liability for business owners and both played a part in the rise of capitalism by reducing the risks involved in borrowing money. Was this all a mistake?

Fang_3

It's an utter fallacy that you have to borrow money to buy a house. You don't. Thousands of Muslim families don't. They live together and save, save, save until they can afford to buy.

barbiedoll

That's very true Fang, it also helps that they're not fussy about having children sharing a room with each other. For some reason, everyone seems to think that if they have three kids, they absolutely must have a four-bedroomed house. One of my friends has got into terrible debt because she insisted that the kids, (3 girls) must all have a room each, now her big house (with tiny bedrooms) is just an unaffordable liability. The sad thing is, her old house had two enormous bedrooms and the kids were perfectly happy sharing, and her two youngest are still sharing a room anyway as one of them doesn't like sleeping alone. Utter madness!

ukjs1976

Well, the banks owe each and every one of us billions and billions of pounds that bailed them out, so quite frankly they have no room to talk when compared to the thousands of pounds individuals may owe to the banks who, as i say, owe billions to every one of us... crazy.

determined_new_ms

WRINKLES wrote: »

In my opinion people have been brainwashed by advertiseing and propaganda designed by companies who are experts at confusing us to the point of not understanding the difference beetween WHAT WE WANT and WHAT WE NEED .untill people realise this they will be led holding their children by the hand into eating places who have a clown as a frontman or banks all chanting the same mantra yea yea yea , then get fleeced . lambs to the slaughter.

I agree with you wrinkles. I think marketing/advertising is so insidious and am getting to the point of not watching tv anymore (not quite there yet!) because it seems 75% of programmes are just pure advertising, have given up magazines as they are designed to make us dissatisfied with what we have and believe if we "just bought this we would almost be good enough". I'm becoming very marxist at the moment because of it all, and think that these thoughts of needing to have everything (smoke screens really) are the pervasive ideology of a capitalist society (marx's theory of commodity fetishism has always struck a cord with me). Therefore its not really people's fault that they have brought into the ideology of the system they live in - we are programmed to think within the paradymes (sorry too early to spell!) of our culture.

I think it is harsh to lay such strong critism on ppl for beleiving the ideology of our society - if we're alway told something is right then we will believe it. Actually as human's the majority of ppl are not free thinking (its been studied and we actually only think things we know are thoughts). Anyway I get pulled into philosophical thoughts too easily!!!

Interestingly - although deviating from the topic. I think we are entering into the "double dip recession" labour warned about. I work for a company that is funded by a part of central gov - administered at local gov level. Last week we got called into a meeting with the CEO and some of our contracts have been axed (we work with vulnerable ppl) and only specific groups will continue to be funded. 49 of my colleagues were out of a job (250 in the company) and its happening all over. How can the gov think that by axing jobs the economy will recover? I predict the recession is going to get much worse...

And with regard to children - they have always been a big concern to adults. I studied youth culture for a while at uni and the same thoughts of an out of control youth have been around for centuries. What about the youth of the 50s & 60s? Major concern for the adults of the time and they've turned out ok for the most.

Ok just my thoughts on a lazy sunday morning :rotfl:(this is what my poor oh has to put up with!)

WRINKLES

determined_new_ms wrote: »

I agree with you wrinkles. I think marketing/advertising is so insidious and am getting to the point of not watching tv anymore (not quite there yet!) because it seems 75% of programmes are just pure advertising, have given up magazines as they are designed to make us dissatisfied with what we have and believe if we "just bought this we would almost be good enough". I'm becoming very marxist at the moment because of it all, and think that these thoughts of needing to have everything (smoke screens really) are the pervasive ideology of a capitalist society (marx's theory of commodity fetishism has always struck a cord with me). Therefore its not really people's fault that they have brought into the ideology of the system they live in - we are programmed to think within the paradymes (sorry too early to spell!) of our culture.

I think it is harsh to lay such strong critism on ppl for beleiving the ideology of our society - if we're alway told something is right then we will believe it. Actually as human's the majority of ppl are not free thinking (its been studied and we actually only think things we know are thoughts). Anyway I get pulled into philosophical thoughts too easily!!!

Interestingly - although deviating from the topic. I think we are entering into the "double dip recession" labour warned about. I work for a company that is funded by a part of central gov - administered at local gov level. Last week we got called into a meeting with the CEO and some of our contracts have been axed (we work with vulnerable ppl) and only specific groups will continue to be funded. 49 of my colleagues were out of a job (250 in the company) and its happening all over. How can the gov think that by axing jobs the economy will recover? I predict the recession is going to get much worse...

And with regard to children - they have always been a big concern to adults. I studied youth culture for a while at uni and the same thoughts of an out of control youth have been around for centuries. What about the youth of the 50s & 60s? Major concern for the adults of the time and they've turned out ok for the most.

Ok just my thoughts on a lazy sunday morning :rotfl:(this is what my poor oh has to put up with!)

I dont normally write long posts but i will make an exeption this one time, I remember the mods and rockers fighting in the town centers , they also caused great distress to families at the seaside as they charged through the towns and along the promenade ,before them we had teddy boys , there will always be disenchanted youth , The problem will never get better while governments fail again and again to properly educate the youth of this country , Parents have been blamed for lack of discipline, the same parents who were failed by the state who left school sometimes unable to read and write then left to rot on run down council estates with no hope of a future ,they became the dole scroungers who refused tobe wage slaves instead many turned to crime , some council estates became no go areas for anyone but the left overs from the failed education system ,Then came Margarette Thatcher , The iron lady she cunningly gave people the right to buy the council house they lived in , Many took advantage stayed for the required time then escaped by selling and moving forever gratefull to Thatcher ,She then kicked her new loyal band of voters in the teeth by altering the property tax system , she called this Poll Tax ,for thoes too young to remember it meant that every person in a household old enough to be a taxpayer would be required to pay the tax whether they had an income or not, i stood on doorsteps and defended people against the baillifs ,I never paid the poll tax , Thatcher eventually had to resign ,Greedy household name companies with the aid of government started to take apart the industries that this country was built from , they realised they could set up factories in foreign countries and make the tatty products that they sell and pay poverty wages, then import them back into this country thus making fabulous proffits . industry after industry went this way untill this country now relies on banking , finance and tourism, this brings us to the present day where the bubble burst , who foots the bill for this , you do your children will ,and probably your grandchildren will.this is an over simplified version of events but if i told it like it was then this would be a book.

FlyBoy

So many of you have missed the point of my Thread.

Maybe that's the point, so many of you have missed the point of my Thread and are actually proving me right in doing so...

... which is really sad for society in the short, medium and long term.

determined_new_ms

crawls out of the room, head hung in shame...

just wanted to add that its all part of the rich tapestry of life that we interpret things differently, and a wonderfully nice part of many ppl's character that things that maybe come across as harsh are interpreted less harshly and the author given the bennefit of the doubt