Ideas to fight debt counselling fund closing?

bendix

StevieJ wrote: »

What do you reckon? If Bendix had been born in the early Victorian era would he have been one of those Do Gooders as characterised in a recent TV programme and opposed child labour, or would he have supported the Mine or Factory owners and seen the labour of children as merely a means to a healthy profit? (providing he was in a position of influence, of course and not having to go up that chimney).

You'd be wrong, StevieJ, if you thought I would be on the side of the factory owners.

Totally wrong.

The one guiding principle behind all my opinions is the desire for people to be free to be the best they can be, which - of course - includes the right to be free to screw up and accept the consequences as a mature individual in a free world should.

Those kids were not free. They were effectively slaves.

We live in a society today largely thankfully free of such brutalities, and one in which the opportunities for self-determination are available to all in a way they have never been before. It's not perfect, but it's the best it's ever been. Sure it could be better.

And yet what do decades of state nannying do to this? It has provided safety nets and fallbacks which make it easy for people to opt out of being the best they can be, and encourage and facilitate laziness, sloth, irresponsibility etc. Sure, it helped stop child labour, but it didn't stop there. It went too far.

No, I would definitely have supported the move to free those kids. I still do - the only difference being that today the kids are our neighbours living on the dole and spending more than they have, and the factory owners are a nanny state grown fat and self-fulfilling.

lemonjelly

Feel as smug as you like bendix.

However, I have hidden nothing, & there has been no subterfuge.

You just aren't intelligent enough to understand basic english.

That doesn't matter though, because, as you have proved, you care about no-one. As long as you're allright eh?

blueboy43

ILW wrote: »

Making the consequences of over commiting a lot more obvious is a form of education.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-merseyside-11667934

These "consequences" you speak of - just how severe would you like them ?

bendix

lemonjelly wrote: »

However, I have hidden nothing, & there has been no subterfuge.

You just aren't intelligent enough to understand basic english.

?

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:

Priceless. They don't like being caught out, do they?

My suspicions are always aroused when someone seems excessively animated to save something some spending so banale. There is usually a personal agenda somewhere.

We're not so different lemonjelly. We're all ruled by self-interest. It's just that some of us more honestly admit it, while others hide it behind the mask of goodwill and faux generosity of spirit.

lemonjelly

How have you caught me out bendix?

I'm still waiting for a response to how I've been disingenuous?

I'm also still waiting to know if you still want to marry me?

I agree that everyone has an agenda.

I disagree wholeheartedly with your earlier comments that you care about your fellow man though. You've just shown yourself to be self centred, and uncompassionate, as well as evasive.

I will give you kudos in that you don't run away from arguements though, unlike some (Hamish). And I can respect that.

I get a horrible feeling that if we ever met & shared a drink, we may agree on more than we admit.

bendix

lemonjelly wrote: »

I get a horrible feeling that if we ever met & shared a drink, we may agree on more than we admit.

I suspect you're wrong.

As for being uncaring and self-centred. Perhaps you're right. Thankfully, you're not the ultimate judge on that.


I strongly suspect I do more DIRECTLY in that regard than you. Some of us don't broadcast what we do though in a vain attempt to seem humane and caring. We just get on with it.

Jacks_xxx

So to sum up then, we are mainly focused on punishing people by hanging then out to dry or publicly humiliating them.

Either we are so risk averse that we think that nobody should have any debt ever, or we are somehow blissfully unaware that at least half of the people registered as unemployed had a job to service their debts a little while ago.

We also don't seem to know that many people had their investments decimated in the banking crisis, and the value of their home has plummeted too, giving them fewer options if they lose their job.

Even though we are apparently pretty financially and socially ignorant ourselves, we don't allow for the possibility that anyone else can make a mistake - by say paying their mortgage with their credit card because they don't think they'll be unemployed for long for example.

We are enjoying having somebody new to beat up so much, that we can't see what effect unmanaged consumer debt crisis on an unprecedented scale would have on this country's economy.

If we were capable of understanding this, we would see that paying for people to have a couple of hours with a C.A.B. debt advisor is massively less expensive than propping up some more banks who have had an unusually massive number of defaults on their loans.

Not to mention the housing and benefits bill for the people who have lost everything to spiralling debt.

So basically, we're not economically astute at all?

StevieJ

bendix wrote: »

No, I would definitely have supported the move to free those kids. I still do - the only difference being that today the kids are our neighbours living on the dole and spending more than they have, and the factory owners are a nanny state grown fat and self-fulfilling.

I should take you at your word but we obviously don't actually know. I should imagine that it was by far the majority view that kids going up chimneys was the natural state of the world (after all they fit up there) and anyone that campaigned against was a bleedin heart Liberal, to use one of your phrases.

vivatifosi

HAMISH_MCTAVISH wrote: »

You can find out anything you need to about debt, IVA's, bankruptcy, renegotiating terms with lenders, your rights with utilities/councils/landlords, etc, with an hour or two of googling....

....People need to learn self responsibility, and to realise if they get themselves in a mess then they need to do a bit of basic research and self-help to get themselves out of it.

You're a bright bloke Hamish. Unfortunately a lot of people in this situation aren't bright like you. In fact, they are downright dim, or computer illiterate.

bendix wrote: »

Why is it the Government's responsibility to 'get people sorted financially'?

I don't see it as the government's job to fund people's profligacy. I'd rather they spent less money on the f*ckless. I do however see it as their responsibility to provide a safety net. If that safety net means that they give people the skills to manage to put a debt management plan together, stay in their own homes etc, then to me that's better vfm than shelling out to stick them in social housing when they lose the roof over their heads. I'd much rather the government spent a tenner or even fifty quid giving people a bit of financial counselling than spend thousands feeding, clothing and housing them.

nutsohazelnuts

This latest cut is so moronically short sighted, and economically catastrophic that it beggars belief. I am in wholehearted support of your campaign, Martin.

Have we all forgotten that people and businesses defaulting on their debts was what brought on this recession in the first place?

The Citizens Advice Bureau, and organisations like it, help people manage their debts. Without them I believe there would be a huge increase in defaults, more bank bailouts and in addition, all the concomitant expensive social mess to pay for.

It's idiocy at it's most staggering.