Will things ever get easier for the common man?

pqrdef

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Inflation surging, unemployment rising, wages frozen or cut, many people are beginning to feel the pinch.

Dear dear. Well maybe things aren't quite as good as we thought they were in 2006. But the baseline is very high, because before the crash we had decades of wages and pensions consistently outstripping prices. Wind the clock back the other way, and standards of living were much lower when those boomers and pensioners were young.

Food was relatively more expensive, and basic rate income tax was over 40%. The majority of homes didn't have central heating or a phone.

And the place wasn't choc-a-bloc with burger houses, takeaways and tanning salons. These places must be getting their customers from somewhere.

Basically things are almost as easy now as they've ever been. But expectations and notions of entitlement have grown faster than anything else.

JayBrun

Ilya_Ilyich wrote: »

... What is your stance on year zero then -- that a short-term bloody revolution has no place in the overthrow of a bloody oppressive regime?

You seem to believe that the atrocities of the Pol Pot regime were justified.

Could you elaborate?.

ruggedtoast

JayBrun wrote: »

You seem to believe that the atrocities of the Pol Pot regime were justified.

Could you elaborate?.

The Sihanouk government wasn't especially bloody or repressive. It was however dreadfully weakened and inept after being "helped" by the Americans during the Vietnam war, and was a sitting duck for Chinese trained and funded communists.

The Khmers received little resistance by the time they took over Phnom Penh. They would probably have got a lot more if half the people there realised what was coming, or quite how badly they had been betrayed by the Americans.

Generali

ruggedtoast wrote: »

The Sihanouk government wasn't especially bloody or repressive. It was however dreadfully weakened and inept after being "helped" by the Americans during the Vietnam war, and was a sitting duck for Chinese trained and funded communists.

The Khmers received little resistance by the time they took over Phnom Penh. They would probably have got a lot more if half the people there realised what was coming, or quite how badly they had been betrayed by the Americans.

It's more what happened later that was a problem IMO. The Khemer Rouge were responsible for 1,400,000 deaths according to Amnesty Intl or about 1,500,000 according to the US state department.

Now that's horrific enough in itself but then you should remember that the population of Cambodia in the mid 70s was 7,500,000. That's the equivalent in the UK of 12,000,000 people being killed through judicial killing, extra-judicial killing or Government incompetence. That's roughly the populations of London, Birmingham, Glasgow, Leeds, Manchester, Bristol, Liverpool, Sheffield and Edinburgh added together!

To lay the blame for that at the feet of the USA is pretty disgusting IMO. Pol Pot and his henchmen were as bad as the Nazis. To claim otherwise is to excuse the actions of those engaged in a systematic genocide.

Procrastinator333

TruckerT wrote: »

the days of scientific discovery and huge steps forward by gifted individuals are over - the challenge now is to control the massive forces which the last couple of hundred years have unleashed, whether they are economic, corporate, technological, or political

I couldn't disagree more. I think mankind is on the verge of the greatest century in it's history. I think the difference between the years 2100 and 2000 will be far greater than the difference between 2000 and 1900.

Genetic engineering - Humans / plants / animals
Fusion power
Commercialisation of space
AI

These are but a few of the possibilities that await us. All are possible and it would only take 1 of these to have the most profound impact across the world.

homelessskilledworker

Things will not get any better for average to middle working people until we stamp down on welfare dependancy, and if anything it is getting worse by the day.
I think it is one of the worse crimes commited in this country that we took away hope from so many people and made them souless scroungers that depend on the Government like a junkie depends on a pusher, they hate it but have no choice.

I know of many people with a good education and admirable and decent jobs who can barely pay for their living costs, so you can hardly be supprised that a young insecure less educated girl is going to use a baby and the fact that there is no father on the scene to gain housing.

We will have to become tougher at some stage, I am just hoping we do it before we are forced to.
And for the record paying someone who is uneducated, barely speaks English and has hardly worked and paid any taxes and NI £1500 per week in HB is not what I call becoming tougher, that just should not be happening.

The day we go back to making people feel like they have worked for what they have the richer we will become in more ways than one.

ruggedtoast

Generali wrote: »

It's more what happened later that was a problem IMO. The Khemer Rouge were responsible for 1,400,000 deaths according to Amnesty Intl or about 1,500,000 according to the US state department.

Now that's horrific enough in itself but then you should remember that the population of Cambodia in the mid 70s was 7,500,000. That's the equivalent in the UK of 12,000,000 people being killed through judicial killing, extra-judicial killing or Government incompetence. That's roughly the populations of London, Birmingham, Glasgow, Leeds, Manchester, Bristol, Liverpool, Sheffield and Edinburgh added together!

To lay the blame for that at the feet of the USA is pretty disgusting IMO. Pol Pot and his henchmen were as bad as the Nazis. To claim otherwise is to excuse the actions of those engaged in a systematic genocide.

Nixon guaranteed security for Sihanouk, got them into a war they could never win on their own and then pulled out leaving them to be overrun. They wouldnt even continue to supply them with munitions at the end.

I hardly think its unconventional to blame American foreign policy at the time for this. The US was well aware there would be an allied massacre when they pulled out, although obviously they couldnt have predicted what would ultimately happen.

Generali

ruggedtoast wrote: »

I hardly think its unconventional to blame American foreign policy at the time for this. The US was well aware there would be an allied massacre when they pulled out, although obviously they couldnt have predicted what would ultimately happen.

I think you should consider re-examining how you apportion blame for this. Nixon and Kissinger were a pair of bottom cheeks but they have nothing on Pol Pot. They're not even playing the same game.

You really should consider your position on this. I have a few friends with a family background from the Indochinese area and those guys don't pull their punches when talking about the Commies. Their parents in many cases spent weeks or months on fishing boats to get to Aus because it was better to be drowned than worked to death in the killing fields.

SailorSam

Diz notin common bout me.
I wuz brung up proper like.

Ilya_Ilyich

Generali wrote: »

The flaw in your argument is that in the UK, the rich don't pay low taxes. The top 50% of earners pay net pretty much all the tax in the UK (that is the bottom 50% of earners consume more in public services and welfare than they pay in tax).

For a couple with children, including tax credits, the bottom 10% of earners pay out -32.9% in income tax whereas the top 10% of earners pay 20.1% in tax (link to HMRC). Even average earners with kids pay out only 8.4% in income tax after you take their tax credits into account.

The problem with soaking the rich is that there really aren't that many of them. Fewer than 10% of wage earners pay 40% tax and only about 1% pay 50%. (link & link).

My opinion as to why the UK has poor social mobility is 2 fold. Firstly British people are stupid enough to believe that social class matters in some way. Snobbery both 'upwards' and 'downwards' is rife. That is your fault and the fault of everyone else that falls for that guff. The second is it is almost impossible for a poor person to get an elite education in the UK. The brightest of the poor (ie the ones that can benefit) should be given an elite and expensive education IMO, at the Etons and Harrows of the world. Perhaps those schools can be pushed into subsidising this in return for keeping their charitable status.

You're confusing income tax with all tax. The rich will pay the majority of income tax in a society where they draw the majority of the income, yes, but they are significantly less impacted by it and by consumption taxes.

You seem to be arguing that poors are poor because they want to be or something like that I'm not really sure what you mean there.

Economic situation is the biggest single predictor of educational success - the most effective way to improve education for the poor is to increase their wealth.