The Most Selfish Generation in History and the Debt Trap

Road_Hog

kabayiri wrote: »

Some good ones too. More media related ones will start appearing in a little ole place called Salford.

Yeah, but who wants to work for Al-Jabeeba?

BBC HR interviewer: What is your political view?

Potential employee: Is that really relevant? Surely you're more interested in my skills and experience coupled with my ability to do the job?

BBC HR interviewer: Your political leaning please?

Potential employee: I suppose I'm kind of centre-right if you must pigeon hole me.

BBC HR interviewer: Sorry, we don't employ Nazis.

Potential employee: Actually the Nazis were national socialists, they were left wing. Anyway, how does my political views affect my ability to do the job?

BBC HR interviewer: Goodbye fascist, please hand your visitor pass in to reception on the way out.

dtsazza

grizzly1911 wrote: »

I wish you luck.

You have a lot to learn.

Quite possibly.

Many things will be out of your control.

Governments have a habit of moving the goal posts and scuppering well laid plans, that is of course if you don't encounter ill health, marriage breakdown, loss of a partner or other natural occurrence.

True, there are always outside agencies at work to interfere with plans; all you can really do is ensure that as far as possible your plans involve contingencies for such things, and then cross your fingers.

That said the government is in a slightly different category to natural occurrences; the latter are a fact of life, but government policies can and should be designed to act in a beneficial way. That might require moving the goalposts on occasion, but ideally previous policies will have been put into place that would work consistently over the long term, rather than relying on a quirk of the current situation.

And (for my part at least) this thread is mainly about discussing what policies we would like to see that fit this description.

It is unfortunate that you are so fixated on self rather than society as a whole.

Actually it's the other way round. My propositions are those that I think would make society as fair as possible. (In the one you quoted for example, the whole point was to prevent other people in future having to pay for me. I'd say that's the opposite of selfish, when leaving things as the status quo would give me "free" money. )

I admit that I'll use the pronoun "I" a lot in these descriptions, which might give the idea of being self-focused. But really I'm talking about "a taxpayer/member of society" in the abstract; I only phrase the arguments in terms of myself to show that I really have thought the propositions through, and would be willing to have them happen to me. No hypocrisy here!

Besides, in a modern free society, every member ultimately makes their own decisions about what to do. From a societal perspective, all you can do is give them (dis)incentives to make certain choices - hence why it really does come down to the individual, even when you're thinking about society. If you want people to make responsible choices, making sure they're responsible for the consequences, and removing perverse incentives and moral hazard, should be fundamental steps.

Linton put it very well later on:

Linton wrote: »

People on the whole respond rationally to the circumstances they find themselves in. Unfortunately you often find that if all individuals do that the overall effect may not the the one desired.

I'm focused on the individual (not necessarily myself) because individuals and their decisions are what make up society. To change society we must encourage people to act different by changing the rewards for various actions.

StevieJ

Road_Hog wrote: »

Yeah, but who wants to work for Al-Jabeeba?

.

I obviously haven't read all your posts but the ones I have seem to always have a racist element, is that a running theme?

FTBFun

Road_Hog wrote: »

Potential employee: Actually the Nazis were national socialists, they were left wing. Anyway, how does my political views affect my ability to do the job?

Err, they weren't. Extreme left and extreme right do tend to blend together in the end mind.

Road_Hog

StevieJ wrote: »

I obviously haven't read all your posts but the ones I have seem to always have a racist element, is that a running theme?

Nothing racist there, obviously if you want to find racism then you will find it wherever you want.

Al-Jabeeba is a well used online name for the BBC, it mocks their Left wing politics and gives reference to Al-Jazeera who are also politically biased. It's a bit like referring to Pravda (another pejorative name for the BBC) during the cold war.

Feel free to Google Al-Jabeeba, to see that it is widely used, to mock the BBC. There's no racist element attached to it, but people like you love to point the finger and shout racism, when you have no logical argument.

Road_Hog

FTBFun wrote: »

Err, they weren't. Extreme left and extreme right do tend to blend together in the end mind.

Where would you put a socialist on the political spectrum then?

Cleaver

Road_Hog wrote: »

Yeah, but who wants to work for Al-Jabeeba?

BBC HR interviewer: What is your political view?

Potential employee: Is that really relevant? Surely you're more interested in my skills and experience coupled with my ability to do the job?

BBC HR interviewer: Your political leaning please?

Potential employee: I suppose I'm kind of centre-right if you must pigeon hole me.

BBC HR interviewer: Sorry, we don't employ Nazis.

Potential employee: Actually the Nazis were national socialists, they were left wing. Anyway, how does my political views affect my ability to do the job?

BBC HR interviewer: Goodbye fascist, please hand your visitor pass in to reception on the way out.

My friend works for the BBC and has done for ten years since leaving university and joining one of their training schemes. She's also a member of the conservative party and I would say is more right than left leaning. She's never had a problem getting promotion at the BBC and I don't think has ever been asked about her political leanings, but I'll check with her.

Cleaver

ruggedtoast wrote: »

Right, basically naff all then. Until Salford becomes the economic nexus whose gravitational pull sucks in all around it, most normal people will have to continue paying over the odds to live somewhere there is economic activity.

This 'there's no jobs outside of London stuff' makes me chuckle. I fully understand that there's a few niche industries where you probably do need to work in London. But, and keep this quiet, I have heard of some places like Leeds, Bristol, Birmingham, Leeds, Manchester, Norwich, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Leicester, Nottingham, Sheffield, Cardiff, Newcastle and Belfast that... and whisper this... aren't just backwater hamlets with a pub and signpost anymore. They have real industries and stuff that them there posh folk in London have, like cafes and wi-fi. Why, I even saw someone in Leeds recently talking on some sort of mobile telephonic device. These places are up and coming I tells ya.

But seriously, all these cities and towns have 'economic activity'. Lots of it in fact. The days of having to be in London to work, for most people in most industries and sectors, are over. If indeed they ever even existed.

StevieJ

Road_Hog wrote: »

Nothing racist there, obviously if you want to find racism then you will find it wherever you want.

Al-Jabeeba is a well used online name for the BBC, it mocks their Left wing politics and gives reference to Al-Jazeera who are also politically biased. It's a bit like referring to Pravda (another pejorative name for the BBC) during the cold war.

Feel free to Google Al-Jabeeba, to see that it is widely used, to mock the BBC. There's no racist element attached to it, but people like you love to point the finger and shout racism, when you have no logical argument.

Just a general observation on the posts I have read of yours BTW Nick Robinson is strange choice for political editor for those rabid lefties at the Beeb, he was national chairman of the Young Conservatives and apparently had the nickname Blue Robbo

Road_Hog

StevieJ wrote: »

Just a general obsevation on the posts I have read of yours BTW Nick Robinson is strange choice for political editor for those rabid lefties at the Beeb, he was national chairman of the Young Conservatives and apparently had the nickname Blue Robbo

Nick Robinson is a raving Lefty (regardless of his past), you only need to look at the comments on his BBC blog/articles to see that. Laura Kuenssberg is far better and a hundred times more impartial than him. I don't expect everything and everyone to agree with my point of view, but I do like to think that a tax paid for news service should be impartial.

As for the racism, I do hate that, it is a tactic of the Frankfurt School Lefties to silence other viewpoints. I think Paxman is an obnoxious fascist twa@t and nobody worries about me saying that. However, if he was a different colour, I'd have people shouting at me for being racist. It's very wrong and it attacks one of the founding principles of our 'constitution'*.

I will agree that I can be tribalist, I like my own kind, it's natural to find comfort in those that have a similar culture/view to yourself. But tribalist does not equate to racist.

* For the pedants, I've put constitution in quote marks because I know we don't have one as such, but I'm sure you get my point.