Not in front of the kids Early Day Motion

Jazzycat

Michaels,

there may be some validity in you comments to the fluctaution percentages being higher, but I think we are getting too bogged down in technicalities.

The primary issue which this is all about is should credit firms be able to advertise on a childrens television channel. Common sense answer is no.

Debt throughout life if one of it's certanties. The main one being a mortgage, but this is unavoidable unless you win the lottery. The issue is how you deal with debt and how you view it - good or bad. A mortgage is an acceptable debt with a reward at the end (unless you have an endowment!), it's not frittered money that has never been managed. It all about working within your means.

Education (tuition fees) debt is deplorable - I despise the system where people have to self fund themselves to obtain a higher level of education. But students for the last few hundred years have not overstrectched themselves financially to create a future mountain of debt. What did students do in the 60's and 70's when debt was not really so much of an option. Sadly today we portray a culture where you can "have it all, and have it now", no-one saves for things in the same way and our whole approach to debt is that it's ok. Well sorry it's not a desirable future we build for our children.

michaels

@Jazzycat - off topic a little but if there is no price to further educationfor the student then subject choice tends to be driven by what people want to do rather than what the country needs - hence the increase in courses that offer few job prospects and the simultaneous reduction in engineering, physics etc. In the US where the proportion with higher education is far higher, people pick and choose courses that will make them more employable.

Jazzycat

people should always do what interests them. Freedom of choice in the modern world is where we are. Shortage of skills in certain fields of employment creates an increased demand and in turn higher salaries. Students then going through senior schools will be able to see if their interest are likely to get them a well paid job or not. Its then then all down to personal choice

wilbur111

This is utter nonsense. From Martin's bit on this subject:

"My partner's wants to buy a car. My eldest son (age 8) pipes up 'go to Yes Car Credit, as anyone can get a car off them'.
"I said 'oh yes, and what exactly should we use to pay them back' and he said "don't worry, they make sure it's an affordable monthly payment".

Who was being irresponsible? The partner wants to buy a car that he apparantly can't afford, the child - having been educated as to the existence of finance options, consolidation, and alternative solutions etc - suggested a solution in the form of a finance option.
The child was then "educated" by the parent with sarcastic shrieks of "and just how am I going to pay for that". In my experience, the child would then be thinking "there's no need to get sarcy, I was only trying to help."

The mother's shrieks are surely as much an education as calmly sitting down and saying "now look, dear, when it comes to finance options there are so many more factors to consider. Indeed, if we look at this graph..."
It may even be better because the child can't be bothered sitting down and learning about such bobbins, he was simply trying to help.

As for educating children. What the kid has learned is that if you have a problem, there is a solution. That not all solution's are created equal (demonstrated by the mother's shrieks). And that he'd better watch more adverts/seek out other options if he's to make helpful suggestions again without getting gobbed at.

wilbur111

Crazy Frog

I clearly watch a lot less television than you lot or am just a lot less miserable. I loved the chipper little guy's "ding ding" and would regularly turn my telly on at quarter past the hour just to get a spot of ding. Indeed, inspired by this thread I just downloaded an entire album of ding and am loving it. And I'm an old man, too! Ding ding.

Here's some bobbins.
Jamster seems to have spent around 30million on advertising over just a matter of weeks breaking all records for advert frequency. With such a time sensitive product (it's not cool to have such a ring tone six months late, is it?) they made sure everyone who was going to buy it heard about it. And fast.
The average Jamster signer-upper stays signed up for three weeks at three quid a week (that's £9 total for those of you at the back). They reckon (or reckoned a while back) that it had been downloaded 11million times. So that's 11million times £9. Which is, for the sake of argument, £100million. Or around £70million profit if we exclude the money for the website and the musician fees.
Now that's a lotta money.
Say what you like, but as money saving experts you should really look at such things as inspiration. "Ohmigosh! 70million quid in a coupla weeks for getting a frog to say 'ding' over an 80's pop classic. I'll have a bit of that... Now, over which 80's pop classic can I say 'dong'?"

Dong.

jellyhead

do you think they'd buy my husband's ringtone? http://www.furie.co.uk/finalmix.wav

Edinburghlass_2

As the mother of a teenager, the frog advert annoyed me more than most because it is so easy for them to text the number and before you know where you are you have, as you point out, spent £9 minium but you have the kids saying "its only £1.50". If adults don't read the small print how can we expect kids to read the writing along the bottom of an ad that says you will get these ringtones once a week?

There are often posts to be answered on the Mobile Phone board where people are being spammed by text calls that ultimately cost the users a lot of money and can be difficult to stop. Often these are generated by a simple vote to BB by text, we had some and that was the only thing I can think that we had done using that number.

Despite education on finance at school, my daughter does still think the money tree is in the garden

photome

I have signed the petition, but I have now had an email asking me to confirm my email addy.

Is this right? has anyone else had this?

Jazzycat

yes, I had this e-mail also and clicked to confirm.

It is legit.

trafalgar_2

wilbur111 wrote:

Crazy Frog

I clearly watch a lot less television than you lot or am just a lot less miserable. I loved the chipper little guy's "ding ding" .

Me too.............:D