Council moves chavs into £200k new builds

melancholly

life isn't fair......... it should be but it isn't! if you focus on all the unfair things in your life, you won't go anywhere. lots of places don't have a 2:1 cut off, although they won't pay as much.

the expansion of the education system has not devalued your degree. it has possibly created a lot of new universities offering pointless courses that won't help anyone get a job, but a degree from somewhere like imperial will always have worth as it's reputation is great (on a national and international level)

too much more of the negative stuff and i'll start to think you may be studentphil!

melancholly

jamesevans25 wrote: »

What a load of rubbish! If they were a credit to their community they would make some economic contibution. They dont they just create a burden on tax payers and thank them by engaging in petty crime, bringing down the tone of the area and looking like scum.

Moan about my comment as much as you want but at the end of the day, barring a very very small number of exceptions its true and you all know it!

another poster to add to the ignore list :rolleyes:

oldMcDonald

jamesevans25 wrote: »

What a load of rubbish! If they were a credit to their community they would make some economic contibution. They dont they just create a burden on tax payers and thank them by engaging in petty crime, bringing down the tone of the area and looking like scum.

Moan about my comment as much as you want but at the end of the day, barring a very very small number of exceptions its true and you all know it!

Out of the 10 houses I can see out of my window of my "social house" right now, two of them have families were no one is working. Of those households, one is very ill with cancer, the other is a disabled lady and her carer husband.

All the others have at least one working adult in them, it is just that the income of these households is not enough to buy a house in our area, for example a postman and a bus driver are two of the types of employment. Both these jobs are hard work and long hours, these people do work hard and make an "economic contibution" through their taxes. They also have to pay for their rent and council tax, and so aren't a 'burden on the tax payers'.

There are 'sink estates' where your statement may well be true, I don't honestly know as I have never lived in one, but I do know that your statement does not apply to all estates and is yet another example of someone who is lucky enough to be able to afford a home looking down on everyone who is not so fortunate.

Benefits_Blagger

melancholly wrote: »

the expansion of the education system has not devalued your degree. it has possibly created a lot of new universities offering pointless courses that won't help anyone get a job, but a degree from somewhere like imperial will always have worth as it's reputation is great (on a national and international level)

problem is that even in theory having a imperial degree (of whatever grade) should have some value because of the reputation, it doesnt because of the sheer amout of graduates now. i spoke to guy at an recruitment agency, who acknowledged the problem, but he said due to the sheer amout of graduates they need some kind of cut off point, which is the 2:1.

one recruitment agency i spoke to, said they couldnt take me on as they hadn't heard of imperial college and "anyway we only accept degrees from universities and not colleges" :eek:

that is a sympton of the problem the expansion of the higher education system has created, finding a job is now more of a lottery than winning it on merit and in many cases clueless idiots have managed to get jobs whereas in the past they wouldnt, because quite simply they would not have been allowed to goto university in the first place.

Benefits_Blagger

oldMcDonald wrote: »

All the others have at least one working adult in them, it is just that the income of these households is not enough to buy a house in our area, for example a postman and a bus driver are two of the types of employment. Both these jobs are hard work and long hours, these people do work hard and make an "economic contibution" through their taxes. They also have to pay for their rent and council tax, and so aren't a 'burden on the tax payers'.

.

in terms of tax credits these people get, cost of schooling for the kids, cost of healthcare, cost of other services such as policing, the chances are these people are a "burden on the tax payer", just less of a burden than those who don't work

melancholly

well that guy in the recruitment agency is clearly just an idiot!! that is truely bizarre and perhaps an indication that it's not the place to go to get a job anyway. i think you need to just go and get nasty temp jobs to build up some work experience. then you can use that to apply for more permanent jobs. you may not get onto a graduate scheme, but once in there it should help you progress a bit more quickly.

the expansion of higher education has been a huge plus in that it allows so many more people to go - it's no longer only for privately educated children whose parents went. that's a good thing! the downside is more gradutes, but for the prestigious jobs, a 'poor' university will not be good enough on it's own, even if you have a first. you need work experience and will need to do a good application form. a first from cambridge will not guarentee anything.

it's not easy, but it's certainly not a lottery. until you stop viewing it like that and pick appropriate jobs to apply to, you will have a continued uphill struggle. what career do you want? can you get work experience (maybe unpaid to start with)? are there any evening classes that would help? when was the last time you went to a major gradaute careers fair and chatted to recruiters directly? (nag nag nag nag nag lol)

oldMcDonald

Benefits_Blagger wrote: »

in terms of tax credits these people get, cost of schooling for the kids, cost of healthcare, cost of other services such as policing, the chances are these people are a "burden on the tax payer", just less of a burden than those who don't work

As are the people who don't live on a council / HA estate, Benefits Blagger. For example, people who have degrees and are unemployed , people who own their own homes and send their kids to a state school, use the NHS, police etc. My point is that they are no more of a burden.

Microstar_2

You might have seen the news reports today that over 4 million UK households (EXCLUDING pensioner households) have no one in full-time work. I don't know what proportion of the total number of UK households that is, but its a lot.

You may also have seen the item on the BBC where an animal charity had refuses to allow residents on a LA housing estate in Kent to rehome their strays because its too dangerous. Lovely!.

I'm sure there are many wonderful people living on LA/HA estates, and good luck to them, but on balance I reckon they have more than their fair share of bad apples too. Most people, if they were honest, would move off such an estate given the chance.

As regards the education situation, remember that it was the Major government in the early '90's which removed the 'binary divide' between the old Polytechnics and the Universities. The govt. 50% target (participation of 18-24 year olds in higher education) arose from a CBI report in the mid-1990's. They cite the American example (60% participation in HE over there). The Blair government merely took on board the CBI recommendations.

For someone to have not been able to find work for 10 years despite a degree (even a 3rd) from Imperial College sounds very odd indeed. Unless there a special circumstances (e.g. disability, in which case I would sympathise) then I would have thought finding a job would be relatively straightforward; I would expect at least a good set of GCSE and 'A'-level results to fall back on, even if the degree classification is not great. Locally we find that Polish people with a poor grasp of English and no recognised qualifications can step off a bus from Wroclaw and straight into a job. An oldish chap I know lost his job earlier this year - he had a driving licence and quickly found work as a delivery driver, apparently there is huge shortage.

I have no experience of 'joke' universities myself, but a couple of friends of the family went to ex-polys. One got a degree in engineering and worked in the UK office of a US company. After a year or so they sent him back to HQ in California and now he is a senior person in the company on a fat salary. Similarly a guy who graduated in Design is a senior trim designer for a major German car maker. I guess a degree (from anywhere) in something like Fine Art may not take you far, but degrees in Engineering, Science, Technology etc do seem to be a passport to decent employment, even if obtained from a 'joke' university.

geoffky

Microstar wrote: »

Well I'll certainly stick my hand up and declare myself a nimby, snob, or whatever you want to call me. My own house is in a very nice area. Beautiful 12th century church over the road, driveways occupied by prestige cars, well tended gardens and good local schools where all the kids speak English and are mostly well behaved. No loud stereos or people shouting four-letter words in the street.
I certainly don't want to live somewhere with a load of HA or LA tenants, 'works' vans parked up in the driveway (so many residential areas look like small industrial estates), chavs with lowered cars and loud stereos, revving engines etc. Yeah, I'm a nimby and I really like it that way. You have'em in your back yard.

But you used to be one of them did you not?

Pont

Benefits_Blagger wrote: »

another good example of living in gordon browns miracle economy and labours idea of social justice. in this country people are no longer rewarded for their ability, but instead to whom and when they were born.

what does it feel like to have done all that hard work, get a good job and still not afford a home and society still consider you as part of the "underclass"

pretty !!!!!! isnt it ? and people wonder why others give up.

Hmmm - don't consider myself and my children to be part of the 'underclass' but your point of giving up rings true at times. I have worked hard to get to the place I am now (getting by, no debt) and my children have been raised with the same work ethic. However, when the HA house a total !!!!!! next door to us it does make me want to spit. It makes me mad to think not only does this guy make our lives hell, I'm paying for him to do so!

A slight deviation here, but to add to my general feeling of being p***** off, I find my eldest can't get EMA because she was advanced a year in school (see my earlier post), so much for working hard and being rewarded for her ability. It does make you feel like chucking in the towel at times. Hey, ho!