G20 demonstrations

[Finnegan]

I just saw Obama's motorcade leave the Excel Centre. I was 10 ft from his armoured car, that thing is immense! Pretty cool got a couple of blurry photos I'll put up.

But did you lick it?

[Monk]

I gave him a thumbs up.

[purpleronnie]

I hope the demonstrators carried onto downing street and protested about the MP's £93million of tax payers money they claimed in expenses last year.

[Thracian]

Sure - but what have they actually done? And what percentage of his actual assets does he use?

Like I said, I'm not especially passing judgement (and I appreciate he wasn't the best example of human greed, in fact he was probably the worst haha) but you see absolute monoliths of wealth in most nations around the globe with more money than they will ever, ever spend in their lifetime but seemingly bountiful apathy for staggering degrees of global suffering.

Webbo saved me posting similar testimony to Bill Gates' philanthropy. And that's not mentioning the vast numbers of people he employs plus, doubtless, other people in servicing and supply businesses that benefit from his brilliance as an entrepreneur.

What's it matter what percentage of his wealth he chooses to use to help others? He's taken the risks, he's had the foresight, he's tested the boundaries and more important than anything else he's shown what can be done if you try.

I don't admire Bill Gates for his money. I admire him for his achievement. From roughly the same start I've achieved precisely sod-all by comparison.

He's earned his money and it's his choice what he does with it, the same as with you and yours. Although my roots are seriously working class I've been in fairly close contact with lots of seriously rich people in my live and one of the things that struck me was the amount of help they proferred to their local communities and aid organisation - not just financial help either but practical help in such organisations as the Red Cross and suchlike.

Greed and selfishness exists no doubt but it is certainly not restricted to the rich. I know a good many ordinary people who are as tight as a gnat's fanny.

If I were you I'd stop worrying about what other people do or give and concern yourself with your own contribution. With any luck you've got what it takes to be an okay bloke given time and experience.

All I'd suggest is that you read less, think more for yourself and make something of your life rather than judging others.

And start looking at folk as "people" rather than "working class" or "privileged class". Cos it does you no justice nor does it do much credit to those who've presumably aggled your mind with such attitudes.

Truly greedy, exploitative or selfish people are to be pitied rather than reviled. Because as you suggest yourself, for all they own or don't own, they have no worth. Not to anyone but themselves.

[Guest]

Am I missing something here? Without money I could still have food and a tv?

Now, I know I could grow the basics to keep me going. But how do I go about getting a tv without money? Are you suggesting that we go back to the days of, I'm a farmer, Fez is a black smith, Lisa makes clothing, Daggers makes flat screen tv's etc etc... we all meet up at the market come the weekend and trade our goods?

Daggers... how many ears of corn would you like for a 42" LCD (Hi Def of course)??

Seriously, you do not want to put me in charge of making clothes.

I love the notion that greed is the problem with capitalism. It really isn't. Greed is closely linked with ambition.

Edit: It's little forgotten that sub-prime mortgages were encouraged by the US government (Clinton & Bush) to help those at the very margins of society get on the housing ladder and join the asset owning classes. That is not a motive driven by greed but care for the underclasses.

I should add that I don't think greed is the most desirable characteristic and does need a sense of balance alongside it.

Interesting, but isn't the ambition and/or greed of people from lower socio-economic groups what drives them to take out mortgages that they can barely afford? Rather than encouraging people to get into debt, the emphasis should have been on providing better social housing.

I am sure that someone who knows about money might correct me, but isn't it in the interest of the economy to have more people spending, whether it's their own or someone else's money? So rather than helping the underclasses, what Clinton and Bush were trying to do was for economic growth and not for philanthropic purposes?

[Thracian]

I hope the demonstrators carried on to downing street and protested about the MP's £93million of tax payers money they claimed in expenses last year.

Bigger than a failed banker's pension that. Considerably bigger and for equally failing politicians in many cases!

[Head Honcho]

I hope the demonstrators carried onto downing street and protested about the MP's £93million of tax payers money they claimed in expenses last year.

Maybe you should move to another country.

Preferably one where MPs don't charge so much in expenses but instead are so corrupt that the people that elect them are left to starve!

[Fosse Boy]

Maybe you should move to another country.

Preferably one where MPs don't charge so much in expenses but instead are so corrupt that the people that elect them are left to starve!

Should we have to settle for either option?

[Daggers]

I don't want to make televisions - I want to make something better - I want to be in charge of making love.

Make love not class war.

[Thracian]

Probably Warren Buffet - but he's another one. Yes, he's given simply staggering amounts to Bill Gates' fund but he's still sitting on another 25-odd-BILLION.

Can you even get your head around that? I honestly can't. How is 25billion even written numerically? I couldn't tell you. Monk?

And why not?

If a bloke earns £30,000 and the shit hits the fan in one of various ways a 20% loss costs a potentially recoverable £6,000.

When the shit hits £25 billion it obliterates £5billion and that's potentially a hell of a lot of bills at a hell of a lot of companies that don't get paid and a corresponding number of jobs that disappear. Do you honestly think the company bosses don't care cos they're rich.

From people I know even in Leicestershire it's just not true. They hate laying people off, hate the effects on the families of the redundant, hate the loss of valued or skilled workers and the thoughts of having to train new ones from scratch, hate the publicity and implied shame or criticism, hate some of te potential perhaps as yet unseen consequences ...

You make it sound so simple and one sided. You really ought to meet such people. Or do something where you are responsible for spending vast sums of money every day and wisely.

A close friend of mine meets such people every day. Not so often the mega-rich but a good number in the brackets below. He's recently been trying to act as company doctor to a long established firm which has his the skids.

His first concern, he says, is not whether he can work the near impossible and steer the company back into profitably in the time available - it's to do enough to stop the guy who started the firm from doing something daft in his despair.

Being rich and having appearances to maintain is no fun when the house of cards catches the wind. But you've got to be in it to see it sometimes. Otherwise you just don't understand.

[Thracian]

I don't want to make televisions - I want to make something better - I want to be in charge of making love.

Make love not class war.

Raj....what about a Minister of Love-making. Or has Singhy got that as a perk?

[Thracian]

Maybe you should move to another country.

Preferably one where MPs don't charge so much in expenses but instead are so corrupt that the people that elect them are left to starve!

Maybe our country should set its own standards and stop making excuses for those who don't.

[Daggers]

Being rich and having appearances to maintain is no fun

Sorry, I'm going to have to pop out for a bit to see if I can find where I left my compassion....

[Head Honcho]

Should we have to settle for either option?

I personally don't think £93 million is a lot of money for over 646 MPs and their staff!

Most MPs earn around £60 a year about double what an office junior at my wifes place earns and nowhere near as much as they could earn elsewhere.

You may not like them or what they do but most of them are pretty good at what they do.

It works out at well under £3000 per constituancy per week that's right constituancy because believe it or not much of the money is claimed for the work they do in their constituancy.

Just because the red tops have made an issue about it lately doesn't make it wrong or corrupt but it does sell newspaper.

[Daggers]

If we just paid them a reasonable wage we could do away with this expenses bollocks - and ban them from accepting consultancies from third parties.

It'd make the whole thing a lot cleaner.

[Thracian]

Seriously, you do not want to put me in charge of making clothes.

Interesting, but isn't the ambition and/or greed of people from lower socio-economic groups what drives them to take out mortgages that they can barely afford? Rather than encouraging people to get into debt, the emphasis should have been on providing better social housing.

I am sure that someone who knows about money might correct me, but isn't it in the interest of the economy to have more people spending, whether it's their own or someone else's money? So rather than helping the underclasses, what Clinton and Bush were trying to do was for economic growth and not for philanthropic purposes?

I doubt that will ever be something you'll need to worry about but some "ambitious/greedy l'seg's" want nothing more than to get away from social housing and are more than willing to work bloody hard to do that.

No-one should have been allowed to lend money irresponsibly. The parameters should have been firm and fast.

But if those l'segs hadn't found their jobs disappearing altogether, being taken abroad, or being subtly transferred to cheaper alternatives, if our industries had been better supported/protected and if huge numbers of alternative jobs weren't being handed to immigrants and asylum seekers in the name of positive discrimination (or anti-native ethnicide, depending which you prefer) then those ambitious/greedy l'seg's" wouldn't have found themselves short of the mortgage in any case, would they?.

[Flynny]

If we just paid them a reasonable wage we could do away with this expenses bollocks - and ban them from accepting consultancies from third parties.

It'd make the whole thing a lot cleaner.

The government should pay their individual a set amount per MP (75k ish?) and stipulate that:

1. Individual MP's receive at least 75% of this amount

2. Of the total amount, 100% reaches the MPs.

That way distribution of the remaining 25% of funds becomes a party matter, and I guarantee the people running the individual parties won't stand for the same shit. And if they do it doesn't matter any more.

People in this thread are in agreement far more than they're letting on. Capitalism is flawed but the best thing we have. Governmental control is desirable where necessary to prevent monopolies, otherwise the free market leads to an enslaved people rather than a free people which is what should happen in theory.

Thracian - there are barely any Marxists and Socialists left, especially the former. The Conservative party is probably no further to the right than Labour. You're capable of talking perfect sense and then unleashing a pointless diatribe against a largely emasculated, uninfluencial left.

The Labour parties shortcomings are from attempting to impose centrist politics in an overly authoritarian, centralised manner that lets individuals fall through the cracks of a giant, scary machine.

[Thracian]

If we just paid them a reasonable wage we could do away with this expenses bollocks - and ban them from accepting consultancies from third parties.

It'd make the whole thing a lot cleaner.

Is there something unreasonable about £60,000 a year or so?

Or are you saying pay them what they're worth?.

[Daggers]

Is there something unreasonable about £60,000 a year or so?

Or are you saying pay them what they're worth?.

I'm saying 'pay them a wage commensurate with the responsibilities of running a country' so they wouldn't feel the need to claim for porn films on expenses, so they don't feel the need to take payments from Pfizer (et al), so the position doesn't become even more sullied and so we might just attract people who could make a decent fist of the job in place of the bunch of cockends who currently serve our constituencies.

Plenty of us can hold down jobs earning that much in the private and public sector - they ought to be on more...but they ought to be held to strict standards and have performance targets (that they are so fond of shoving on the rest of us) applied to themselves.

[James.]

Bill Gates was one of the worst examples to use. He does so much, if everyone with over $1 billion did as much as him then the world really would be a better place.

Oh and Finnegan 25 billion = 25 thousand million, i.e. 25,000,000,000. A lot.

In terms of poverty I think it's important to instil a sense of responsibility in people who need help instead of them relying on handouts. This is particularly salient when talking about Africa. Microlending and entrepreneurship for me are the most effective, long term, sustainable methods of reducing poverty. Not Bob Geldof or some other **** emotionally blackmailing us into giving our money and then not having a clue where it ends up.

I'd suggest anyone with an interest in microlending and poverty to read THIS. Fascinating stuff.

[Zingari]

If we paid MPs more money it would stop them being so greedy and we would attract a higher quality of people wanting the job ? ,

hmmm,

i'm not so sure about that , i think that principle may have been used in the banking industry to spectacular effect

still there is always hope it could work , i wouldn't like to dash anyone's dreams

[Guest]

I doubt that will ever be something you'll need to worry about but some "ambitious/greedy l'seg's" want nothing more than to get away from social housing and are more than willing to work bloody hard to do that.

No-one should have been allowed to lend money irresponsibly. The parameters should have been firm and fast.

But if those l'segs hadn't found their jobs disappearing altogether, being taken abroad, or being subtly transferred to cheaper alternatives, if our industries had been better supported/protected and if huge numbers of alternative jobs weren't being handed to immigrants and asylum seekers in the name of positive discrimination (or anti-native ethnicide, depending which you prefer) then those ambitious/greedy l'seg's" wouldn't have found themselves short of the mortgage in any case, would they?.

I was actually discussing the situation in the US, not the UK.

[Monk]

Just to lighten up the mood a little here's a picture of Obama's car leaving the Excel centre last night:

Sorry it's a bit of a shit photo I was too busy waving...

[Zingari]

i couldn't help noticing how big Michelle's arse has got recently , (when she bent over at that girl's school) ,

maybe it was just the unflattering dress

still a damn fine first lady though

could be pregnant ??

[Zingari]

Just to lighten up the mood a little here's a picture of Obama's car leaving the Excel centre last night:

Sorry it's a bit of a shit photo I was too busy waving...

that's a good excuse