So it's class war then...

Author
Discussion

crankedup

25,764 posts

242 months

Friday 28th November 2014
quotequote all
heppers75 said:
crankedup said:
Fittster said:
heppers75 said:
Fittster said:
turbobloke said:
those at the lower end long-term when they are in all likelihood going to continue making bad decisions
Poor people are poor because they make bad decisions? There bad decision was largely being born into poor families.
So someones status in life is simply predetermined by the family they are born in to? Really... oh sod, I had better get my ass down the pit then and back to a terrace house in Mansfield!
As I said earlier:

"The evidence shows there's very little social mobility (I'm sure I'm about to get the usual anecdotal evidence about some who was brought up in such poverty their diet consisted solely of rat piss until the age of 18 and is now CEO of the world)"

some facts

or something completely different

Edited by Fittster on Thursday 27th November 18:31
I fear you are wasting your time by responding, 'the intellectuals' are resorting to child like posts now. Still making up my mind if its simply a case of their heads in sand or they genuinely misguided and poorly tutored in terms of Social and business awareness. This being the case some allowance needs to be made perhaps.
Yes we are all so utterly inadequate in the mere shadow of the great left champion that is the almighty crankedup... Who has yet once more demonstrated on this thread as he has on many many others that as soon as he is faced with answering a direct question refuses to interact, simply states his word is law and then starts to cherry pick his way to insults!

With replies like this: -

crankedup said:
Do you agree or disagree with what I have said in my posts? My reason for asking this is so that I am satisfied that I am not going to waste my time and effort in engaging.
The other point I need to ask of you is as to whether you have read the analysis within the links kindly made available by another interested poster in this thread.
As for childlike posts... I will just leave this one here for you...

crankedup said:
Absolutely wrong! you should be designated a tricycle, with pedals on the front wheel rofl
In this case you highlight that I ask a simple direct question regarding the posters thought process prior to my answering his question to me. All seemed perfectly reasonable, clearly not in your befuddled head.

You need to lighten up, the tricycle jibe is just a lighthearted response to an earlier post, I'm certain that no offence will be taken and its all in the good nature of banter that is PH.



crankedup

25,764 posts

242 months

Friday 28th November 2014
quotequote all
wsurfa said:
crankedup said:
NomduJour said:
crankedup said:
Maybe, but TBH I had in mind those very exclusive types from Harrow, Eton and the like, should have used different language in my post to make it clear. But it all starts from the first day at the 'right' school
That just might have been the case in the odd broker's office pre-Big Bang, but do you seriously think Goldmans, Magic Circle law firms and the like operate like that? It's a worldwide market. Delusional.
Your use of the word delusional is misplaced, it also displays your ignorance within this area that we are debating. You seem to be very confined and insulated in your thought patterns to be perfectly honest.
Just interested Crankedup - what is your direct experience of how leading banks, law firms, multinationals etc recruit people? It seems from your statements that you must have detailed, possibly internal, experience. Would be interesting to hear it, obviously you don't need to name the actual employers that you were part of the graduate assessment/selection process for.

Thanks
I suppose in the spirit of PH I had better offer some sort of answer to this question. My experience of working in those institutions that you mention is a big fat zero. One reason only for this is the sad fact that I had never been in employee status, thankfully. I ran my own business, almost went bust in the early eighties and worked hard to turn things around. My business was reasonably successful and I had a number of (undeserved) good fortune angels along the way. I sold my business and took retirement some years ago now, but time has passed and feeling a little bored, still have an itch of ambition which I am about to scratch. Started a small insignificant business that will, I hope, bring some sense of purpose and fun to this area of my life. It is never going to grow into anything other than fun but it is something that I will enjoy.

Now some may say because I have not worked in any of the institutions mentioned above I am not qualified to answer or offer any opinions within those areas?

Mark Benson

7,498 posts

268 months

Friday 28th November 2014
quotequote all
crankedup said:
I suppose in the spirit of PH I had better offer some sort of answer to this question. My experience of working in those institutions that you mention is a big fat zero. One reason only for this is the sad fact that I had never been in employee status, thankfully. I ran my own business, almost went bust in the early eighties and worked hard to turn things around. My business was reasonably successful and I had a number of (undeserved) good fortune angels along the way. I sold my business and took retirement some years ago now, but time has passed and feeling a little bored, still have an itch of ambition which I am about to scratch. Started a small insignificant business that will, I hope, bring some sense of purpose and fun to this area of my life. It is never going to grow into anything other than fun but it is something that I will enjoy.

Now some may say because I have not worked in any of the institutions mentioned above I am not qualified to answer or offer any opinions within those areas?
You're entitled an opinion, but if you're going to be closed minded about it, best to back up your opinion with experience.

Mark Benson

7,498 posts

268 months

Friday 28th November 2014
quotequote all
turbobloke said:
heppers75 said:
fblm said:
It really is pretty much spot on - also a very sad indictment of the state of the once formidable and world renowned UK education system.
yes

Unis were already extending science and maths degrees by an extra year to allow for the woeful state of new arrivals, now an Oxbridge college is sending students to a local sixth-form college for an enforced gap year. FFS. Presumably it's not alone. It's time the Labour Party took its tanks off college lawns and let the admissions process do its job. If this shows that Bliar's "education education education" promise led to an education system turning out grossly under-equipped young adults with "grade inflation grade inflation grade inflation" hiding the decline, so be it. It's just another Blair failure to add to the list after all. Gove wanted to raise standards to help state educated kids and boy was he loved for it.

Only the independent sector as a whole is world-renowned these days so naturally Labour wants to dismantle it brick by brick after they and their children benefited from it.
Not hampering the chances of the more able would be a start.

My niece is a bright girl, at 4 she taught herself to read pretty much, excelled at her primary school, had a chance of Oxbridge according to her teachers as she left there to go to secondary - was even awarded a scholarship to an independent school some 20 miles away, all feed paid.

However my sister had a hissy fit and went all class war, no daughter of hers was going to go to school with 'toffs', perpetuates the social divide - the full on Mattnunn.

My neice is now 15 and has been left to her own devices by the local comprehensive academically - she was always going to fall into the magic A* to C category that the government uses as it's yardstick for how a school is performing, so they lavish their time and attention on dragging as many kids over that line as possible instead of nurturing the talents of all the children in their care, including the ones likely to perform exceptionally well.

No way will my neice now go to Oxbridge, and somehow the likes of Crankedup think this is the fault of independent schools?

RYH64E

7,960 posts

243 months

Friday 28th November 2014
quotequote all
Mark Benson said:
My niece is now 15 and has been left to her own devices by the local comprehensive academically - she was always going to fall into the magic A* to C category that the government uses as it's yardstick for how a school is performing, so they lavish their time and attention on dragging as many kids over that line as possible instead of nurturing the talents of all the children in their care, including the ones likely to perform exceptionally well.
This is exactly why I sent my kids private, they were always going to succeed by state school standards in as much as they would both have got at least a C across the board with no teacher input at all, but they were capable of much better and I wanted and expect much better for them. My equally gifted nephew went to his local state school in London with his mates, got bored, got distracted, didn't do well and is paying the price now he's in his 20s.

iphonedyou

9,234 posts

156 months

Friday 28th November 2014
quotequote all
fblm said:
Disgusting. The policy, that is. Just disgusting.

McWigglebum4th

32,414 posts

203 months

Friday 28th November 2014
quotequote all
Fittster said:
rovermorris999 said:
You don't make poor people richer by making rich people poorer.
But how did the rich become rich? Did the have the same opportunities to gather wealth as those who have ended up poor did?
There is very few rich people in North korea

Therefore there must be no poor people in north korea


sidicks

25,218 posts

220 months

Friday 28th November 2014
quotequote all
McWigglebum4th said:
There is very few rich people in North korea

Therefore there must be no poor people in north korea
WTF?

turbobloke

103,742 posts

259 months

Friday 28th November 2014
quotequote all
graphene said:
turbobloke said:
Only the independent sector as a whole is world-renowned these days so naturally Labour wants to dismantle it brick by brick after they and their children benefited from it.
Agree, but the (grant-maintained) grammar schools which have survived seem to do well. As far as I can tell, their pupils are highly regarded by university admissions and the schools themselves routinely fill the top of the league tables (by some margin and regardless of the selective process).
More agreement smile

paranoid airbag

2,679 posts

158 months

Friday 28th November 2014
quotequote all
heppers75 said:
So someones status in life is simply predetermined by the family they are born in to? Really... oh sod, I had better get my ass down the pit then and back to a terrace house in Mansfield!
Are you thick? Statistically, yes. Well done for being an exception but that's what you are, a statistical freak, used as an example only by those who don't understand statistics.

Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility (alt http://lmgtfy.com/?q=social+mobility+uk)

A strong correlation between the factors (genetic and environmental) of your birth, which you do not control, and your success later in life. Unless you can suggest a correlation between those and something you can control (good luck), that's conclusive evidence to anyone but a moron that yes, your family exerts a HUGE influence on your future.

(I wouldn't be so insulting if you weren't being so sarcastic).


anonymous-user

53 months

Friday 28th November 2014
quotequote all
crankedup said:
Now some may say because I have not worked in any of the institutions mentioned above I am not qualified to answer or offer any opinions within those areas?
I have worked in several 'top' banks. IME in the UK I never saw the 'old boy network' in action or 'old school tie' connections pulled ever, not once, in 15 years. It would be embarrassing for everyone involved. In fact I'd say without question if the much maligned Tarquin from Eton did turn up on a trading floor he would need to be a damn sight better than everyone else to survive and he'd probably want to keep it quiet. Of course this is just my experience, if such networks do still exist then I'd expect to find them in private client banking where having the right hair, accent and wine palate probably matters. Bit of a tangent but in New York it's a completely different story; nepotism and the old school tie network is huge, its absolutely shocking. Complete idiots hold down huge jobs by virtue of some crap like their dad went to school with the CEO. As you were! smile

The Don of Croy

5,976 posts

158 months

Friday 28th November 2014
quotequote all
If Tristram Hunt has a problem with the 7% of public schools that are not (currently) interacting with the state sector, then even if they did alter their policies on 'cross-sector interaction' that's going to be a monumentally tiny impact...

How again will it help "the 1.6 million in schools which require improvement" ?

heppers75

3,135 posts

216 months

Friday 28th November 2014
quotequote all
paranoid airbag said:
heppers75 said:
So someones status in life is simply predetermined by the family they are born in to? Really... oh sod, I had better get my ass down the pit then and back to a terrace house in Mansfield!
Are you thick? Statistically, yes. Well done for being an exception but that's what you are, a statistical freak, used as an example only by those who don't understand statistics.

Here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_mobility (alt http://lmgtfy.com/?q=social+mobility+uk)

A strong correlation between the factors (genetic and environmental) of your birth, which you do not control, and your success later in life. Unless you can suggest a correlation between those and something you can control (good luck), that's conclusive evidence to anyone but a moron that yes, your family exerts a HUGE influence on your future.

(I wouldn't be so insulting if you weren't being so sarcastic).
As I and many others have pointed out, everyone knows there is a lack of social mobility, I think everyone can agree it should be increased not decreased.

I am also well aware in statistical terms my personal situation is not a common one, my argument and I suspect many others would be that it should not be so anomalous.

So as independent schools are (like it or not) one of the methods by which social mobility can be increased, why would those also seeking it support actions that would reduce the access to them to those further up the income ladder?

As for the insults, don't sweat it it really doesn't bother me what keyboard warriors with opinions say or do for the most part, I just enjoy the debate! smile

turbobloke

103,742 posts

259 months

Friday 28th November 2014
quotequote all
paranoid airbag said:
heppers75 said:
So someones status in life is simply predetermined by the family they are born in to? Really... oh sod, I had better get my ass down the pit then and back to a terrace house in Mansfield!
Are you thick? Statistically, yes. Well done for being an exception but that's what you are, a statistical freak, used as an example only by those who don't understand statistics.
Maybe the understanding of statistics with some people doesn't go as far as getting the message that correlation doesn't mean causation and that there are other messages to be gleaned beyond the superficial.

What some people are pointing out is that another factor involved is bad decision-making, a trait that can easily manage to reduce people who are already wealthy to a state of impoverishment quickly enough. People in very challenging circumstances can overcome a lot by taking the right decisions rather than what they (though more likely others) perceive as the easy options.

crankedup

25,764 posts

242 months

Friday 28th November 2014
quotequote all
Mark Benson said:
crankedup said:
I suppose in the spirit of PH I had better offer some sort of answer to this question. My experience of working in those institutions that you mention is a big fat zero. One reason only for this is the sad fact that I had never been in employee status, thankfully. I ran my own business, almost went bust in the early eighties and worked hard to turn things around. My business was reasonably successful and I had a number of (undeserved) good fortune angels along the way. I sold my business and took retirement some years ago now, but time has passed and feeling a little bored, still have an itch of ambition which I am about to scratch. Started a small insignificant business that will, I hope, bring some sense of purpose and fun to this area of my life. It is never going to grow into anything other than fun but it is something that I will enjoy.

Now some may say because I have not worked in any of the institutions mentioned above I am not qualified to answer or offer any opinions within those areas?
You're entitled an opinion, but if you're going to be closed minded about it, best to back up your opinion with experience.
Closed mind?? not me, its just that I haven't seen any counter evidence from opposed POV posters!
Also many posters in here are quick to slag politicians at every turn, suggesting they should try this or that. My question is 'where is their experience in the political world'? The cake cuts both ways.

anonymous-user

53 months

Friday 28th November 2014
quotequote all
graphene said:
epidemologist fallacy.
This is why I like PH. Learn something new every day!

beer


Edited by anonymous-user on Friday 28th November 15:12

crankedup

25,764 posts

242 months

Friday 28th November 2014
quotequote all
fblm said:
crankedup said:
Now some may say because I have not worked in any of the institutions mentioned above I am not qualified to answer or offer any opinions within those areas?
I have worked in several 'top' banks. IME in the UK I never saw the 'old boy network' in action or 'old school tie' connections pulled ever, not once, in 15 years. It would be embarrassing for everyone involved. In fact I'd say without question if the much maligned Tarquin from Eton did turn up on a trading floor he would need to be a damn sight better than everyone else to survive and he'd probably want to keep it quiet. Of course this is just my experience, if such networks do still exist then I'd expect to find them in private client banking where having the right hair, accent and wine palate probably matters. Bit of a tangent but in New York it's a completely different story; nepotism and the old school tie network is huge, its absolutely shocking. Complete idiots hold down huge jobs by virtue of some crap like their dad went to school with the CEO. As you were! smile
Fair enough, but as yourself point out, your experience is that 'one person'. Also earlier in the thread I did qualify my posts by stating that the 'old school tie' is fine and working well at the higher levels, that is roles of power and authority who make decisions that affect lives of ordinary people. This is backed by the statistics posted earlier by another interested poster on this thread.
My point is quite simply nothing has changed very much regards this elitism and class since Victorian times. For me that is a total fail by Governments of all colours since WW11.
Its not going to change any time soon but by the same token its an undeniable fact.

crankedup

25,764 posts

242 months

Friday 28th November 2014
quotequote all
graphene said:
sidicks said:
McWigglebum4th said:
There is very few rich people in North korea

Therefore there must be no poor people in north korea
WTF?
The weekend started last night for somebody.
laugh
Lucky so and so!

Mark Benson

7,498 posts

268 months

Friday 28th November 2014
quotequote all
crankedup said:
Mark Benson said:
crankedup said:
I suppose in the spirit of PH I had better offer some sort of answer to this question. My experience of working in those institutions that you mention is a big fat zero. One reason only for this is the sad fact that I had never been in employee status, thankfully. I ran my own business, almost went bust in the early eighties and worked hard to turn things around. My business was reasonably successful and I had a number of (undeserved) good fortune angels along the way. I sold my business and took retirement some years ago now, but time has passed and feeling a little bored, still have an itch of ambition which I am about to scratch. Started a small insignificant business that will, I hope, bring some sense of purpose and fun to this area of my life. It is never going to grow into anything other than fun but it is something that I will enjoy.

Now some may say because I have not worked in any of the institutions mentioned above I am not qualified to answer or offer any opinions within those areas?
You're entitled an opinion, but if you're going to be closed minded about it, best to back up your opinion with experience.
Closed mind?? not me, its just that I haven't seen any counter evidence from opposed POV posters!
Also many posters in here are quick to slag politicians at every turn, suggesting they should try this or that. My question is 'where is their experience in the political world'? The cake cuts both ways.
In the first post of yours above you're asking us to believe you know that the old boy network is alive and well in industry even though you have no evidence and zero experience, then in the next post you make you decry those disagreeing with you for not presenting evidence and those having a go at politicians for not having experience in politics.

So it's OK for you to present opinion with no facts or evidence to back it up, but those who dare to disagree must come heavily laden with both. Breathtaking arrogance on your part I'd say.

crankedup

25,764 posts

242 months

Friday 28th November 2014
quotequote all
Mark Benson said:
crankedup said:
Mark Benson said:
crankedup said:
I suppose in the spirit of PH I had better offer some sort of answer to this question. My experience of working in those institutions that you mention is a big fat zero. One reason only for this is the sad fact that I had never been in employee status, thankfully. I ran my own business, almost went bust in the early eighties and worked hard to turn things around. My business was reasonably successful and I had a number of (undeserved) good fortune angels along the way. I sold my business and took retirement some years ago now, but time has passed and feeling a little bored, still have an itch of ambition which I am about to scratch. Started a small insignificant business that will, I hope, bring some sense of purpose and fun to this area of my life. It is never going to grow into anything other than fun but it is something that I will enjoy.

Now some may say because I have not worked in any of the institutions mentioned above I am not qualified to answer or offer any opinions within those areas?
You're entitled an opinion, but if you're going to be closed minded about it, best to back up your opinion with experience.
Closed mind?? not me, its just that I haven't seen any counter evidence from opposed POV posters!
Also many posters in here are quick to slag politicians at every turn, suggesting they should try this or that. My question is 'where is their experience in the political world'? The cake cuts both ways.
In the first post of yours above you're asking us to believe you know that the old boy network is alive and well in industry even though you have no evidence and zero experience, then in the next post you make you decry those disagreeing with you for not presenting evidence and those having a go at politicians for not having experience in politics.

So it's OK for you to present opinion with no facts or evidence to back it up, but those who dare to disagree must come heavily laden with both. Breathtaking arrogance on your part I'd say.
I wasn't asking any person in here to believe me! I posted what was public knowledge. Before I could post the relevant evidence of this public knowledge another poster beat me to it. Nobody, including you, has posted any counter evidence, thats because there isn't any which rather proves the issue. So I say to you get your facts straight before trying to be moral and upright with your wrong assertions.