What's wrong with Britain 2012

[Halb]

highway said:

Our natural predators, such as they are, seem to be the underclass. Those who dont contribute (dont want to contribute) and ruin the lives of those they interact with, neighbours, those they breed with even those they engage in a bit of road rage with.

Along with people at the top who make unwise financial decisions (for short term gain? to massage the market to suit them? to squeeze maximum profit till the pips squeak?), and then are not held accountable.

All the offenders thus far discussed have been at the bottom of the social scale, but there are blaggards at the top as well. Lack of regulation has been one issue that has not been mentioned, and imo also the fanatical obsession with maximising profits and stripping companies (or insert whatever) of assets to feed capricious shareholders is another.
Yes there is an issue with the 'sense of entitlement', but it's not only one set of people who have that affliction, a lack of responsibility coupled with a zealous thirst for money is has also taken it's tolls on the country.
I would also add the obsession with stats, where the tail wags the dog scenario always happens, because humans are human, and stats when over relied on as the solitary benchmark will only ever produce people who are good at giving good stats, and not the original job at hand.

This is a doc that deals with the stats obsessed culture that occurred in the UK
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Trap_%28televisio...

[Fatman2]

The sad truth is that this country is going downhill because of most of us. Pointing the finger just helps us to feel better about our own misgivings.

Each and every one of us has created/contributed to the society that we live. We will always have crime and it's not always down to the underclasses. We work for unscrupulous bds that don't give a st about anyone and fk people over on a daily basis. We've created the 'on tick' culture by creating the market need. We spoil our kids to the point where they think 'stuff' just arrives and so can't be bothered to work for anything. We keep up with the Jones', get stuck in the rat race, neglect our families and then wonder why our kids go off the wall.

We are living the dream.

[ExChrispy Porker]

Fatman2 said:

The sad truth is that this country is going downhill because of most of us. Pointing the finger just helps us to feel better about our own misgivings.

Each and every one of us has created/contributed to the society that we live. We will always have crime and it's not always down to the underclasses. We work for unscrupulous bds that don't give a st about anyone and fk people over on a daily basis. We've created the 'on tick' culture by creating the market need. We spoil our kids to the point where they think 'stuff' just arrives and so can't be bothered to work for anything. We keep up with the Jones', get stuck in the rat race, neglect our families and then wonder why our kids go off the wall.

We are living the dream.

I must say that I don't recognise myself in your last 2 sentences. And apart from a few quid on a credit card and a mortgage I don't subscribe to the 'on tick' culture either.

[highway]

There a loads, as in hundreds do thousands who are living on credit though. At the bottom end of the scale it's payday loans. Nearer the middle it's people on mediocre incomes living in houses that were high value, servicing enormous interest only mortgages. They are only able to do this as interest levels are historically low.

I wouldn't be surprised if interest only mortgages, which are currently de rigeur, end up despised and derided in the same way endowment based mortgages, once beloved of the masses, are now.

[fildigger]

Get some Debt !....if you can't pay it back, just rob a bank or declare yourself bankrupt.....worked OK for the last Government that was in power

[SpeedMattersNot]

Does finance count as debt?

[Lost_BMW]

SpeedMattersNot said:

Does finance count as debt?

Of course not - well at least if the 'finance' is sandwiched between Private and Initiative...






Must be OK, Bliar and Broon said so.

[highway]

Just watched Question Time. Some of those people make me consider self harm..

[carlosbutler]

This kind of bull excretion: http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&a...

Bath road rage - people are so attention seeking it's quite unbelievable.

[SpeedMattersNot]

I just had two articles of road rage this morning, whilst driving my partner to work which is a 4mile drive.

Both consisted of drivers coming the other way with cars obstructing their lanes, with plenty of gaps, but deliberately coming head-to-head with me and making me reverse - so they could go 1 car gap further. The first driver angrily pointed that he wanted me to reverse so he could advance one space further (despite driving past several places to pull in).

The other was on a corner where I approached slowly, but he still felt it was his right of way to continue around the corner, drive past 2 gaps and when he did eventually pull into the only last gap he hooted at me and waved his fist.

I had to just suck it up and accept that there is no teaching people like that.

If we can work out what is wrong in these peoples lives, that they feel they can/have to do this sort of thing (probably daily) perhaps we could start finding out a solution.

[Twincam16]

Fatman2 said:

The sad truth is that this country is going downhill because of most of us. Pointing the finger just helps us to feel better about our own misgivings.

Each and every one of us has created/contributed to the society that we live. We will always have crime and it's not always down to the underclasses. We work for unscrupulous bds that don't give a st about anyone and fk people over on a daily basis. We've created the 'on tick' culture by creating the market need. We spoil our kids to the point where they think 'stuff' just arrives and so can't be bothered to work for anything. We keep up with the Jones', get stuck in the rat race, neglect our families and then wonder why our kids go off the wall.

We are living the dream.

I agree that it's the people you've highlighted there that have caused many of our country's problems, but I don't believe that we all somehow fall into those brackets.

I recognised them as bad things simply because that's the way I was brought up. When I was a kid I felt perpetually hard done by. However, I now realise that firstly, those more laissez-faire attitudes with which other people were brought up have made them lazy, 'on-tick', entitlement types lacking in manners, and secondly, I have a far better sense of perspective than the kind of deluded fools you see camped outside Apple shops the night before the latest iPhone is released, or chopping in the car every couple of years for fear of it breaking down outside of warranty regardless of depreciation. You get that when you're driven around in 15-year-old cars fixed by your Dad, and you only got a video recorder in 1991 after the technology had proven itself - the resulting Mitsubishi unit lasted 15 years.

I am an advertiser's nightmare. If something is consciously 'advertised' to me I almost make a point of not buying it simply because I don't want to pay a premium to fund their vacuous marketing budget, nor do I want to fuel yet another monopoly.

The irony of all this is that, back during the credit-boom years when it was clear to anyone with half a brain that this economic rise was a house of cards, I got a new ahole torn on here on a regular basis for not supporting the banking sector by playing their unsustainable game

[s3fella]

Simple answer.... Too any people here, not enough of them do anything productive.

[jbi]

metal thefts piss me off...

Lock the bds up and throw away the key

[Twincam16]

s3fella said:

Simple answer.... Too any people here, not enough of them do anything productive.

There's a flip-side to that argument though. We've become too fixated with the high-individual-profit 'efficiency' of highly specialised and/or financial-sector business models that are 'streamlined', the very aim of their 'progress' being to employ the smallest number of people possible and outsource low-paying mass employment.

Also, people might hit back pointing out that Eastern European migrant workers have no qualms about taking these low-paid jobs and putting up with poor living conditions, but compare their outlook to the indigenous Brit:

-The Eastern European will find the meagre pay he gets in Britain goes a lot further back home, where it'll be enough to build up a deposit on a house, start a business or fund further education. As such, it's worth putting up with a bit of short-term hardship for.

-The Brit will be wanting to make long-term plans in Britain. He might want to get married, start a family and buy a house - perfectly normal, natural, emotional things people do all over the world. Problem is, if he takes the low-paying job there's no way he'll be able to afford to do any of it. So what does he do? Deny himself a life for the sake of wages driven down by migrant labour and the lure of outsourcing, or do the whole benefits 'thing'?

To an educated, moneyed PH audience who know that their hard work often pays off handsomely in future, the first choice will be default and anyone who doesn't go for it will be written off as a scabrous waste of skin. However, when you think about the long-term prospects - life as opposed to mere cash in pocket - if you had neither the skills to improve yourself nor the wherewithal to do so, in all honesty you may well find yourself choosing the latter for the sake of your own sanity.

For the sake of a strong financial sector and fear of mass negative equity among the middle classes, we're rapidly creating a country where it doesn't make financial sense to be working class. However, these people do, and always will, form the bulk of the population. They need things to do, and if the stable mass employment isn't there, this problem will only get worse, their benefits will continue to drain middle-class pockets and create a fiscal drag on the state, our culture and society will suffer and our state services will become overburdened.

But if we continue to stand by these minimal-numbers-employing, internet-business, cut-out-the-employee models, while the end user or buyer might get a cheaper service, they'll be paying for it in the long term with benefits.

And then what will the solution be? Kill the unproductive? Sterilise them? Imprison them in workhouses? Abandon and secede from 'unproductive' towns and cities and just leave them to rot?

I've heard all the above extreme views aired on this forum before without irony. This guy would be proud:

[Halb]

Road skills are pretty bad.
I am sure the amount of time that people feel compelled to still be moving after a traffic light turns red has increased. As an example, at a motorway roundabout I regularly use, I would be surprised if I used it today and there was not one car that goes through on red. I regularly see cars going through on red when my set have already turned green and the cars have started moving!

[highway]

jbi said:

metal thefts piss me off...

Lock the bds up and throw away the key

How do scrap dealers get away with accepting an 7ft tall bronze statue, sawn off at the ankles, without, clearly, handling stolen goods? Do they think the blokes carrying it off the back of a transit have had in their family for years? The max sentence for handling is 14 years. If a few scrap dealers were sentenced at that end of the scale for taking obviously stolen metals in, the resultant publicity would likely ensure that people stopped nicking the stuff in the first place.

[Halb]

Greed permeates every aspect of our society.

[bigdog3]

Halb said:

Greed permeates every aspect of our society.

Succinct and accurate Worst perpetrators are stunningly brazen in their claims for excess "just a trivial million £ bonus because I'm worth it"

[littlegreenfairy]

Standing for local council for a ward that can only be described as 'deprived' I honestly think there is no hope in this country. The sense of entitlement and 'ooooman rights' is gobsmacking and the work ethic is non-existent. Luckily the turn out rate is sub 20%.

It is so sad to see the utter waste of life and lack of care. Not entirely sure there is the great in Great Britain anymore.

[Mr Gear]

Twincam16 said:

-The Brit will be wanting to make long-term plans in Britain. He might want to get married, start a family and buy a house - perfectly normal, natural, emotional things people do all over the world. Problem is, if he takes the low-paying job there's no way he'll be able to afford to do any of it. So what does he do? Deny himself a life for the sake of wages driven down by migrant labour and the lure of outsourcing, or do the whole benefits 'thing'?

An excellent post on the whole, but herein lies the answer. As long as "doing the benefits thing" is a lifestyle choice that is more appealing or financially agreeable than actually working, you have a problem.