The true wealth of the people!

Once I transition to upper working class I'll be able to use my parents right to buy so for me home ownership is not a worry (I'm aware there's a few legalities to get around).

But my point from my previous post still stands. Buy a house from Nottingham northward and you'll have no problem paying less than 200k. Its those in London who are shafted.

Hell we are all assuming that house prices will carry on increasing at the current rate anyway but we might have a government that builds a million social houses and then allows the right to buy, we might see another house crash or we might see credit inflation curtailed (in 2010-2012 most of the country was actually seeing affordability increase because banks curtailed mortgage lending - result being that housing outside London was falling faster than wages).

I do worry a tad for the country because home ownership fell last decade and will this decade but we are coming from near 70% ownership levels to 2001, there's still a lot of people owning a home and will still in our generation.

Peraonally I think the lower working classes (part time and low paid) are being screwed as are the lower middle classes but for the upper working class who have the right to buy and the the upper middle class with multiple assets I think people worry too much.

I feel better off. Cheapest mortgage rates in history.

One could argue that, yes

Or perhaps that's just reflective of the electorate? Those who had that sort of upbringing are more likely to have the sort of ideas that they do, and the electorate, at least in 2010 wanted those ideas. Surely, it's just as correct to say that something seems wrong that the people are voting in this way, but that puts the blame on the nation as a whole, and not a small group who are easily identified.

Well, that all depends how far you go down the ladder, right at the very top this may be so, but when you look at the cabinet as a whole it's not true, and then when you look at their advisers and junior ministers it really isn't. Fair enough, it's the lowest of the ministerial positions, but my MP is Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State for Justice, Ugandan immigrant, his parents themselves Hindu Indian immigrants, only went to Brunel, has been Vice Chair of the party and, in the past was seen as a rising star and a potential party leader (and he actually seems quite a nice guy).

Well for all the main parties, going to Oxbridge is a free pass to becoming a leading light in the party. We're obsessed with this idea and the idea that some people are better than others because of their upbringing.
It still remains true that someone who goes to a private school has far more chance of getting into Oxbridge than someone from a state school.

The very top is where it matters though. There may be a few who break the trend but they remain few and far between.
Our political parties and thus country are dominated largely with a certain background of people.

To me that's the biggest shame, we're left with a totally uninspiring bunch of parties we have. The Conservatives come in and do 500% damage and Labour come in and undo about 30% of it.

The last statement is right, but the thing is, the private schools that have the high rates of getting into Oxbridge are highly selective, trivially if you have a school that only takes the brightest and a school that takes everybody, the school that takes the brightest will have a higher rate of people going to Oxbridge (and RG as a whole). My Sixth form is one of the best in the country, state sixth form, and has one of the highest Oxbridge attendances in the world, I believe second only to Westminster School which is even more selective (by virtue of it being smaller). What improves your chances from going to one of the public schools isn't so much that you went there, but that you were good enough to go there in the first place.

I would put it the other way around, Labour make a mess of things time and again, and then time and again the Conservatives come along and tidy it up before eventually doing something unpopular to give it back to Labour who promise a utopia.

Do you feel better off with the debt you have as opposed to the current monthly payment?

Would you feel better off if base interests rates returned to their free market floating level of 3% to 7% as opposed to the artificially low rate of 0.5% which is the result of high volume high impact market intervention by the Bank of England?

Dumb capitalist slave

*yawn*

And you're not?

You manage to avoid capitalism?

*yawn*

And you're not?

You manage to avoid capitalism?

LOL read what I wrote again. The first sentence acknowledges that everyone's lives have improved, BUT TO WHAT EXTENT!

Your argument is ****. This is the reason you have ignored to address my analogy. You sir are truly stuck in the matrix.

Your argument bloody relies on DECONTEXTUALIZATION!

Try to engage the right hemisphere of your mind. I know it has been neglected for a majority of your life but please refer to it when constructing your arguments.

Add context to your statement. It will help a lot. Refer to the football team analogy I said previously. Trust me. It will empower you.

I feel like Morpheus. LMAO

Maybe I shouldn't have used the word slave, if you want to get technical. We are all slaves to the system. Some people like it = You. Some people don't = me.

I can't avoid capitalism. It's the global economic system.

I commented on what you said about the cheapest mortgage rates. Mortgages are bull**** overall.

People can recognize that whilst capitalism has done a lot of good, it has also done a heck of a lot of damage. You can appreciate and welcome some aspects of it whilst still making criticisms of the bad parts of it.
You don't have to become a monk and give up all your earthly possessions to criticism capitalism.

People can recognize that whilst capitalism has done a lot of good, it has also done a heck of a lot of damage. You can appreciate and welcome some aspects of it whilst still making criticisms of the bad parts of it.
You don't have to become a monk and give up all your earthly possessions to criticism capitalism.

Throwing a big word into the debate doesn't help your argument.

I was sitting in my kitchen this afternoon, reading the papers and munching on a succulent clementine satsuma and it occurred to me how privileged I am, and indeed wealthy, compared to someone sitting in their kitchen in 1949.

In 1949, for the average working family, eating a satsuma was a wondrous treat, perhaps only done once a year; working class families often gave their children as their Christmas present a piece of fruit. For your average working man, a satsuma was an expensive indulgence, it would cost as much perhaps as much as a few packets of cigarettes (for comparison, imagine it cost 15 pounds in today's money)

On the other hand, today I can pick up a whole bag of clementines for a couple of pounds. Indeed, I can easily purchase more clementines than I care to eat, and it a very low price. That my fellow TSRians is true wealth; or rather, it's a true increase in wealth.

Another example is when my Mum first moved from Australia to the UK as an adult in her early 20s (she was born here, then the family moved to Australia), she could usually afford to make one international long-distance call home a month. It was astoundingly expensive, the lines were often fuzzy (they were passed over communications satellites) and they had to be short and sweet. Now, I can call home to my Mum, or anyone, on Skype, with full view of one another, for nothing. I call that a true increase in wealth / living standard.

If an average working man of the 1940s were to peer into my life today, he would think in some ways I live the life of a millionaire of his day. In fact, I can do and enjoy many things a millionaire of his day could not (my access to general open-source information, for example, exceeds that of any man in 1949 in terms of speed of provision and volume). The average person today is healthier, freer, longer lived, better clothed, better housed, better educated and safer.

When you look at many aspects of our lives today, our society and political structure (social democratic capitalism; a free market consensually saddled by a safety net and regulatory oversight) has delivered astounding increases in the wealth. The material comforts of the average person today would suggest that the aims of the politicians of decades ago were, on the whole, successful; they created a remarkable society, much more comfortable, tolerant, peaceful and free than 'ere it was. I do believe that inequality and wealth gaps are important, but it does bear thinking about the absolute increases in the material wealth and comfort of the ordinary person.

I say this to attempt to give some perspective to the people who moan that all politicians are completely corrupt and incompetent, that everything is awful and everyone is part of a conspiracy. In actual fact, the society the politicians of the 50s, 60s and 70s promised us (as far as the conditions of the average man, or average family) has been fulfilled. The important thing now is to recognise what a remarkable and precious society we have created, and ensure we can both conserve what we have now and continue to evolve in the way that has brought us such prosperity, safety, comfort and freedom.

Still ignoring my points. Finding anything and everything to avoid admitting that I'm correct.

All I am doing is adding context to your argument. That's all. If you can't face the fact that your statement is taken out of context, you should stop debating on here.

Perhaps this video will help you understand what I am saying:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFs9WO2B8uI&list=PL39BF9545D740ECFF&index=5

That wasn't really the point. The poster suggested I was a dumb capitalist slave in a way that suggested they weren't.

So I wanted to know how they weren't.

Seems they are too, which makes pointing out that I am a mute point.

Cause we are slaves to it, until someone comes up with a way out I might as well make the best of it.

Why do I think I like it any differnt to you? How is a mortgage any more BS than renting?

What damage has been done?

You haven't said anything. Somebody made the claim that society has improved. You came back with a lot of nothing and threw in the word decontextualise