workers are an underclass?

[soggy14]

Does anyone else feel that we are heading into a society where anyone working is becoming a poor underclass whilst the "well off" are those on benefits? Okay not as bad but approaching the Downton Abbey type senario where those of us in paid employment are downstairs and (some of) those on benefits upstairs.

And yes I know that some people on benefits need them and genuinely cannot work but many I think do not need them. And I know that I will now get flamed by hundreds shouting that they are struggling on benefits :) but we are struggling on our incomes but also need to work all the time and seem to be worse off than those doing nothing yet are having to support them :(

And LMAo that people ahve a lot in life.

Within 5 yaers I should be earning a decent wage. LL's Dh ahs already beaten the odds quite substantially. LL as I nkow well is trying to find work and it may well be that her epilepsy beocmes manageable in which case her efforts to keep employable will pay off.

Bollocks to lots in life; I value effort every time. I have mroe respect for someone who works with an ASD than someone who coasts along on family income every time (and I know many, being unfortuante enough to have only just escaped marrying into that crowd).

spidookly - Investment banking does an important job in helping companies raise capital, make strategic moves such as buying other companies or selling bits of themselves and in helping institutions to allocate capital where it gets the best returns and as a result making that capital available to investors.

I know a couple of people who work in banking - I couldn't do the maths, tolerate the people or keep up with the entertaining - it is certainly the case that not anyone could do their jobs.

It probably is the case that they are charging more for the services than they should be able to get away with, and that that is mainly due to problems with how competition operates in the market for investment banking.

Though not with a coherant sentence structure....

I hate people who resort to semantics.

LL it is my experience that people play ostrich: they can;t be hit by bad luck can they? They work / save / whatever.

ha feckin ha.

dad had what his financial chappy said was the best pension he could: then the employer who ran it was sold to the USA, meaning teh pension could be asset stripped for paying off asbestos claims, leaving him penniless in a few years as he is getting on a bit (pushing 70) although still working part time.

he should ahve been safe. Luckily dad is kindhearted and can look in the eyes of the people he meets and think he never judged, and in the eyes of the accusing bastard at the benefit ofice whoa sked why he doesn;t have a pension and say 'it could happen to anyone'.

Dh OTOH always thought himself immue as he beleived you amde your luck. then he got ill, so we had to sell the house even though he never lost his job (sick pay being very little), Several yeras later he lost that job with disability in the fmily.

He now knows better.

Or as my FB status says today:

Wishes she could believe in karma; it might help me steer clear of a few more arguments with the terminally unkind.

I have more children than you LL and i've been in worse situations than you financially too.
So either I cope better than you do because I never felt we were particularly hard done by or I plan a head, in fact I know the answer to that. I considered could we afford that child if neither of us worked before getting pregnant each time. I assumed there would be 0 income before making that decision. And yes I could still have a decent standard of living if the sky fell in.

Investment banking seems to be doing the important job of bringing about the end of capitalism.

Unless those guys get put the fuck back into their boxes, we're all doomed. DOOMED I tells you!

At the moment they're just a bunch of megalomaniacs on crack making deals they can't lose on and passing on the losses to tax payers.

They are the people on benefits who are turning workers into the underclass.

at 'terminally unkind'.

And mamatomany still hasn't answered my question about how 3 dc were 'too many' when I was in a financial position to have 3 dc at the time they were born! She studiously avoids that question!

And DP was never meant to be the 'breadwinner' in our family - I was. Until I was diagnosed with epilepsy.

Unfortunately, Sancti - I am in the 30% of people whose epilepsy will never be fully controlled by medication, so there is no chance of me ever driving again, or working FT. Though in the next few years, I do intend to go back to work PT, but I know that it will only be for minimum wage, and it will be purely to pay for my DD's bus fares to college, as there will be no EMA for her, and as she is not going to acheive GCSE's due to her LD's and medical probl;ems (she is asd amongst other things), the only real option for her to gain employment is to do some sort of vocational course at college. Otherwise she will be forever dependant on benefits to survive.

So, mamatomany, how in the name of God do you afford your dc if you have NO income?? Family help? What if you ahve none? Savings? What if you are never in a position to have savings - does that automatically mean you should never have any children? Or is it just because you started your life from a poition of greater wealth that someone like me and DP? In which case you are basically saying that only people from a background of money should be allowed to have children. Which is Eugenics again.

foever, M2m? Seriously? if the child had been disabled say (ds's asd costs us about £700 a month in different things, and that's skimping / having a relatively cheap didsability- no powerchairs etc), without resorting to benefits?

Then either you had or married into a fortune, or you had one of the best paying jobs about; but you must know that ther are very few top paying jobs overall.

That was a bit overlong.

To put it more simply - of course investment banking has a function - otherwise clients wouldn't keep giving them money.

It's quite possible the investment banks are getting MORE out of it than the clients - that's probably due to structural competition issues - see the way fees and profits went up after the collapse of Lehmans due to the reduction in competition.

Jobs in investment banking require specific skills which are in limited supply, but they pay their staff as little as possible.

Shit that's almost as long.

My jaw is on the floor at Mamatomany's posts.
How pompous, how smug, how wrong.

So nobody should have a child unless they can support that child and themselves for the rest of their lives without ever working again or claiming any benefits?

How does one get oneself into a position like that pre menopause without something like a big inheritance?

LL did I ever send you the stuff on vocational courses for ASD? it's only loose things but pretty good nonetheless. Let me know if you want them (CAT me your email addy, I have a round robin of ASD stuff to do).

And never say never about the epilepsy: medical research is a marvellous thing. I hope.

I pay my taxes happily precisely so that families like Loudlass's are looking after by the state when circumstance change that they could have planned for.

That's one of the things the welfare state is for - to provide a safety net so that illness or misfortune don't leave people with no hope.

It's not just your money mama, it's mine too, and everyone else on this thread and Loudlass's and her DH since they both pay tax too.

I would never say to anyone how many children they should have.

I can see that it is fair to try to design benefits so that they don't incentivise having enormous families to gain more and more benefits, but it is every family's choice how many children they have.

Sancti - you didn't send me it, I wouldn't mind though - I'll PM you my e-mail addy in a min (half watching X-factor)

As for the epilepsy, while I agree, never say never, right now, it's just the way it is. All the meds I've tried over the last 7 yrs haven't given me control over my seizures. Bit poo really, but no amount of wishing is going to make it disappear!

If you didn't have investment banking, you would need some other mechanism to distribute capital. It's likely to end up looking a lot like investment banking.

Bailing out investment banks that fuck up is a different issue.

Even if the sovereign debt crisis goes critical and we all end up eating leaves and twigs, capitalism will be fine. It will just move to Asia.

Nothing to do with inheritance and I didn't say we'd have 0 income I said 0 additional income or if I didn't that was what I meant.
I know enough about epilepsy to know there's so many variations that nobody could question whether you are or ever will be fit to work again and to get it in adulthood is unlucky to say the least.
I'm not suggesting there was/is anything you could do differently in retrospect but that's the hand you've been dealt so make the best of it. What else can you do ?

"of course investment banking has a function"

yes, but at the moment that function is being allowed to operate in a way that is inimical to society and nation states.

It's really quite extraordinary to watch what's playing out in the financial markets right now.

The bankers are lining their pockets as much as they can because they know the game's going to be up (one way or another) in the near term.

It it is every family's choice how many children they have.

Of course it is but that will impact on the quality of life for each child and each family differently. If that isn't a problem, fine and dandy but you can't expect other people to pick up the slack when conscious decisions have been made to create another mouth to feed.

I think 'making the best of the hand you're dealt' is the entire point of this thread, Mamatomany.

My personal belief is that only those with a minimum level of intelligence should have children.

When you all snuggle up with your DP's tonight, do first apply to either Mamatomany or myself for permission.

She is making the best of it I think; she ahs a good attitude.

Spidoodly quite, certainly how I feel anyway.

mamatomany - I was diagnosed 7 years ago, at the age of 22, but my Neuro believes I had been undiagnosed since the age of 14yo. Mostly because at that point in my life I was busy being shuffled from foster home to foster home, and it was never picked up. If I had known I would have trained in a different area that wouldn't have been barred to me by law.

I am trying to make the best of it, but it's not always easy when I get comments from people like you that I am somehow at fault for the way my life has turned out, and that I had a choice in being diagnosed with epilepsy, or that DP could have chosen not to have LD's and ASD.

'S'alright Wukter: have no intention to have any ,more kids. In fact I am amzed that with a genetic disability and me unable to take hormonal methods we still don;t get bumped up teh NHS vasectomy list, 18 month wait here. I mean, you'd think- no?

OTOH they probably sussed that sn kids are pretty much as effective as contraception as anything else anyway LOL

Grim lol from me at that Sancti.

OR that we could have chosen somehow for DD to be fully fit when her medical issues weren't diagnosed until she was between the ages of 6yo and 9yo, by which point I had already had the other 2 dc and had been diagnosed with epilepsy.