To feel really angry that Petra Eccleston is buying a £98 million pound housewhile while people are starving?

[mightybright]

I am completely judging her for buying a £98,000,000 second home, her first cost £56,000,000.

I'm not jealous, it just makes me feel quite sick that people are dying of starvation and that amount of money would go a long way towards making the world a better place IMO, aibu?

Bibbity, what percentage do you give to charity, if you don't mind me asking?

Or just how much in general.

SQ I can't open your link, so a couple of words from it would v help with googling. Many thanks.

She has just bought a £98 MILLION HOUSE and has another £56 MILLION HOUSE it is a fucking insane amount of money by anyones standards

This is too many people "ganging up" on one. Not ganging up, but, you know. I don't like it. I'm off.

Round and round we go

Oh but mightybright is back which evens it up a bit.

Still, I'm off.

I don't need a house like the one I have
I don't need to eat such nice food
My children don't need to have new clothes and so many toys

I'm fucked if I'm selling up, flogging my kids stuff and giving 90% of my wealth away. I wish people would be a little honest, frankly. There is always someone richer than you, and someone poorer. If you want to look at inequality, there are different ways of doing it than this pathetic finger pointing.

gooseberry that is a link if you click it should work? Would be interested in your thoughts if you know people involved in this. I have always been interested in the idea but this article gave me pause for thought.

YABU
£98 million would absolutely not go "a long way towards making the world a better place"
Plus it's up to her what she does with her money. I think sometimes such enormous sums seem so far removed from most peoples lives it is hard to understand and therefore reactions can be that it is just wrong.

Are you a communist?

Thank fuck for that post of reason, SQ.

gooseberry if you are still looking, it's on the Independent website, if you search the article is called "Why the dream of microfinance is turning sour"

The link is blocked by my laptop, which is odd as to my certain knowledge there's virtually no security on it. Just a couple of words from the title of the article and maybe the publication name would be great.

I remember a thread years ago on another site where someone said, " No one needs to live in a £250K house" and I thought, Oh, DO fuck off!!!

Hardly the lap of bleeding luxury at that, either.

I'm going to head off too and cook.

gooseberry if you are still around it would be good to hear your thoughts on that article as microfinance was something I was thinking of supporting but now I'm not sure. If not then no worries though

SardineQueen - I don't think anyone is being dishonest, what makes you think they are?

lots of xposts

mighty quite simply because people are unwilling to see that they themselves are comparatively enormously wealthy, and the reasons that they give themselves for not giving 90% of their own money away are illogical.

I can see that compared to most in the world I have vast wealth, and am honest enough to see that the reason I don't give 90% of it away is because I quite like having this money and lifestyle thank you very much.

The people on here seem to be excusing themselves from this stricture to give away all their wealth, while at the same time berating others for not behaving in a way that they themselves wouldn't dream of doing.

And on that note I have to go.

OP you need to look elsewhere if you want to free the world of inequality

SQ after seemingly hours of x post tag I finally found it, thank you SO much. Very interesting.

The people I know work in south east Asia which is rather different. The problems in south Asia are depressing and sadly, dully unsurprising.

An example of a problem with efforts to redress social inequalities in India.

Problem: low standards in schools for the poorest children. Solution: attempts to professionalise teachers with training and extra pay. Result: standards worsened - because the teachers now saw themselves as societally so much higher than their pupils they treated them even more appallingly and often didn't bother to turn up.

So I can see how and why microfinance might turn into a power and exploitation jag. I suppose it depends who is running it. I'll be reading the article in more detail later.

Anyway yes, it means it's all more complicated than "rich girl overspends on house".

Actually SQ slightly off topic but if you were interested in supporting something small scale and bloody unpopular, may I recommend WaterAid's campaign against manual scavenging. There are thousands of people "employed" in India to pick up poo by hand (ie manual scavenging). Officially it doesn't happen any more The people that do it are diseasedby the job and ostracised, pregnant women do it and have problems with their babies and so on. It's a caste thing, passed on through families. The childrne of such families, if they do go to school, are made to clean up their fellow pupils poo. The campaign is not just financial, it's societal and political and aiming for real change - for the whole of society to see this as utter unacceptable exploitation. Developers are STILL building houses with toilets that can only be cleaned and emptied by hand.

anyway here's the link

Gooseberry I wonder if I have you confused with another gooseberry whose politics I don't agree with

Because I remember your threads on manual scavenging and how upset you were that they didn't seem to get much traffic. I remember saying that I thought that people didn't know what to say rather than they didn't care, and taking the opportunity to post my own pet charity the fistula foundation.

It would be great to hear your views on that microfinance article.

Also I was thinking over my meal that there was something wrong with the premise of this thread, and I couldn't work out what it was. Then I realised - £98million isn't the sum it is being touted on this thread. Most expensive home in US? Do me a favour. A flat in central london went recently for well over £100M (£130M was the sum quoted). I live in N London and there are homes here that top £100M by miles. So the premise is wrong. There are loads of properties that cost this much. Being bought and sold every day. She bought one. She is rich. Big wows.

No you haven't confused me. I am the same person. I have seen some very serious horrible crap, shit, horror and tragedy. I have no patience with self-indulgence and irresponsibility. The two are related. That is all.

I will read it more closely and also talk about it with my dh, I think you would really like to meet him as he is very knowledgeable and e

experienced in the field. Yes, I knew I remembered you - did you also post on the long feminism threads about what to "do" about women in the third world} ie empowerment or values colonialism.

I would almost like to pm you or buy you a drink or something to discuss this. There are some things that are hard to say except quietly, and there is a received wisdom which doesn't always get to the heart of the issue.

By the way, don't feel that you have to be nice to me in future. It doesn't matter.

no the empowerment and colonialism person on the feminism threads wasn't me, I know who it was though. I tried to follow the conversation between the two of you but it was very involved. My ideas I'm sorry to say aren't so well thought out - you and she both had very strong positions and I could see where you were both coming from IIRC

Should have ended that with a

Would still be interested in what you and DH think about that article etc