to think that Littlewoods advert should be banned?

[CherylWillBounceBack]

Shameful for all the reasons below:

a) Ruins Christmas by exposing the truth about Santa's existence.
b) Encourages debt fuelled consumerism (easy payments)
c) could pressurise people out of guilt to spend more than they can afford
d) Attempts to make presents which are ridiculously look like the norm
e) Suggests that we should pass our hard earned up a generation by putting laptops on the knees of grandparents. Rich old people can buy their own electronic tat if they so choose.
f) annoying tune that gets stuck in the head.

I bloody hate that ad.

Why bring Tony Blair intio this?

you can explain how rich people propping up a capitalist society to keep rich is socialism in any context though

and at some point you really do need to make a distinction between socialism and communism and allying communist theory to Stalin is just Sun journo tactics

It's called the privatisation of profits and the socialisation of losses.

It's a very old concept. It's basically elite crooks winning both ways.

The former President of teh United States, Andrew Jackson, talked about it back in 1832

'The notion that banks privatize profits and socialize losses dates at least to the 19th century, as in this 1834 quote of Andrew Jackson:

I have had men watching you for a long time and I am convinced that you have used the funds of the bank to speculate in the breadstuffs of the country. When you won, you divided the profits amongst you, and when you lost, you charged it to the Bank. ... You are a den of vipers and thieves.
?Andrew Jackson, 1834, on closing the Second Bank of the United States;'

that is capitalism and corruption. that is not the economics of socialism

It is corruption - neither capitalism or socialism.

They gamble and when they win, they say they are capitalists and divide the booty amongst themselves (known as the privatisation of profits). When they lose they ask politicians to redistribute the public's wealth to them in a bailout, which is known as "socialistion of losses".

The system is corrupt. The elite are corrupt.

repeating it doesn't make it socialism - which is what you said earlier in the thread.

I said it was state socialism. The state handed over teh public's money, they redistributed it to the bankers. It's not capitalism, it is state redistribution of wealth. It is often called state socialism, but socialism is much more than that.

The reason people term it "state socialism" is to highlight the hypocrisy of teh system, which claims it is capitalist, but which gets the state to hand over public money to loss making enterprises.

no that might be your reason, but citing 'the people' is erroneous.

state socialism infers ownership by the workers for the benefit of the workers

what you are talking about is capitalism corruption taking place to prop up capitalsim corruption - and you cannot link this back to socialism in any context at all

You're right. State socialism is teh wrong word for it. It is "socialisation of losses by the state" which is not socialism.

the only link to socialism therefore is the word 'social'

yes because socialisation of losses means taking the people's money, society's money, the social pot, to bail out reckless private bankers.

It's not state "socialism", but it is the state taking the social pot and handing it to the banks.

It's not free market or socialist. It is state crony capitalism

unjust capitalism - oodathunkit

We have a second verse we sing

who put our Christmas on HP
started to panic in January
couldn't pay the rent so we're in a B&B

MY FECKIN MOTHER

Claig - we find extreme common ground on the rigged market capitalism, though I still maintain that just buying crap to keep the economy going - especially on credit - is a pretty silly thing to promote.

Yes - we should be all for innovation, research and making things better/efficient, but that need not go hand in hand with the principle that everyone should chuck out all their perfectly adequate stuff and replace it just because there's something slightly better has come along. That's no message to send out. It is not evil to be green as you seemed to be suggesting, just like true capitalism, not the bastard (socialise losses, privatise profits) hybrid we have is not evil either.

advery well my kids knows santa only brings one present from the list and mum , nan etc buy the rest so try to encourage them that its not endless pocket

hp etc

Well not that long agao myself and another op got slatted because wa buying beds/practical gifts for xmas as xma sis meant to be about toys etc

Cheryl, I agree with you. No one should buy tat on credit. But I am not sure that Littlewoods really sells lots of tat. But on the greens, we are miles apart.

OP Do you seriously want some sort of body to be set up to approve or ban every advert or were you just pissed off with a particular advert?

MumblingandBloodyRagDoll Your attitude to the poor and people who aren't financially savvy would have been patronising (sorry about the gender-specific verb, I can't think of a synonym) in the Fifties.

It's simply a reflection of the culture that we live in, I don't think it's any worse then most adverts. They are all equally awful.

I agree with all your points apart from;

a) Ruins Christmas by exposing the truth about Santa's existence.

In our house Santa only fills the stocking left on the end of the bed, small gifts, a book, chocolate orange, that kind of thing, all the wrapped presents under the tree are from real people, ie "Mummy & Daddy", "Grandma & Grandpa" and so on. Santa doesn't bring all the huge stuff, that's bought and paid for by us, and our kids know it. It's making every thing from Santa that fuels this kind of wanton consumerism and gives children hugely unrealistic gift expectations.

YANBU

IMO we need to educate our children about the power of advertising and how not to get sucked in. We also need to educate them about debt and credit, it part of modern life and here to stay.

Despite lots of lobbying the government are pretty much toothless, they need the support of big company bosses.

I love the idea that there's all these 'poor people who aren't financially savvy.' They know they're meant to pay it back. I have no sympathy with people who buy things then wail about the repayments.

It's a bloody advert, it's trying to sell crap stuff to you.

Hey - there's a vicious rumour that KFC want us to all eat crispy chicken and your child's life will be complete with a Happy Meal from MacDonald's. (I've said this before.)

Why would your children watch commercial TV anyway?

(And who the hell sends money to Father Christmas? He either gives presents out or not. WTF?! )