'I'm only not paying my bills because employers aren't paying me'

[Lanark2]

Am I being unreasonable to think 'why should I pay my bills to you, the employers of the world, when you aren't paying the employees of the world enough to pay their bills?

Its gets me so annoyed..the ONLY reason I am not paying my bills is because I don't have enough money. The reason I don't have enough money is I'm not paid enough, the reason I'm not paid enough is because we all used to borrow.. BECAUSE WE WERENT PAID ENOUGH .. And the only reasons employers could pay not enough was because we have been trained not to argue, with them, then borrow... Now it's all not working (again) why should I pay my bills...

Can't I just forward them to my crappy employers??

You make a good point here about the hopelessly out of date class system and class perspective of English public (fee paying) schools. When British class based management is ousted British workers outperform any other mation s workers in productivity. When deferential class-based (ie not merit based) management still survives, British workers underperforming (see British Leyland for a slightly dated example versus BMW, Honda et al now).

We still rather sadly perpetuate class-based management layers as a result of poor decisions made by graduate recruiters. The problem is that the conservatives have an almost Jane Austen view of the UK, which is so frighteningly out of date that it really should be laughable. Each time the conservatives are in power we slip back to nastiness, hating the poor, and violent crime escalates because some aren't at the party because they aren't the right class.. And some from the right class who are incompetent will enjoy positions of responsibility. Look at the recent utter shambles of British class based management at government departments.

The only exception to this is probably the armed forces, but there deference suits the task.

Did you work in the public sector or a public sector funded role Lanark? It sounds like when Labour went the market for your skills went too, which makes me think they're probably not very marketable skills. I have to say, I don't have huge amounts of sympathy for people who are struggling because they spent all the money they had on holidays and language courses.

I think the fact that you had a well paid job under Labour is irrelevant too. A lot of people weren't. People who were in low paid jobs during that time saw their standard of living plummet.

I grew up in South London in a fairly ordinary area. Pre-1997 it was common for families with fairly ordinary jobs (say a secretary and a junior accounts manager) to be living in decent family with enough money to run a car, have a holiday, have a few days out and not struggle. If one of their children fell on hard times then they could expect to be council housed fairly quickly.

By the time Labour left power, the best people in jobs like that could hope for was a room in a shared house in a rotten area counting the pennies, a hand to mouth existence with no chance to save. Council housing? Forget it. A few years in a B&B maybe.

Labour abandoned the working classes in favour of a non-working benefit dependent underclass, public sector workers and immigrants. No political party truly represents the needs of the working poor now. I think the fact the Tories are closest these days is very telling.

Labour are the party of middle class angst and trendy ideology. They're so out of touch it's astounding. The only working class people I know who still vote for them are those who don't really understand politics or follow the news.

Haha, no they didn't, that's just your script talking..

Bollocks Lanark, wages fell or stagnated for the low paid, while the cost of living rocketed, housing in particular. I don't even think Labour themselves would have the brass neck to claim that they improved the lot of the working classes.

Oh, and 'Ha, ha, no they didn't.' Isn't exactly a coherent argument.

Frankly I'm not surprised that you can't find a job that pays you as much as you seem to think you deserve OP. Your reasoning skills are poor and your command of written English leaves a lot to be desired.

You say you are highly qualified. There are plenty of well paid jobs out there for highly qualified people. Perhaps you should apply for some of them?

The government in times of plenty should make reserves for times of poor.

They didn't.

The same applies to individuals.

They didn't.

People expected the public finances to be managed better but didn't want to pay for it, and expected that if they didn't take responsibility then they would still be ok.

I am sick to death of hearing about it being someone else's fault. They make me get into debt. Did they make you go on overseas holidays too?

Take some responsibility.

The reason the countries finances are a mess are because of popularist politics and short termism. We do get what we vote for - and that's all the political pandering to this short sightedness and self interest rather than what's best for the country. They capitalise on this and have got very rich as individuals off the back of it.

You know I am sick of hearing it. Its never about people over borrowing because they want a bigger house or a house in the right area. Its never about the fact they want holidays every year but don't have any savings in the bank.

Its always because someone else doesn't give you enough right here, right now.

People can't join the dots. I am sick of hearing this is because if the Torys. No its because of the Labour Party followed by the Torys both cocking it up in a combination not terribly dissimilar to the Chuckle Brothers going 'to me to you'.

The more people point and say its the Torys now, the more they miss the point - they have wasted so much time and energy in hating, that they haven't spent any looking at the actual problem and how we go about it as a country.

Solving the problems we have is very much some elses problem and comes second to blaming everyone else for it.

I don't fucking care who stuffed it up in the first place. Accept it. Accept everyone is guilty - from the old lady down the street to the fella at number 10 whichever colour tie he has on. Now can we face up to a few realities and start working together rather than against each other.

Stop the Red / Blue bashing. Its not helping. Look at the issue itself and get to the heart of it. The politics is a sideshow to not solving them, yet has become the biggest crowd drawer.

If you are blinded by who is to blame you don't look at the facts objectively. Until you can do that, we continue the cycle of blame, rather than finding practical solutions to unpalatable issues.

Why are you on mumsnet when you don't seem to have any kids? Why is this AIBU not politics?
What exactly are you after here?

Lots of posters without kids on here 2rebecca. I disagree with the op on lots of things but I don't think no having children is something to critcise her for.

2rebecca, how rude. Lots of posters without kids.

Anyone who can't imagine why someone without kids would be on Mumsnet is suffering from a chronic lack of imagination, and probably only posts on quite boring threads.

Stop the Red / Blue bashing. Its not helping. Look at the issue itself and get to the heart of it. The politics is a sideshow to not solving them, yet has become the biggest crowd drawer.

I actually think the opposite. We should stop being so party focussed and start with the red AND blue bashing. Both of them have screwed things up.

Actually I think businesses have screwed this one up,in many ways, but primarily in misunderstanding the process of making business work, in favour of accounting-led boards and decision-making.

gosh Lanark of course you're right. Why didn't we all see it before? Suggest you immediately get in touch with the CEOs of all the FTSE100 companies and offer them the benefit of your amazing wisdom. They will be so grateful to finally have someone explain to them how to make business work.

Haha, OK. I did Revamp a recruitment strategy to deal with exactly the issues of accidental class-based recruitment and tripled the patent application rate withing three years by recruiting on ability rather than class/ private school bias. The change was estimated to generate around £60million in increased intellectual assets and additional project income (technical recruitment) so you could have a point.