to not want people to judge those who recieve benefits????

[TidyTink]

Im a single mother of one,

i was working up until my DD (3) was born, rather than take a part time job that i knew i would always be stuck in i decided to get to college and study asubject that will lead me to a very hard working and well paid job so that i can fully support my DD in the future.

I hate recieving benefits and cannot wait untill i have finished my degree

Once i start at work i will be paying enough taxes in the future to more than cover the benefits ive recieved over the few yrs.

So why does everyone assume your a complete waste of space?? not all of us take advantage of the system!!!!

I think what galls me about the fat cats is that when they fuck mess up, they are given a bonus to get rid of them, or is it to shut them up. And these bonuses are more than I would get in benefits in more than 10 years.

By the way, forgot to give my opinion on the OP, which is that of course people in need should be entitled to benefits, and I'm glad that I live in a society which sees this.

OK, so I agree that the people going around in the US selling sub-prime mortgages are not exactly pillars of the community, but don't forget that the sub-prime crisis is a result of the downturn in the US economy, not the cause of it.

If the US economy hadn't started to go into recession then those people wouldn't have lost their jobs (or whatever) and would still have been able to pay their mortgages, the sub-prime crisis wouldn't have happened, and you and I would benefit from the booming economy caused by the money contributed by banks who deal in those products.

I agree it isn't all roses and cream, but it's easy to place blame when something goes wrong, forgetting that we all benefit during the good times.

Absolutely discoverlife. Think about the ISAs, unit trusts etc that have underperformed but yet those managing them are still paid huge bonus irrespective. If that happened in another industry, you'd be shown the door!

PennyBenjamin "If the US economy hadn't started to go into recession then those people wouldn't have lost their jobs (or whatever) and would still have been able to pay their mortgages, the sub-prime crisis wouldn't have happened, and you and I would benefit from the booming economy caused by the money contributed by banks who deal in those products".

You conveniently forget that these people were sold mortgages at low interests rates to entice them in and then when the inducement period had finished, they realised they could not pay their mortgages. The financiers deliberately targetted those with poor credit history because of the boon in selling Collateral Loan Obligations. There was a lot of conniving dishonesty perpetrated by the sellers of these type of mortgages who relentlessly pursued and duped the gullible and vulnerable. It is all very well laying the blame at the feet of those who took out the mortgages in the first place but the fact is, many of them should not have been given mortgages and those responsible knew this.

To try to exhonerate and excuse the financier's vulgar behaviour by blaming the downturn in the market is quite frankly pathetic. Until these loathesome,spineless parasites have the courage to admit to what they did was wrong, they will not the have respect that they think they deserve.

Re. the fat cats paid big bonuses / golden handshakes in the event of non performance - well done them for negotiating the contract that provides them with that. I take my hat off to people who are savvy enough to get themselves in the situation where they can command this. And for virtually every situation where a 'fat cat' may have not performed for a particular company at a particular time - they may well have performed at 10 other companies and have delivered outstanding results.

These so called 'fat cats' will also have worked unbelievable hours to get to where they got too. That also seems to get overlooked Very few of got where they have gotten too easily. And they deserve every penny they get

"Re. the fat cats paid big bonuses / golden handshakes in the event of non performance - well done them for negotiating the contract that provides them with that. I take my hat off to people who are savvy enough to get themselves in the situation where they can command this. And for virtually every situation where a 'fat cat' may have not performed for a particular company at a particular time"

And tough luck to those who pay for the price for their incompetence, avarice, deceit and "I'm alright jack" mantra.

'I take my hat off to people who are savvy enough to get themselves in the situation where they can command this.'

Oh, yes, most are SO savvy, having been born into families filled with connections. You don't honestly believe that 90% of those people got their jobs on their own merit and talent?

LOL! My ex h's brother's married to the daughter of a former CFO of Chase Manhattan.

Of course all her friends and cohorts were in these jobs because of whom their parents know.

They weren't any more talented or brilliant than most semi-intelligent people in the world.

They had plenty of help negotiating such contracts, too, it wasn't their startling brain power that got them there.

Give me a break! I never even knew such a world existed. I was floored by the nepotism.

Hell, most of them got into those universities because of a significant donation being made by a family member or pal.

Of course, there are no working poor people who could possibly understand what it's like to work all these 'unbelievable' hours, oh no.

What a crock!

DH's work colleagues are mostly Polish men here working 80+ hours/week for minimum wage to keep 8-9 people back in Poland afloat, not to mention his S. African manager who works 2 jobs and his nurse wife who works 70+ hours/week to help support her sister's family after the sister died of AIDS.

Spokette - you have cut the end of the quote off. There will most likely have been cases where the fat cat had performed and delivered results; hence being in the situation to be able to negotiate those kind of contracts.

So - yes, it is unfortunate when there is fallout from non performance. But is also unfortunate when all the other successes may have been forgotten.

If they command high salaries - could it not be because their career track history justifies it?

I did a 90 hour week when I owned my own business. I was lucky to get out of it with my shirt on my back.

expat - did i ever write that anyone else had no idea about what it was like to work long hours? no?

re. the world of nepotism you talk of...well of course that exists. But equally - for every person who got there through connections, I know of plenty of people who got through on a combination of merit, hard work and lucl of right place, right time.

I am just fed up of reading threads where financially successful people get bashed. This is fundamentally a thread about judgement, so why should 'fat cats' be judged and painted in such a negative light?

If these invaluable, essential and highly revered pillars of our society had to do real jobs, they would collapse after 30 seconds - their manicured hands would not be able to withstand the strain.

Dal21

"If they command high salaries - could it not be because their career track history justifies it?"

There is a big difference between being paid a high salary and earning it. Many do not earn it and it is to them I direct my ire.

spokette - fair enough.

But you see - this is what gets me. How do you know what these people can or cannot do? I know a very successful individual in the city who grew up on a farm - and do this day can pluck chickens, milk cows and believe it or not sweep a chimney - amongst many other skills.

So if this thread is against judging someone based on being on benefits, what makes the people who judge someone who earns a lot of money any different? It is still judging surely....

But they failed in this job, they should not be entitled to performance based (their performance sucked) or Golden Handshake payments. they failed and should not be rewarded, if it was an ordinary Jo Blogs in his high street job who lost the company money, he would be fired and probably sued. Not rewarded.

"I am just fed up of reading threads where financially successful people get bashed. This is fundamentally a thread about judgement, so why should 'fat cats' be judged and painted in such a negative light?"

Errr, nobody is bashing financially successful people. They are bashing the fact that criticisms are rarely directed towards avaricious, deceitful, mendacious, amoral, irresponsible parasites that prey on the vulnerable to line their own pockets in the same way that those claiming benefits are potrayed as the scum of the earth.

Ha ha! For a thread about not judging, there is certainly a lot of judging going on!

I never blamed those who took out sub-prime mortgages, I simply pointed out that without the downturn they would probably still be able to pay those mortgages and would no doubt be very grateful that someone had given them the credit to buy their own home, rather than paying rent.

I am not defending those who sold the mortgages, who obviously took every advantage of the situation, but perhaps if the economy had taken an upturn we would all be saying how wonderful it was that someone was willing to lend the money to allow people to own their own homes instead of paying rent to unscrupulous landlords. We have to discuss these things in context, not in Daily Mail "Top Toff Bankers Ruin Lives Of Salt Of The Earth" soundbites.

And as for saying that the City is full of people who got their jobs through family connections, got into university because their dad made a donation, haven't done a hard day's work in their lives...... I find that incredibly offensive and judgemental. If you had ever actually worked in the City you would know that is total rubbish. I went to a shitty comprehensive and worked very hard to get where I am now. I regularly work 20 hour days, and am paid accordingly, but I don't think you'll find my family on any Rich Lists, and 99.99% of the people I work with are the same.

I'm not bashing financially sucessful people, I'm bashing government "initiatives" and big business which drain the public purse of HUGE quantities of money. I'd be astonished if the sum total of benefit fraud in the entire history of Britain even came close to the amount we've just spent propping up Northern Rock. THAT is the real scandal.

Penny - thought I was on my lonesome here.

The Northern rock debacle is a whole can of worms in itself. I started on this because of the non dom/ city rich kids comments which like Penny, I think are rather judgemental within themselves.

They are judgemental, but I can understand why people are pissed off, I am too. The whole world economy is in crisis, and many people are seriously suffering because a tiny elite with too much power have made some monumentally dumb decisions. Whilst this is going on we have the government and tabloids on the other hand banging on about benefits cheats and getting more people off incapacity benefits as if they were the reason our economy is about to go to hell in a handbasket.

i personally get fed up reading things like 'if you are on benefits then you shouldnt be able to afford the internet',that is the sort of judging i hate.i dont think its quite the same to judge somebody who gets more money than they will ever need.

'because a tiny elite with too much power have made some monumentally dumb decisions'

amen. now that is the truth.

diva - why is not ok to judge one way but ok to judge the other? i genuinely dont understand why having money makes someone fair game?

Yes, I agree that people have a right to be pissed off when the economy tanks, but it is far too simplistic to say that it is tanking because of a few decisions being made by a few people in Canary Wharf. As I said previously, most of these banking crises are a RESULT of the economic downturn, and not the cause. They just add to the general misery. Economies go through cycles, boom and bust, and we can try to mitigate the effects of those things, but that's just the way it is.

And, people are very willing to take the benefits of people taking risks in banking when times are good, in terms of taxes paid, boost to the economy, low interest rates, etc. But when things turn bad it's suddenly all someone else's fault, and no-one wants to talk about the billions of pounds run up on consumer credit cards in this country during the boom times.

Our financial regulation system is one of the toughest in the world. We are incredibly heavily regulated. If you wanted to regulate it more, so people couldn't take any risks at all, you could, but then we wouldn't be so successful, and the benefits would not trickle down.