Austerity or what?

[amateur51]

I could lighten up, yes, or write 14,140 posts complaining about the world, with some of this actually about music. Yes, Sydney has that rating but I'm very skeptical of these 'lists'. But, it's great to come to Radio 3 Forum to get an excellent example of GROUP-THINK.

Come to Sydney to live if you like - that way you won't have much to complain about, oh, except rents and property prices which equal those of New York, drunks on the streets, violence and other nightly anti-social behaviour, shocking public transport (vandalized to the max) and woeful roads. What are they comparing this city to? South Africa? Vienna was far far far better than Sydney and voted 3 years in a row as "the world's most liveable city". So much for surveys. BTW, the people of Melbourne would laugh heartily about the survey saying that about Sydney.

But Sydney DOES have views. What's not to love about Sydney Harbour? You can buy yourself a modest bungalow on the shores of the harbour for about 16 million dollars.

I'd rather be dead in a ditch than leave London/UK for Sydney/Melbourne/Australia frankly but I catch your drift

[amateur51]

Perhaps I can give you some clues. First one: remove chip from shoulder. Second: work really, really, really hard. Deep down I know you don't mind that people actually earn lots of money through hard work. Unbelievable, I know, but still possible. At least in Australia and certainly in the USA.

Have you tried therapy? You do seem to be obsessed with success of a very particular and limited and demanding sort

[vinteuil]

... of course one doesn't really respond to trolls.

But this Australian tarantella does seem to be a very sad specimen.

She worrits about vandalism in Sydney, blaming it (natürlich) on the lefties. I wonder if she has ever read Evelyn Waugh's description of the antics of the Bullingdon Club in 'Decline and Fall' - " the sound of English county families baying for broken glass"...

[amateur51]

... of course one doesn't really respond to trolls.

But this Australian tarantella does seem to be a very sad specimen.

She worrits about vandalism in Sydney, blaming it (natürlich) on the lefties. I wonder if she has ever read Evelyn Waugh's description of the antics of the Bullingdon Club in 'Decline and Fall' - " the sound of English county families baying for broken glass"...

[french frank]

... of course one doesn't really respond to trolls.

But this Australian tarantella does seem to be a very sad specimen.

She worrits about vandalism in Sydney, blaming it (natürlich) on the lefties. I wonder if she has ever read Evelyn Waugh's description of the antics of the Bullingdon Club in 'Decline and Fall' - " the sound of English county families baying for broken glass"...

Ahem. I think the sign of a ‘troll’ is if they don’t engage with the reasonable replies that they’re given but keep repeating their own mantras.

A welfare state is not simply the creature of leftwingers: it is accepted, at least in theory, by the civilised world (dubiously including the US).

The aim is/should be to ensure that all those who are entitled to, and need, public welfare support, get it.

Since it is not possible to draw a precise line between the genuinely needy and the “scroungers”, flexibility in the system should allow all those who are entitled to benefit to receive it (ideally with minimal hassle). If that means a few “scroungers” slip under the radar, so be it, even if the Daily Mail spots one every three months or so and slaps a big story on its front page (“17 children by 8 women and getting £70,000 per month in benefits”). But where the system does need tightening, it should be tightened in order to ensure that funds are properly targeted.

I don’t believe Tarantella (or her sisters?) has any clue about the attendant difficulties of the disadvantaged and the disabled. I could say more...

[Tarantella]

I'd rather be dead in a ditch than leave London/UK for Sydney/Melbourne/Australia frankly but I catch your drift

That, of course, is your constitutional right. Seems many Brits don't share your view - since a great deal of applicants to come to this country are from your neck of the woods. Seems I won't have to compete with you for concert tickets then!

[Tarantella]

I don’t believe Tarantella (or her sisters?) has any clue about the attendant difficulties of the disadvantaged and the disabled. I could say more...

I don't think you have any idea about what I believe. I take issue with the comments on this forum which largely are an example of group-think (and there are a very few exceptions, mercifully) and which are known colloquially as the "whinging Pom" syndrome (in this country) - those who complain but do nothing to affect change and who resent like hell others who are successful. Of course, this is a broad sweep in terms of statements but I think you get my general drift. But I don't expect you to LIKE what I say because the truth hurts. I'm not at all surprised, therefore, to see the accusation of trolling. I suppose it's one form of defense. We have a national disability insurance scheme starting up soon in this country to address real disadvantage, but that should not be confused with the great number of people who refuse to accept, at no cost to themselves, a generous and very good public education which will see them no longer mired in poverty. I saw enough of this demographic when I was teaching and their problems were intractable: "I don't need schoolin' miss - I'm goin' on the dole".

For what it's worth, the difficulties of disadvantage are loud and clear to me as an ex comprehensive high-school teacher, but I did what I could to instil the value of hard work and the educational ethic into kids for whom going to school meant escaping domestic violence, hunger, drug abuse etc. Another sister is a nationally recognized and awarded high-school teacher who raised 5 children. But she and her husband worked their way right up to the top of that profession and now live a comfortable retirement after decades of community involvement through the profession. Another is a university lecturer in economics and industrial relations, while another is a clinical psychologist who once owned a successful company which is involved in the mining industry. She sold her interest in the company a few years ago and returned to psychology in private practice: an entrepreneurial risk-taker and successful business woman if ever there was one. Years of long, hard slog.

And to get back to the original topic of this thread about austerity: there is no other alternative for you, I'm afraid.

[eighthobstruction]

I don't think you have any idea about what I believe. I take issue with the comments on this forum which largely are an example of group-think (and there are a very few exceptions, mercifully) and which are known colloquially as the "whinging Pom" syndrome (in this country) - those who complain but do nothing to affect change and who resent like hell others who are successful. Of course, this is a broad sweep in terms of statements but I think you get my general drift. But I don't expect you to LIKE what I say because the truth hurts. I'm not at all surprised, therefore, to see the accusation of trolling. I suppose it's one form of defense. We have a national disability insurance scheme starting up soon in this country to address real disadvantage, but that should not be confused with the great number of people who refuse to accept, at no cost to themselves, a generous and very good public education which will see them no longer mired in poverty. I saw enough of this demographic when I was teaching and their problems were intractable: "I don't need schoolin' miss - I'm goin' on the dole".

For what it's worth, the difficulties of disadvantage are loud and clear to me as an ex comprehensive high-school teacher, but I did what I could to instil the value of hard work and the educational ethic into kids for whom going to school meant escaping domestic violence, hunger, drug abuse etc. Another sister is a nationally recognized and awarded high-school teacher who raised 5 children. But she and her husband worked their way right up to the top of that profession and now live a comfortable retirement after decades of community involvement through the profession. Another is a university lecturer in economics and industrial relations, while another is a clinical psychologist who once owned a successful company which is involved in the mining industry. She sold her interest in the company a few years ago and returned to psychology in private practice: an entrepreneurial risk-taker and successful business woman if ever there was one. Years of long, hard slog.

And to get back to the original topic of this thread about austerity: there is no other alternative for you, I'm afraid.

Oh Joy!!

[amateur51]

Oh Joy!!

Not sure she does irony, eighthO

[teamsaint]

the extraordinary blinkered world views that there is "no other way", that it is "austerity" or nothing, that having three flavours of conservative monetarist political party is healthy, that the poor are that way because they are lazy or choose to be, that the rich are by definition virtuous, (and so on),that monopoly capital is our future, are really something. Foolishly arrogant and short sighted.
Nothing is for ever.
I guess that Soviet leaders were pretty certain about their intellectual and moral superiority to the west. They certainly gave that impression.

[french frank]

I don't think you have any idea about what I believe [...]. And to get back to the original topic of this thread about austerity: there is no other alternative for you, I'm afraid.

How could anyone not have a very good idea indeed about what you believe? You keep repeating it. That still doesn't actually address the points made. It repeats the mantra. The one person who expressed sympathy for your point of view is, according to you, the one person without a chip on the shoulder. Proof? He agrees with you ... Everyone else who disagrees with you exemplifies 'group-think'. Proof? They all disagree with you. Somewhere, in philosophical terms, there must be a flaw in those arguments: I just can't put my finger on where it is for the moment...

[Tarantella]

How could anyone not have a very good idea indeed about what you believe? You keep repeating it. That still doesn't actually address the points made. It repeats the mantra. The one person who expressed sympathy for your point of view is, according to you, the one person without a chip on the shoulder. Proof? He agrees with you ... Everyone else who disagrees with you exemplifies 'group-think'. Proof? They all disagree with you. Somewhere, in philosophical terms, there must be a flaw in those arguments: I just can't put my finger on where it is for the moment...

A belief is more than a few sentences, but I figure you just don't know yet. How long was the Communist Manifesto again?

I'm closing my discussion on this thread with a link about the random violence I've described in Sydney. Gotta love that free society!! NOT. Safe in the streets of Singapore, New York and Beijing. All huge cities too. We in Sydney are all-too-familiar with this kind of thing:

http://www.smh.com.au/nsw/i-thought-he-was-dead-instantly-man-bashed-in-randon-cbd-attack-shows-signs-of-life-20130603-2nlsr.html

[aka Calum Da Jazbo]

music for trolls

[amateur51]

I'm closing my discussion on this thread

Blessed relief

[Flosshilde]

I'm closing my discussion on this thread

I look forward to you opening a discussion on another thread - perhaps one about music?

I have to say that you are a poor advertisement for the people of Australia. However, I have met enough Australians to know that there are talented, charming, friendly people there who don't complain about everybody else all the time - in other words, the complete opposite of you.