I thought Calum's post was excellent. I hadn't heard of the Professor's work before and she and it look very real to me. This is an area where we will need all the research from the past we can get wherever it is published.
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There are, possibly, any number of "answers" to the questions as to where we go from here. However, I would argue, its is perhaps symptomatic of the state of the country when the plum growers of Kent cannot find a market for their fruit because overseas suppliers can produce and deliver to supermarkets and jam makers cheaper than we in the UK. Transposed across the industrial and manufacturing spectrum of the UK we have, in a nutshell, the kernel of the problem (too many nuts - ed).
It would appear that we have devolved into a nation that pushes paper around par excellence, subsisting on pensions accrued by the baby boomers of the late 40's, benefits designed in richer times to catch the poorest but which have evolved into a way of living for a significant section of society and now funded by taxes that are inherently unsustainable - and self-defeating in the long term.
Having watched four offspring and step-offspring wade into the university system and three of them surface with a "degree" that suited them for, well, not a lot in the real world I would now begin a serious programme of apprenticeships that supported 18 year olds in UK industries (new and old) that diverted them from the false hope of degree "status" and placed them within the working world of experience - and no debt.O Wort, du Wort, das mir Fehlt!Comment
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Some interesting things here
but I would be very wary of anyone who uses the phrase "the real world"
my degree included analysis of Brahms, Japanese Honkyoku and a detailed study of Indian music all of which I have found very useful indeed in the "real world" that I now work in !
false so called "vocational" education (which is a real abuse of the word ......... being a priest , poet, painter, mathematician etc is a Vocation) is often a waste of time and talent.........
I'm with Ken on this
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> Unfortunately the ConDem govt are busy cutting spending & getting rid of jobs, so are unlikely to put money into any job creation scheme (except for the private companies who are taking on the work that used to be done by government agencies, & 'earning' fat profits) <
yes flosshilde, 'unfortunately' being an understatement.
channel 4 did a doc on 'provider', a4e. tv viewers watched: a young design graduate & mum; an alcoholic with serious problems, and no qualifications/work experience; and a rare mix of other random participants. all were duely degraded, as regards their current 'shameful' 'frumpy' 'useless' lives.
participants in the 'training' are then 'rebuilt', rewired to do 'any work, anywhere', rather than simply 'be who they are now'.
imo a particularly unhelpful aspect included a total denial of the value of being around your own children. caring for your own kids (apparently) has 'no value'....or so 'trainees' are told.... it's 'frumpy' apparently
it's apparently 'good' (for others) to work for no money, for free,.....child care fees are apparently 'really worthwhile'... even on the minimum wage? yet astonishingly, being passionate about such disastrous ideas evidently earns you a cbe!
a select few do very nicely....
.... and appear on r4 'moral maze'. this time, poseing as a member of a (vague) 'small' charity org, and claiming to represent 'the grass roots voluntary sector', and the very embodiment of 'the big soc' ideas. that is, whilst skillfully ommitting the 'not for profit' aspect, common to the voluntary sector historically. since 'just for profit' doesn't make such good pr obviously!
promoting a4e as being 'ALL about altruism', and cliches, such as 'making a difference' really grate, as it's marketing only. it arguably has zero value to uk citizens who find themselves repeatedly jobless. in fact, it's a legal means of taking their benefit away, for non compliance.
a4e is already running in jerusalem, israel and france ....! it doesn't apparently matter that there aren't enough uk jobs to go round, (not even short contract/minimum wage ones). a4e is not about uk job creation, training and development. much less morals, or personal choices.
however, of late 'going global' in future is an 'impressive' idea, in particular, within the context of the rest of the hogwash typically spouted by some representatives of private/third sector mergers. in this case in partnership with multinational retail corps.
tut! i shall 'tell my mp'. i 'told him' about murdoch, ....and that's worked out quite well ....eventually!
nevertheless, how could this have happened, and right under our noses, and is it actually too late to stop it? if so, at least people might discuss this matter publicly, and in parliament. i can guess why jc+ employees aren't up in arms, as they are obliged to be silent, by employment contract.
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all ken's rsa vids are excellent!
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New ideas are always welcome, of course, as long as they are rational, realistic and constructive.we need new ideas...
But in this case the old ideas about employment and jobs would work fine, if they were given a chance. But in our current UK society, where the economic system is based on fraud, greed and fantasy, they won't be. Given a chance, I mean.
After the coming meltdown, maybe we'll get back to some more sensible carry on... those of us that are left and still sane and healthy...Comment
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Does it not occur to you that, if such a meltdown does indeed come, it may not thereafter go away again? Does it also not occur to you that economic meltdown will melt down fraud, greed and fantasy with it? More importantly than either, perhaps, your reference to "fraud, greed and fantasy" omits the one other crucial factor of borrowing. Almost every nation on earth is in debt, just as are many corporations and individuals; some debts are far greater than others, but there's almost no escape. I've reminded some people who complacently express their relief that they have no personal borrowings that in fact they're nevertheless in debt to the extent that their salaries, pensions and the rest are paid for at least in part out of borrowed funds.Originally posted by Simon View PostComment
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That's all very well, but the 'meltdown' if & when it comes, won't be of tthose people who caused the problems in the first place - they'll still be raking in their million-pound bonuses. It will be (& already is) among those people who have been thrown out of their jobs (private & public sector) & can't get another because the jobs aren't there, & are penalised for being in a situation they didn't create.Originally posted by Simon View Post
Charities are in an invidious position - they were encouraged (by the last government) to take on mainstream council & govt services; no the funding for those services has been cut they are losing money & have to fund-raise more vigourously - at a time when people have less money to donate (& it's always poorer people who have given a proportionately larger part of their income). Smaller, local charities have been hit even harder - if they took on contracts & have now lost their funding they are in danger of having to close down.Comment
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That may be true initially and even for some time but, once currencies themselves beging to disintegrate, it'll make no difference because those bonuses will become increasingly worthless and capable of purchasing less and less, assuming that there's anything still left to be purchased.Originally posted by Flosshilde View PostComment
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But they'll still be worth far more than the income (if any) that the 'little people' have. The essentials - food, housing, which take up a larger proportion of the budget of lower earners - will have increased in price more than the inessentials. The rich can economise by sending their children to cheaper schools, cutting back foreign holidays, selling some of their houses, shopping at Sainsbury's instead of Waitrose. If you are living on the edge there's not much you can cut back on.Comment
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The extent to which the first part of what you write may turn out to be true will depend very much on the gravity of any economic meltdown; if it's serious enough, it could well mean that the rich get poor and the poor stay poor. It'll be open season for the speculators, of course, as always, but even the success of this cannot necessarily be guaranteed; with everyone owing everyone else money that they don;t have, can't any longer borrow and have no other means of making, it might not take much to bring the entire global edifice down permanently, notwithstanding the best efforts of vested interests to prevent or postpone this. I'm not suggesting that this is unquestionably what will happen - merely pointing out that it's not impossible and, if it does, there'll be no Waitsbury's to shop in.Originally posted by Flosshilde View PostComment
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You have a strange way, Mr Hinton, of missing the point, stating the obvious and then making some sort of valid and sensible comment. It can be quite confusing, as you do it all in a roundabout way and use 10 words when 2 would do!
bws SimonComment
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Missing what point and whose?Originally posted by Simon View Post
To you, perhaps, but there's nothing "roundabout" about it, any more than it is obvious to most of us which eight out of each ten of my words you might excise from my text without sacrificing that proportion of its sense; I even contrived to abbreviate two British supermarkets into one (much to the undoubted chagrin of each were they to know about it), which surely constitutes verbal economy, even if not one likely to become the victim of "meltdown"...Originally posted by Simon View PostComment
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If what ahinton says turns out to be true - and it could well be - then we will be back to the situation of a "real economy", in which raw materials are transformed into use values by the application of human labour, measured by the amount of socially necessary time put in, and realised by payment, in kind or in some new monetary form. If any form of machinery and all its technological adjuncts are still useable, this will make the job faster than if all have to resort to basic hand implements. The game will be: who will take charge of guarding any surplus product and how will this be determined and by whom? and who will ensure that whoever is put or self-elected in charge does not hoard said surplus, whether in product or monetary form, does not form an overlording class of likemindeds and like self-priviledgeds to play poker with the spoils of others' labour, while proclaiming themselves indispensable to "the creation of wealth", and does not surround themselves with an apparatus for self-perpetuation - as has always happened hitherto, whether in primitive agricultural, slave-owning, feudal, capitalist, or under so-called "socialist" or "communist" systems.
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Interesting post, IIMSS, S-A.
Good to see that a couple have understood at least the latter part of my #21. It will, of course, only "come to that" if the right decisions are not taken now, fairly quickly. It need not. Has any leader the integrity and guts to do the right thing? Of the current crop, I doubt it, though there are a couple in the wings.
As to S-A's point, which leads on from mine via AH's, I'm not sure whether we should go down that road on here, but it has vast scope for fascinating discussion, IMO.Comment
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