State of the parties as 2015 General Election looms.

[MrGongGong]

Your dad sounds like a good bloke, they say it misses a generation ;-)

Bill Gates is a good example. Hovering 50 miles above Maslow's triangle as he does, he no longer has a need for all his money, so he gives lots of it away. Capitalism rocks!!

My dad WAS a total arse about the Tories, but now in his late 70's is reading Kerouac and realising that there are more important things in life.

Gates giving his money away is an EXCEPTION , rich people are rich because they usually keep hold of it.
Giving away money isn't what capitalists (by definition) do.

[amateur51]

If you don't know what Lord Sugar has done, apart from featuring on a TV programme, then you are in no place to judge whether or not he's a good example.

Branson is a genius entrepreneur, has been highly successful creating wealth and employment and opportunities. He also has some of the most progressive, empowering and people friendly employment practices in his businesses.

And you contradict yourself somewhat when you say that his businesses have been failures, but funds a space programme.

Remember Branson's promise to fund AIDS research & treatment with his condoms? Came to nothing.Time and again this happens. Anyone heard anything of Branson's charitable giving recently. I worked for a chaitable competitor at the turn of the Millennium and believe me Branson was a dirty fighter because he believed that he should have been chosen to run the Lottery. If he is such a great 'creator of wealth' I wonder why he has not been chosen to run the National Lottery? Twice?

[Beef Oven!]

Gates giving his money away is an EXCEPTION , rich people are rich because they usually keep hold of it.
Giving away money isn't what capitalists (by definition) do.

Gates is an exception, but he's a role model and others have followed his lead. Who's to say this will not happen more?

[Beef Oven!]

I've never been to Albania but it does seem that many of the current ideas about "wealth creation" bear a striking similarity to the way in which some folks in that country approached finance.
We really could do with a realignment.
People working in the city who are simply gambling on the possibility of a commodity having a different value to what it is today might be "generating wealth" but are engaged in an activity that is ultimately pointless.
Barn the Spoon, on the other hand, makes something that people need, as do the folks at B&W.

http://spitalfieldslife.com/2012/11/13/barn-the-spoon-spoon-carver/

Worth 1,000 of your spiv chum Sugar

Get Branson over there, he'd be great heading that up. He has the 'know how' concerning articulating artisans. Just take Mike Oldfield as an example ;-)

[MrGongGong]

Gates is an exception, but he's a role model and others have followed his lead. Who's to say this will not happen more?

I'm not holding my breath

If Amstrad made kidney machines?

(doesn't bear thinking about)

[Beef Oven!]

I'm not holding my breath

If Amstrad made kidney machines?

(doesn't bear thinking about)

Why would he make a kidney machine? Plenty of people do that.

[MrGongGong]

Why would he make a kidney machine? Plenty of people do that.

"Plenty of people do that"

erm ........... I don't think he's capable of making a piece of toast

The last time I had the misfortune to see a bit of his "show" on TV it was a profoundly depressing experience, is that really the type of interpersonal communication we should be encouraging?
It epitomises many things that are wrong with the way in which people relate to each other.

IMV we need leaders (to return to the subject?) that demonstrate empathy, collaboration and imagination NOT aggression and dysfunctional relationships.

[Beef Oven!]

Politics & Friends Don't mix!


I'm reposting this in an attempt to get us a little closer to the thread topic.

[amateur51]

Politics & Friends Don't mix!


I'm reposting this in an attempt to get us a little closer to the thread topic.

What a strange pose, half-Mosley (the manic smirk and the shaven-headed heavies), half-Christ (the 'suffer the little voters' hands

[amateur51]

Nearly fifty years on, who is to be the bright young thing who is our Frost?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rd7LcaXZzUs

[Richard Barrett]

I don't believe you

Perhaps I should have put it this way: I don't recognise the twisted way in which you're using the terminology.

As for your claim that capitalism "continues to be so successful at reducing world poverty", you seem to think that repeating it again and again somehow makes it true.

One of the many problems with the present political system is that it elevates short-termism to a principle - corporations don't look beyond their next dividend payout, governments don't look beyond getting elected again, and so on, whereas most of the important (and interconnected) issues facing humanity in this century, like climate change, fuel and water shortages, overpopulation etc., will not be solved by the short-term approaches which are a defining feature of neoliberal capitalism - in fact, as we see, they're exacerbated by them. As for Branson and his ilk, I don't see any sense in which humanity "needs" them, in the sense that we need nurses and firefighters (and even musicians, though perhaps not one-hit wonders like Mike Oldfield).

[ahinton]

Wealth does not pre-exist, it has to be created.

If anyone has stolen any wealth from poor people they should go to prison.

I somehow suspect that, for this to happen, there would first need to bebuilt many more prisons and courtrooms, although in the present austerity climatge, I;ve less than no idea who'd pay for this.

University is far more accessible now than it ever was (when I went to university fees were paid for us, and we got a grant, but less than 10% of all youngsters went, now it is close to 50%, and from a much bigger teenage population.

That's broadly true, but the problem here is that so many students emerge from university with five-figure debts (I happen to know wone personally who ran up a six-figure one over almost a decade of study and several degees to his name), which is hardly a good thing given that some will be unable ever to repay them and many others will struggle to try to do so in the early years of their professional lives.

[Beef Oven!]

Perhaps I should have put it this way: I don't recognise the twisted way in which you're using the terminology.

You should have, then I could have challenged you about 'twisted'.

As for your claim that capitalism "continues to be so successful at reducing world poverty", you seem to think that repeating it again and again somehow makes it true.

It's not my claim, it's more or less a universally held truth. A dwindling number of Marxists dispute it of course. I repeated it as many times as people posted about it.

One of the many problems with the present political system is that it elevates short-termism to a principle - corporations don't look beyond their next dividend payout, governments don't look beyond getting elected again, and so on, whereas most of the important (and interconnected) issues facing humanity in this century, like climate change, fuel and water shortages, overpopulation etc.,

I agree with you that there is an element of short-termism and too many politicians do not put the bigger picture first. But the EU does, The WHO does and so on. So I'd say that we shouldn't exaggerate the problem.

.....will not be solved by the short-term approaches which are a defining feature of neoliberal capitalism - in fact, as we see, they're exacerbated by them.

Again, you are exaggerating the issue, describing it as a defining feature.

As for Branson and his ilk, I don't see any sense in which humanity "needs" them, in the sense that we need nurses and firefighters (and even musicians, though perhaps not one-hit wonders like Mike Oldfield).

Branson et al are required because wealth cannot be created without entrepreneurs.

[ahinton]

As for your claim that capitalism "continues to be so successful at reducing world poverty", you seem to think that repeating it again and again somehow makes it true.

...which of course it doesn't, any more than doing the same in a piece of music in and of itself makes it worth listning to.

It would be better to claim that capitalism should be successful at reducing world poverty but isn't , because of a fundamental and widening divergence between the principle itslf and the often corrupt and self-serving conduct of many of those who claim to operate under it; OK, that's a much clumsier expression, I admit, but more to the point, I think.

One of the many problems with the present political system is that it elevates short-termism to a principle - corporations don't look beyond their next dividend payout, governments don't look beyond getting elected again, and so on, whereas most of the important (and interconnected) issues facing humanity in this century, like climate change, fuel and water shortages, overpopulation etc., will not be solved by the short-term approaches which are a defining feature of neoliberal capitalism - in fact, as we see, they're exacerbated by them.

That's correct. That short-termism is driven principally, I think, by two factors, one being the prioritising of self-serving over serving the populace and the other being lack of vision, be that wilful or lazy or both.

As for Branson and his ilk, I don't see any sense in which humanity "needs" them, in the sense that we need nurses and firefighters (and even musicians, though perhaps not one-hit wonders like Mike Oldfield).

Hard to argue with that; if the Bransons of this world invest some of their acquired wealth in the medical professionals, firefighters, &c., the need for whom is beyond question, that might be rather different...

[Richard Barrett]

It's not my claim, it's more or less a universally held truth.

So was geocentricity for a long time.

In what way does the EU promote a longer-term approach to things like environmental issues? I don't think it does. But if you believe it does surely that would be a reason for supporting it...?