What type of people own high-high-end gear?

[Marco]

Ok, lets tackle this pish...

It isn't a zero-sum game. One person being fabulously wealthy is not preventing another person from becoming wealthy. It isn't a game of monopoly where there is only so much to go around.

Yes, but that's not the point I was making.

Also those multi-millionaires give staggering amounts of money to charity. Those you hear about are just the tip of the iceberg.

Many undoubtedly do, but also many undoubtedly don't. I guess that I would exempt the former from the ruling I proposed, but they would be required to maintain their contributions at that level for as long as they remained in the category of the 'super rich'.

People are poor and starving due to idiocy and incompetence, not because some fat bastard is hoarding all the food and money in a warehouse somewhere.

Honestly, your inability to look beyond the framework of your own 'world view', when discussing these matters, sometimes beggars belief. The above statement demonstrates that even more than your once infamous assertion that in the UK "there is no such thing as food banks"!

Aside from "idiocy and incompetence", the fact is, lots of underprivileged people (from birth) simply don't have access to the same opportunities as others, like you and me, never mind the 'super rich'. That isn't their fault, but merely symptomatic of how society treats the 'haves' and 'have nots', and is nothing whatsoever to do with their "idiocy and incompetence".

However, even if they were idiotic and incompetent, as many people no doubt are (and that applies to everyone, including some of the 'super rich'), we, as members of the privileged in society, have [or should have] a duty to look after those less fortunate than ourselves.

That's a fundamental humanitarian principle that any good and right-thinking person should have ingrained in their DNA - and the 'super rich' who are in the best position to offer financial support to the needy, should be required to do that, and at a level that can make a REAL difference.

As Grant wrote earlier:

we as a member of the human race should be doing more as a united group on humanitarian grounds and not individually for political purposes, or through greed.

*That* is it in a nutshell.

There are WAY too many selfish 'I'm all right Jack, fuck you' types around, and so anything that forces a change in such self-centred attitudes, and spreads the division of wealth more fairly and evenly, has to be a good thing - or at least considered as such by those able to look beyond the cosy confines of their insular little bubbles.

Greed for wealth and/or power has been (and still is) the catalyst for so much that is wrong with the world we live in, and something needs to be done about that before it's all too late.

Marco.

[Macca]

Ok, lets tackle this pish...



Yes, but that's not the point I was making.



Many undoubtedly do, but also many undoubtedly don't. I guess that I would exempt the former from the ruling I proposed, but they would be required to maintain their contributions at that level for as long as they remained in the category of the 'super rich'.



Honestly, your inability to look beyond the framework of your own 'world view', when discussing these matters, sometimes beggars belief. The above statement demonstrates that even more than your once infamous assertion that in the UK "there is no such thing as food banks"!

Aside from "idiocy and incompetence", the fact is, lots of underprivileged people (from birth) simply don't have access to the same opportunities as others, like you and me, never mind the 'super rich'. That isn't their fault, but merely symptomatic of how society treats the 'haves' and 'have nots', and is nothing whatsoever to do with their "idiocy and incompetence".

However, even if they were idiotic and incompetent, as many people no doubt are (and that applies to everyone, including some of the 'super rich'), we, as members of the privileged in society, have [or should have] a duty to look after those less fortunate than ourselves.

That's a fundamental humanitarian principle that any good and right-thinking person should have ingrained in their DNA - and the 'super rich' who are in the best position to offer financial support to the needy, should be required to do that, and at a level that can make a REAL difference.

As Grant wrote earlier:



*That* is it in a nutshell.

There are WAY too many selfish 'I'm all right Jack, fuck you' types in existence, and so anything that forces a change in such self-centred attitudes, and spreads the division of wealth more fairly and evenly, has to be a good thing - or at least considered as such by those able to look beyond the cosy confines of their own little bubbles.

Greed for wealth and/or power has been (and still is) the catalyst for so much that is wrong with the world we live in, and something needs to be done about that before it's all too late.

Marco.

I have never asserted that 'there is no such thing as food banks'. Proof of that or a retraction, please.

Secondly you miss my point so spectacularly ... I was not saying that the people starving etc are starving because they are incompetent. They are starving because the people whose job it is to see that they don't starve are incompetent. (Or don't care, or both).

I don't know but I suspect that the number of very rich who don't give to charity is very small. I don't agree that they should be forced to give. They should give because they want to. I don't agree with attempting to solve social problems via legislation.

[Joe]

I don't agree with attempting to solve social problems via legislation.

I don't see how else they're going to be solved. It took legislation to stop factories employing 8-year-olds for 10 hours a day, for example.

[Marco]

I have never asserted that 'there is no such thing as food banks'. Proof of that or a retraction, please.

Ha - trawling through the archive looking for the comment in question sadly would be too much like hard work.

However, I possess a retentive memory and you definitely asserted to something very much along those lines, until I pointed out that I contribute to food banks every week at church!

Secondly you miss my point so spectacularly ...

Perhaps that's because it was spectacularly badly put!

Scroll back and read what you wrote again, and you'll see why. When you say: "People are poor and starving due to idiocy and incompetence", without qualifying who or what you consider is responsible for said idiocy and incompetence, then its inevitable the point you're making will be misconstrued.

Just because a sentence you've written makes sense in your head, doesn't necessarily mean that will be the case for others, unless you make what's in your head absolutely clear........

I don't know but I suspect that the number of very rich who don't give to charity is very small.

Perhaps, but neither of us have access to the relevant stats to comment factually on the matter.

The point, however, is that there are millions of hugely wealthy people in the world, who have more money than they know what to do with [especially criminals, corrupt governments and politicians], so if the cumulative amount that they 'don't know what to do with' was taken from them and put towards ending homelessness and famine, the world would be a much better place.

Essentially, without getting too hippy about things, it's about 'spreading the love'.

Marco.

[anthonyTD]

The problems of the world briefly discussed here are far to big, and shall we say kept "deliberately complicated" that it would take many pages to even scratch the surface, one example close to home for eg, the UK national health service, years ago for instance you had individuals in charge of every aspect of it, including Matrons on each ward, these people were in charge of their own enviroment, and therefore had the ability to know exactly what was going on in their own enviroment, that is no longer the case, hence we keep throwing money at it, without it would seem having the fogiest idea of where its all going!
My point is; its not enough throwing money at bad situations, we need to know first and foremost what the problem is, and what to do to fix it.
The same goes for HI FI.
A...

[Macca]

Just not that simple. We've ben throwing money at the problem for decades and it doesn't go away. The idea that the cause of all our problems is a lack of money to throw at them is both simplistic and in many cases, demonstrably wrong.

[Macca]

I don't see how else they're going to be solved. It took legislation to stop factories employing 8-year-olds for 10 hours a day, for example.

So because that worked it is okay to make it legal to rob people of their money?

Drink-driving is a good example. Legislation did not really put a dent the problem, it becoming socially unacceptable did.

[Marco]

So because that worked it is okay to make it legal to rob people of their money?

Well, the ones I'm mainly referring to probably 'robbed it off' someone else in the first place, so I guess it's a case of 'what goes around, comes around'!

We need to make mobile phone obsession similarly socially unacceptable [especially brainless lunacy such as texting while driving], with hopefully the same result.

Marco.

[Macca]

Well, the ones I'm mainly referring to probably 'robbed it off' someone else in the first place, so I guess it's a case of 'what goes around, comes around'!
.

That accusation could be levelled at anyone, though. What is the cut off point where someone is so filthy rich that we consider it morally okay to take it off them? A million in assets? 2 million? if I live alone in a 5 bed house is it okay to stick a family of refugees in with me because I'm a rich selfish bastard?

What if the cut off point was £250,000 and they come round yours to re-possess the Merc and the stereo? You could get by with a Hyundai and a Bose wave radio after all, and people are starving, don't you know?

[anthonyTD]

Bump.

The problems of the world briefly discussed here are far to big, and shall we say kept "deliberately complicated" that it would take many pages to even scratch the surface, one example close to home for eg, the UK national health service, years ago for instance you had individuals in charge of every aspect of it, including Matrons on each ward, these people were in charge of their own enviroment, and therefore had the ability to know exactly what was going on in their own enviroment, that is no longer the case, hence we keep throwing money at it, without it would seem having the fogiest idea of where its all going!
My point is; its not enough throwing money at bad situations, we need to know first and foremost what the problem is, and what to do to fix it.
The same goes for HI FI.
A...