I've been round it years ago when the nuns had it.
That's the one.....are you from this neck o' the woods then? Caudwell's helicopter sometimes clatters past my house as well. He came from a very humble background and though Birmingham born, his parents moved to Stoke-on-Trent not long after he was born. They lived in a very poor area of Stoke and this is a typical street from that area as it is today. Still pretty depressing!
A couple of chaps on that documentary stood out to me and had got it absolutely right. The Seattle billionaire guy and that Japanese Professor of Economics who both said the 'trickle down effect' is nothing but complete hogwash. As Seattle man said, "i earn 1000 times more than the average income earner and yes i've got a nice house and car....but i don't spend 1000 times more than the average person, i don't buy a 1000 cars or houses...".
There were some funny moments where those trying to justify such excessive wealth by saying "but the less well off benefit from the wealthy using taxi's and going to Supermarkets which keeps people employed...". :o
No they don't! They use Chauffeur driven cars and have their groceries sent in from Harrods! They don't take a bus down to Tesco and phone up for a damn Taxi to take them home!
I expect it's some kind of a deal, where the business agrees to allow filming for a modest charge, knowing that they'll be featured on the telly. Some of The Apprentice tasks seem to also work on that principle.
By the way, can any science graduates here confirm this- I think that the gold in the gold facial is useless and has no effect on the complexion, it's purely an expensive gimmick. Is that correct?
I thought this was an excellent programme, addressing some important issues in a sober and informative way. I need to watch it again to fully absorb it.
By the way, can any science graduates here confirm this- I think that the gold in the gold facial is useless and has no effect on the complexion, it's purely an expensive gimmick. Is that correct?
I'm not science graduate, but I'd bet my life on guessing that they use gold because it is expensive and not because it has any skin conditioning properties.
One interesting thing about this programmed was that it showed that politicians all across the political spectrum have been complicit in allowing very rich people to pay relatively small amounts of tax. In fact I can't believe that Gordon Brown left the non-dom tax loophole open for all of the time that he was Chancellor!
I thought this was an excellent programme, addressing some important issues in a sober and informative way. I need to watch it again to fully absorb it.
If you do it's worth listening to what the Seattle billionaire guy and the Japanese guy (think he was a Professor of Economics) both had to say about the 'trickle down effect'. What they said made perfect logic and sense to me. Both straight to the point.
One interesting thing about this programmed was that it showed that politicians all across the political spectrum have been complicit in allowing very rich people to pay relatively small amounts of tax. In fact I can't believe that Gordon Brown left the non-dom tax loophole open for all of the time that he was Chancellor!
You do know that Thatcher indulged tax avoidance on a massive scale? Just one example is her £6 million townhouse, the ownership of which was registered to three separate tax havens outside of the UK. Her financial advisors consistently refused to explain why she did not appear to 'own' her home.
That's the one.....are you from this neck o' the woods then? Caudwell's helicopter sometimes clatters past my house as well. He came from a very humble background and though Birmingham born, his parents moved to Stoke-on-Trent not long after he was born. They lived in a very poor area of Stoke and this is a typical street from that area as it is today. Still pretty depressing!
A couple of chaps on that documentary stood out to me and had got it absolutely right. The Seattle billionaire guy and that Japanese Professor of Economics who both said the 'trickle down effect' is nothing but complete hogwash. As Seattle man said, "i earn 1000 times more than the average income earner and yes i've got a nice house and car....but i don't spend 1000 times more than the average person, i don't buy a 1000 cars or houses...".
There were some funny moments where those trying to justify such excessive wealth by saying "but the less well off benefit from the wealthy using taxi's and going to Supermarkets which keeps people employed...". :o
No they don't! They use Chauffeur driven cars and have their groceries sent in from Harrods! They don't take a bus down to Tesco and phone up for a damn Taxi to take them home!
Not from round there no but we did have relatives nearby at Loggerheads and so visited occasionally.
I am in a full time job in central London but my salary has not increased with inflation so I earn less now then when i started. I am unable to afford a house and will likely not be able to afford to commute to my job soon. there seems to be many people in the same situation but there is a lack of affordable houses and the train fares keep raising every year! For a brief period i was homeless as i could not afford to live within commuting distance of work. My boss found out and now I have no hope of getting promoted.
By the way, can any science graduates here confirm this- I think that the gold in the gold facial is useless and has no effect on the complexion, it's purely an expensive gimmick. Is that correct?
Gold is a very inert metal i.e. it's very hard to get it to chemically react with anything. That's part of why it is seen as an investment and keeps it's value - it's because it doesn't 'rust' the way say iron does.
Adding gold to a facial treatment almost certainly has no chemical effect whatsoever - you'd have to heat it to a few hundred degrees before it would begin to react with anything, which would be very bad for your skin indeed. It's possible that having particles of metal in the treatment has some effect electrically or as a 'grit' the way small particles in some liquid soaps work. But you could just as easily use any metal for that.
As has been said, I'd say it's 99% likely it serves the same function as the gold particles in that bottle of really expensive champagne you can get - it's a vanity ingredient meant to emphasise ostentatious spending and massage the ego of the purchaser.
We're being priced out of our own country. We all know we're being screwed by the government to please their rich friends (and their rich selves).
What will we do about it? Moan a lot?
city dwellers have been buying up properties in the south west for holiday homes and weekend retreats for decades, forcing up prices and leaving local people unable to afford houses in their own villages, So now it's happening in London... welcome to the real world.. welcome to capitalism
I am in a full time job in central London but my salary has not increased with inflation so I earn less now then when i started. I am unable to afford a house and will likely not be able to afford to commute to my job soon. there seems to be many people in the same situation but there is a lack of affordable houses and the train fares keep raising every year! For a brief period i was homeless as i could not afford to live within commuting distance of work. My boss found out and now I have no hope of getting promoted.
Exactly the same out of London.....except the wages will be much lower and job prospects less. Seems like you work for a decent company or at the least have a decent boss.
Out there now, I don't think anything said on this is 'news' all been said before in things like Newsnight or Channel 4 news in various reports, so nobody had to go 'looking' for it.
Out there now, I don't think anything said on this is 'news' all been said before in things like Newsnight or Channel 4 news in various reports, so nobody had to go 'looking' for it.
I thought this was a fascinating well presented program. While many of us may already be aware of the vast inequality which exists this program did a great job of highlighting it and explaining how it has come about.
The majority of the super rich came accoss as complete arrogant a-holes who appear to believe that they deserve their vast wealth and seem to have no empathy or understanding at all about the other 99% of people they share the planet with.
The exception was the Amazon guy from Seattle who I thought came across very well. Despite being super rich himself he seemed quite well grounded and could see that the current situation wasn't right.
The only thing missing from the program was a solution of what we can do about it. Would simply raising and enforcing taxes on the rich help to redress the balance or do we need something more radical?
I wonder how many politicians watched this program. if any party can come up with a suitable solution to reduce inequality I'd vote for them. Personally I think this inequality is one of the biggest issues of all which lies at the heart of all sorts of other problems such as the NHS, education, crime, social problems etc. It could even be one of the reasons for the increase in homegrown Islamic terrorism in recent years. Young muslim men are more likely to become radicalised when they live in an unequal society which they feel offers them no opportunities.
I thought this was a fascinating well presented program. While many of us may already be aware of the vast inequality which exists this program did a great job of highlighting it and explaining how it has come about.
The majority of the super rich came accoss as complete arrogant a-holes who appear to believe that they deserve their vast wealth and seem to have no empathy or understanding at all about the other 99% of people they share the planet with.
The exception was the Amazon guy from Seattle who I thought came across very well. Despite being super rich himself he seemed quite well grounded and could see that the current situation wasn't right.
The only thing missing from the program was a solution of what we can do about it. Would simply raising and enforcing taxes on the rich help to redress the balance or do we need something more radical?
I wonder how many politicians watched this program. if any party can come up with a suitable solution to reduce inequality I'd vote for them. Personally I think this inequality is one of the biggest issues of all which lies at the heart of all sorts of other problems such as the NHS, education, crime, social problems etc. It could even be one of the reasons for the increase in homegrown Islamic terrorism in recent years. Young muslim men are more likely to become radicalised when they live in an unequal society which they feel offers them no opportunities.
I thought similar myself. Is it any wonder there is so much aggression and disaffection when you have such obscene inequality.
The guy who thought zero hours contracts and everyone fighting for a few hours work was good for society left me speechless.
Gold is a very inert metal i.e. it's very hard to get it to chemically react with anything. That's part of why it is seen as an investment and keeps it's value - it's because it doesn't 'rust' the way say iron does.
Adding gold to a facial treatment almost certainly has no chemical effect whatsoever - you'd have to heat it to a few hundred degrees before it would begin to react with anything, which would be very bad for your skin indeed. It's possible that having particles of metal in the treatment has some effect electrically or as a 'grit' the way small particles in some liquid soaps work. But you could just as easily use any metal for that.
As has been said, I'd say it's 99% likely it serves the same function as the gold particles in that bottle of really expensive champagne you can get - it's a vanity ingredient meant to emphasise ostentatious spending and massage the ego of the purchaser.
Yours, a science graduate.
However, Gold has been used a medicine for at least 1500 years and it isn't totally inert - auranofin and sodium aurothiomalate are potent anti-rheumatic drugs (the latter featured as a plot on House MD). The most likely effect (other than no effect) from gold facial creams and masks is Contact Dermatitis (Gold was allergen of the year in 2001) http://www.contactderm.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3467
So Gold can have an effect - just that it might not be good
I thought similar myself. Is it any wonder there is so much aggression and disaffection when you have such obscene inequality.
The guy who thought zero hours contracts and everyone fighting for a few hours work was good for society left me speechless.
Most hardcore Tories think zero hours work is better than no work and that it might lead to better things. Questionable of course. Look at Anna Soubry defending them last night on Question Time. Edwina Currie says the same.
I thought the two programmes were excellent. The sort of programmes everyone should watch. They interviewed Chrystia Freeland who wrote Plutocrats. That book's worth a read too.
The one thing we learned is that having lots of super rich people does not make for a better society.
Broadly speaking, I think Jacques Peretti is a pretty reasonable journalist but he does frustrate at times. He posited the idea that the 'top 1%' basically had their pockets filled by the introduction of quantitative easing. There is some credence to this as it has bolstered asset prices, of which the rich own more than the poor. However, it's also depressed interest rates which has made people with big cash piles less well off and the less wealthy with mortgages and borrowings, better off.
Either way, it's an interesting thesis and deserved exploration, but as soon as it was introduced...it was gone! I noticed this style of flitting around happened a lot in other documentaries by Peretti (The Men Who Made Us Spend, The Men Who Made Us Fat etc) and it all feels disorienting.
However, it's also depressed interest rates which has made people with big cash piles less well off and the less wealthy with mortgages and borrowings, better off.
Has it made those with mortgages much better off in the longer term? What the low interest rates do is inflate house prices so that they end up owing more and when rates rise they can't afford it.
Those relying on piles of cash are usually pensioners and the like who don't have massive other assets. The super rich have their money in commodities and these have seen massive rises.
All in all the poor are much worse off and the super rich much better off even though it was the rich that caused the problem.
The guy who thought zero hours contracts and everyone fighting for a few hours work was good for society left me speechless.
I don't approve of violence but I found myself thinking what his reaction would be if a mob had had enough and was stringing him up, would he be thinking "ah well, survival of the most adaptable"?
Polo woman 'oh do F'off you....'
I could try a more considered response, but I don't think she deserves it on that showing.
Her reaction was typical and indeed empathised with by many on DS who think the rich are rich because they work harder. She will not work anything like as hard as many people on minimum wage holding down several jobs just to make ends meet.
Most hardcore Tories think zero hours work is better than no work and that it might lead to better things. Questionable of course. Look at Anna Soubry defending them last night on Question Time. Edwina Currie says the same.
.
The thing is the work is often there but there is no incentive for companys to employ people full time,in my office (post) there are about 30 people on mostly 25 hour contracts (a few on 0-5 hour) this has been going on for 2 years the work is there as they all do a full week,the other hours as overtime.The office also calls in agency staff most days.
Yet despite all but one of them wanting a full time contract the company keeps them on this rolling part-time contract which means they get less holiday/sick pay/bonus etc
However, it's also depressed interest rates which has made people with big cash piles less well off and the less wealthy with mortgages and borrowings, better off.
No, it really hasn't. If I have million pounds and you have a thousand pounds, it doesn't matter whether the interest rate is 1% or 5% or 10%, we're both getting richer at the same rate but I'm always earning more cash than you over time. In theory having a big mortgage at low interest rates is helpful, but I doubt someone with a million pounds to invest has a big mortgage anyway. And you're always better off not having to pay a bill than having to.
The only situation where the richer are worse off than poorer is during a period of deflation, where the rich would effectively be losing more money over time than the poor. And even then it's a case of the amount of change being worse rather than the absolute situation being worse. I can't imagine any reasonable situation where having a million pounds is actually worse than only having a thousand.
Comments
A couple of chaps on that documentary stood out to me and had got it absolutely right. The Seattle billionaire guy and that Japanese Professor of Economics who both said the 'trickle down effect' is nothing but complete hogwash. As Seattle man said, "i earn 1000 times more than the average income earner and yes i've got a nice house and car....but i don't spend 1000 times more than the average person, i don't buy a 1000 cars or houses...".
There were some funny moments where those trying to justify such excessive wealth by saying "but the less well off benefit from the wealthy using taxi's and going to Supermarkets which keeps people employed...".
No they don't! They use Chauffeur driven cars and have their groceries sent in from Harrods! They don't take a bus down to Tesco and phone up for a damn Taxi to take them home!
By the way, can any science graduates here confirm this- I think that the gold in the gold facial is useless and has no effect on the complexion, it's purely an expensive gimmick. Is that correct?
I thought this was an excellent programme, addressing some important issues in a sober and informative way. I need to watch it again to fully absorb it.
I'm not science graduate, but I'd bet my life on guessing that they use gold because it is expensive and not because it has any skin conditioning properties.
One interesting thing about this programmed was that it showed that politicians all across the political spectrum have been complicit in allowing very rich people to pay relatively small amounts of tax. In fact I can't believe that Gordon Brown left the non-dom tax loophole open for all of the time that he was Chancellor!
You do know that Thatcher indulged tax avoidance on a massive scale? Just one example is her £6 million townhouse, the ownership of which was registered to three separate tax havens outside of the UK. Her financial advisors consistently refused to explain why she did not appear to 'own' her home.
We know why. ;-)
Not from round there no but we did have relatives nearby at Loggerheads and so visited occasionally.
Adding gold to a facial treatment almost certainly has no chemical effect whatsoever - you'd have to heat it to a few hundred degrees before it would begin to react with anything, which would be very bad for your skin indeed. It's possible that having particles of metal in the treatment has some effect electrically or as a 'grit' the way small particles in some liquid soaps work. But you could just as easily use any metal for that.
As has been said, I'd say it's 99% likely it serves the same function as the gold particles in that bottle of really expensive champagne you can get - it's a vanity ingredient meant to emphasise ostentatious spending and massage the ego of the purchaser.
Yours, a science graduate.
Polo woman 'oh do F'off you....'
I could try a more considered response, but I don't think she deserves it on that showing.
a/ many are watching and
b/ many will do anything
Agreed,but it needs to be said more often.
I'm amazed these programmes were allowed to be shown. Talk about provoking a revolution.
Possibly they are putting something in the water to ensure we tolerate this?
I have never had respect for the rich. Now I feel totally justified.
Come on you young uns! 99% against 1% - how can you loose?
The majority of the super rich came accoss as complete arrogant a-holes who appear to believe that they deserve their vast wealth and seem to have no empathy or understanding at all about the other 99% of people they share the planet with.
The exception was the Amazon guy from Seattle who I thought came across very well. Despite being super rich himself he seemed quite well grounded and could see that the current situation wasn't right.
The only thing missing from the program was a solution of what we can do about it. Would simply raising and enforcing taxes on the rich help to redress the balance or do we need something more radical?
I wonder how many politicians watched this program. if any party can come up with a suitable solution to reduce inequality I'd vote for them. Personally I think this inequality is one of the biggest issues of all which lies at the heart of all sorts of other problems such as the NHS, education, crime, social problems etc. It could even be one of the reasons for the increase in homegrown Islamic terrorism in recent years. Young muslim men are more likely to become radicalised when they live in an unequal society which they feel offers them no opportunities.
I thought similar myself. Is it any wonder there is so much aggression and disaffection when you have such obscene inequality.
The guy who thought zero hours contracts and everyone fighting for a few hours work was good for society left me speechless.
However, Gold has been used a medicine for at least 1500 years and it isn't totally inert - auranofin and sodium aurothiomalate are potent anti-rheumatic drugs (the latter featured as a plot on House MD). The most likely effect (other than no effect) from gold facial creams and masks is Contact Dermatitis (Gold was allergen of the year in 2001)
http://www.contactderm.org/i4a/pages/index.cfm?pageid=3467
So Gold can have an effect - just that it might not be good
I thought the two programmes were excellent. The sort of programmes everyone should watch. They interviewed Chrystia Freeland who wrote Plutocrats. That book's worth a read too.
The one thing we learned is that having lots of super rich people does not make for a better society.
Either way, it's an interesting thesis and deserved exploration, but as soon as it was introduced...it was gone! I noticed this style of flitting around happened a lot in other documentaries by Peretti (The Men Who Made Us Spend, The Men Who Made Us Fat etc) and it all feels disorienting.
Has it made those with mortgages much better off in the longer term? What the low interest rates do is inflate house prices so that they end up owing more and when rates rise they can't afford it.
Those relying on piles of cash are usually pensioners and the like who don't have massive other assets. The super rich have their money in commodities and these have seen massive rises.
All in all the poor are much worse off and the super rich much better off even though it was the rich that caused the problem.
I don't approve of violence but I found myself thinking what his reaction would be if a mob had had enough and was stringing him up, would he be thinking "ah well, survival of the most adaptable"?
Her reaction was typical and indeed empathised with by many on DS who think the rich are rich because they work harder. She will not work anything like as hard as many people on minimum wage holding down several jobs just to make ends meet.
Yet despite all but one of them wanting a full time contract the company keeps them on this rolling part-time contract which means they get less holiday/sick pay/bonus etc
The only situation where the richer are worse off than poorer is during a period of deflation, where the rich would effectively be losing more money over time than the poor. And even then it's a case of the amount of change being worse rather than the absolute situation being worse. I can't imagine any reasonable situation where having a million pounds is actually worse than only having a thousand.