Why aren't the British middle-classes staging a revolution?

124»

Comments

  • MartinPMartinP Posts: 31,358
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    Obviously you haven't and many are highly qualified with degrees etc and cannot get a job as a clerk let alone an 'investment banker' as this is a country full of well educated people.

    I'm interviewing people for a six figure Banking job at the moment and you'd be surprised at the number of relatively poor quality candidates I see.
  • blue eyed guyblue eyed guy Posts: 2,470
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    Hypnodisc wrote: »
    The fact it's openly racist, fascist and holds the values of the Nazi Party maybe? :D

    Actually the BNP is the ONLY political party that has been proven NOT to be racist in the High Court! ;-)
  • mRebelmRebel Posts: 24,882
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    AndyCopen wrote: »
    The financial crisis was caused by greedy socialists borrowing money they had no intention of paying back

    Actually it was banks borrowing to much. When interest rates on the company bond market was low they could borrow cheap and lend dear. They completely over did it, taking on debts they could only repay if rates on bonds stayed low for ever, which is obviously impossible. HBOS executives were even warned, in 2004, by their head of risk management Paul Moore, that their strategy had the bank headed for the rocks, and their response was to sack him. What banks were doing was like somebody over stretching themselves on a credit card, so they enjoy great times until the repayment reaches a level they can't manage. An individual has to face the consequences of such actions, but when the banks went bust those nice New Labour people made the rest of us pay for the folly of bankers, and the Coalition has done the same.
  • mRebelmRebel Posts: 24,882
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    MartinP wrote: »
    I'm interviewing people for a six figure Banking job at the moment and you'd be surprised at the number of relatively poor quality candidates I see.

    I'm not surprised, as experience shows banks are, in the main, staffed by poor quality people at the higher levels. Also, as the endless stream of misdemeanour's by bankers shows, most are unethical, and some even criminal.
  • LateralthinkingLateralthinking Posts: 8,027
    Forum Member
    Agree with the article.

    The tipping point will be when everyone earning under £50K unites.

    Stones mainly but fracking in every back yard will be what leads to flames.
  • MartinPMartinP Posts: 31,358
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    mRebel wrote: »
    I'm not surprised, as experience shows banks are, in the main, staffed by poor quality people at the higher levels.

    Most of them are very smart and good at their jobs, that's why I enjoy my work. However, sometimes greed and egos can cloud judgments and ultimately we are working in an area where not all risks are quantifiable.
    mRebel wrote: »
    Also, as the endless stream of misdemeanour's by bankers shows, most are unethical, and some even criminal.

    You're not going to believe it, but there are people who behave like that in every industry.
  • mRebelmRebel Posts: 24,882
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    MartinP wrote: »
    Most of them are very smart and good at their jobs, that's why I enjoy my work. However, sometimes greed and egos can cloud judgments and ultimately we are working in an area where not all risks are quantifiable.

    You're not going to believe it, but there are people who behave like that in every industry.

    I do believe it. 5 of the big 6 energy companies have had to pay compensation to customers they fiddled, Serco has volunteered to repay 70 million they over charged for expenses relating to prisons, G4s is under investigation for the same, and more, with public services being no better. I've never known the business and public establishments to be so corrupt.
  • TheTruth1983TheTruth1983 Posts: 13,462
    Forum Member
    ✭✭
    Life isn't that bad for the vast majority. People like to bitch and moan but the fact is we have very comfortable lives in the UK and history tells us that after a revolution things normally take a turn for the worse. We saw it across the middle east with the arab spring.
  • gemma-the-huskygemma-the-husky Posts: 18,116
    Forum Member
    ✭✭
    Mike_1101 wrote: »
    A couple of years ago I worked for an organisation intended to help the unemployed back to work. Yes we did get our share of "deadlegs", those happy to drink cans of lager and watch Jeremy Kyle all day - about 5% of the clients.

    The vast majority DID want to work. What was alarming was seeing highly trained and educated people, teachers, engineers, and other people with very marketable skills who had been thrown on the scrapheap because they were "too expensive" We now have a government that thinks these people should be grateful for 16 hours a week on minimum wage stacking shelves for Tesco.

    There is trouble ahead.

    I think that is exactly what is going on. An army of middle managers, and blue collar workers who are somewhat to lavishly overpaid for the jobs they do, overseen by another army of managers who are grotesquely overpaid for the jobs they do, and an even higher echelon of daylight robbers.

    The result is a "pyramid" scheme of rising debt, which is ultimately unsustainable. To my way of thinking the end result will be national bankruptcy, and a wholesale rebalancing of the economy.

    It's pass the parcel, and the music will stop soon enough. There's not enough chairs for everyone.
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 1,495
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    :D. over dramatic much?

    No just a reflection of the selfish society we live in....
  • [Deleted User][Deleted User] Posts: 1,495
    Forum Member
    ✭✭✭
    MartinP wrote: »
    I'm interviewing people for a six figure Banking job at the moment and you'd be surprised at the number of relatively poor quality candidates I see.

    Really? It must be the ethos of the job that steer decent people away....
  • LyricalisLyricalis Posts: 57,958
    Forum Member
    MartinP wrote: »
    I'm interviewing people for a six figure Banking job at the moment and you'd be surprised at the number of relatively poor quality candidates I see.

    We find the same thing when it comes to candidates (not that we pay anything like those wages).

    It's pretty obvious why there's a shortage though, certainly to me anyway. Finding solutions to the problem is far more difficult.

    I often see HR demanding a perfect academic record, work experience, plus good social skills, high self-confidence levels, lots of interests and achievements - pretty much an over-achiever in every sphere.

    I look at myself and many others I work with, and I see people who would fail to meet those exacting standards in 2-3 areas, and yet some of us are world class experts in our fields now. Therefore you have a position where people perfectly capable of doing the jobs we're trying to fill don't even make it onto the short list.

    So the real problem is that we're all looking for the same type of people using very similar criteria, which is never going to give us a large group because the whole point of the criteria in the first place is making it easier to create a short list of candidates! So were ignoring lots of people who would do as well (if not better) in the job itself because we can't work out how to pick them out from everyone else in a way that doesn't take lots of time and/or money. Crack that one and you'll be rich, though more likely tired and frustrated.
Sign In or Register to comment.