On Tue, 14 Feb 2012 13:44:27 -0800 (PST), Ste
wrote:

Only in the case of supporting a fairly severely disabled relative
would one person need to stay at home. =A0If the person needed support
simply because they were unemployed, there is no reason why anyone
would have to give up their job. =A0The additional expense in supporting
such a family member is little more than the cost of food for that
person.

Perhaps I was confused (and I'm not inclined to go back and check),
but I thought you were advocating full liability for "care", not just
financial liability for the unemployed. How exactly would your
proposal work where most or all family members are out of work?

My proposal was that the state would only give aid (of any sort) to
people who *don't* have any relatives capable of supporting them, and
that people become obliged by law to provide support for family
members. Obviously it would need a fair number of details sorting
out, but that was the bare bones of the proposal. Basically it
extends the responsibility that we have for the wellbeing of our minor
children to a larger family circle.

in addition, the premise is that were such a scheme adopted, the state
would save money and would lower taxes, thus giving every working
family more disposable income - hopefully sufficient to allow one
partner to be able to give up employment.

Lol. Do you really think that the savings would be so manifest?

It would only happen if a substantial tax decrease was specifically
made part of the new proposal - which it would have to be in order to
stand any chance of being accepted by the voters.

It is easy to talk of what they have in common. Less easy, but
actually more interesting and relevant, to talk of what they do not
have in common.

What do you need that you do not have?

What I need depends largely on what other people have.

That is true, but does not answer my question. What, right now, do
rich people have that you do not have that causes you to feel that
your general quality of life is significantly worse than theirs?

There are very few people above the age of 25 in the UK who do not
have their own home (rented or mortgaged).

I suspect the taxpayer will actually be paying, in part or whole, for
quite a few of those.

And? We are talking about the relative quality of life between rich
and poor, so the question of who pays for what is irrelevant. In the
case of wealthy businessmen, their customers are no doubt paying for
their home - and if their main customer is the government, that means
that the taxpayer is effectively paying for their home as well. So
what?

=A0The cost of that home has
nothing to do with how comfortable it is.

Of course it does. If homes are costly, then by and large poorer
people will be in smaller homes than would otherwise be suitable. And
so too, unless you own your home outright, then it can be difficult to
make that home particularly comfortable, without the risk of
forfeiting the cost of any improvements.

The comfort of a home does not improve significantly with its size, so
long as it is big enough not to be overcrowded. My degree of comfort
whilst watching TV, lying in bed or sat at my computer is unconnected
with how many rooms the house has or how big its garden is. Comfort
largely consists of having comfortable furniture and a comfortable
temperature in the home. I also see no problem with buying and doing
things that will improve my everyday comfort and convenience in a
rented property (and have frequently done so) - and it is often
possible to make all necessary improvements in a way that does *not*
mean they are forfeit if and when you move. It seems stupid to me to
put up with discomfort just because making an improvement might end up
benefitting the landlord. The only question for me is whether the
increase to my comfort or convenience is worth the money and/or
effort. You might also consider that even if you own your own house,
very little of the money you spend on it will end up increasing the
selling price significantly, so that money is equally forfeit when you
move out. In fact, a homeowner must spend quite a lot just to
*maintain* the value of the house, and that expense is something that
a person renting a property does not incur, so it's very much swings
and roundabouts.

Sure, wealth has advantages and gives you convenience and flexibility.
But that additional flexibility and convenience provides only a minor
increase in a person's quality of life

It seems to me Cynic that if wealth provides so few advantages for the
wealthy which are of minor benefit only, then why on Earth are they so
keen to retain those advantages, and so keen to maintain disadvantage
for others?

I have not come across any wealthy people who are "keen to maintain a
disadvantage to others". Many (but not all) people are indeed keen to
become wealthy themselves - mainly due to the *perceived* advantages.
If they achieve that goal, they often find that the reality of the
situation is not nearly as great as they imagined (although there are
obviously some real advantages), and in many, many cases the wealth
brings far more disadvantages. Achieving "fame and fortune" has ended
up killing quite a few people at a young age by one means or another.

- and my point is not that a
wealthy person does not have a better quality of life than the average
non-wealthy person, but that the difference is not nealy as great as
the perception.

It really depends on what perception we're talking about, since we
seem to be talking about the perceptions of unidentified third parties
rather than our own.

I think your own perception affords wealth rather more advantages than
the reality. I have experienced both poverty and moderate wealth, and
whilst I can certainly state that I prefer wealth to poverty, it is
also true that my happiness and quality of life have not been
associated in any way with my bank balance. Indeed, the most content
and happiest period of my life so far was during a period when I
didn't even have a bank account.

I would certainly assert that, between more equal and more unequal
*societies as a whole*, the differences in quality of life are quite
significant, although I am quite content to concede to you that
inequality erodes the QoL of the rich as well as the poor - but it
erodes the QoL of the poor moreso, and so in any given society, it is
always better to be rich.

Again, apart from *extreme* poverty and *extreme* wealth, the
difference in QoL is, I mainatain, more a product of your perception
than reality.

Sure - and I suspect that you have a home where you can do exactly
that in just as much comfort as Bill Gates can in his home.

I do, but I am reasonably satisfied with the standard of comfort in my
own home, and generally speaking I have the money to rectify any
deficit.

Does that mean that you regard yourself as a member of the "rich"
class? In the UK, the vast majority of people have the ability to
rectify any significant deficit to their comfort.

=A0In many
cases a wealthy person has *less* privacy than the average person,
because they will have various non-family members in the house most of
the day.

I'm not sure that is necessarily the case, nor does it necessarily
follow that the presence of such people is unwanted.

Of course it is not *necessarily* the case, but people who live in
large homes *need* to employ staff for everyday cleaning and
maintainance, for example. The presence is obviously not unwanted in
one sense (they were hired to do a job), but you do not have privacy
whilst they are in your house. You probably wouldn't(for example) pop
to the kitchen dressed only in underclothes or less when there is the
probability of passing a cleaning lady on the way.

Anyway, the point is that the rich can choose whether they want social
interaction or not - the poor it seems must accept interaction whether
they want it or not.

That divide is in fact probably more on the side of the average person
than most wealthy people. =A0I would go so far as to say that the
average person is socially more secure than a wealthy person, because
theiy can be reasonably sure that their friends and lovers are with
them because they enjoy their company rather than because they want to
enjoy their money.

Yes you may well be correct, but once again, the rich have the
*unilateral choice* to give up their money, if it becomes an
inordinate burden. The poor do not have the unilateral choice to
become rich. Once again, it seems to me that you're in danger of
arguing in support of redistribution, when it does not seem to be your
general intention to do so.

To say that a wealthy person could simply get rid of their money if
they don't like the disadvantages it brings is as simplistic as
arguing that a fat person could simply stop eating so much if they
don't like being overweight, or that a poor person could simply get a
job if they don't like being poor. Yes, it is possible, but it is far
from easy.

People born into wealth are also born into a culture that is different
to the culture of average or poor people, and so getting rid of money
would entail a change of the person's cultural identity.

Wealth also carries quite a few responsibilities. A typical wealthy
person will be supporting several families by employing members of
those families, and will also have formed various social attachments
that would not (for very real social reasons) be possible without
having money. Therfore giving up wealth will mean breaking off strong
social attachments as well as harming a few other people.

Whilst a person who aquires wealth suddenly - such as in an
inheritance or lottery win would *at that time* be perfectly able to
give the money away, almost all people will at that stage perceive it
as being of great benefit to them - and by the time they discover that
money also has downsides they will have formed the abovementioned
bonds.

Also, in our culture money=success and poverty=failure, and so there
is the person's self-esteem at stake as well. added to which many
wealthy people have become obsessed with making money to the point of
addiction, and consequently devote all their time to the task - which
ends up destroying their family and social life and means that they do
not actually take the time to relax and *enjoy* the extensive fruits
of their labours.

It is a matter of choice for the vast majority of average working
people in the UK.

Indeed, most people can still choose to go the pub, but I'm making a
more general point there are lots of basic choices that are
increasingly enjoyed only in proportion to one's wealth.

We are discussing the situation in the UK. I am therefore not
considering people who are so poor that they have to sleep on the
streets and cannot afford to eat. I am also not including the very
top extremes of wealth, such as people who can afford to buy a
tropical island and set up their own society and live completely apart
from the rest of the World.

=A0Again, it is the very wealthy who are often trapped
into a situation where they cannot indulge in such things, because
wealth brings with it quite a bit of undesirable baggage.

Why don't they give it up then? That is the question that your line of
argument seems to raise.

See above. On balance most people will find being wealthy preferable
to being economically average, and I do not pretend otherwise. my
point is only tyhat the difference is a heck of a lot less than most
people's perception, and there are downsides involved that most people
either do not consider at all, or do not appreciate how much of a
downside it will end up being.

Extreme wealth would in that case probably be very frustrating for you
unless you refrained from using it (in which case why would you want
it?)

I *don't* want extreme wealth. And it is not that I begrudge material
goods to others who do want them - the point is that economic wealth
is a source of power, and what I do not want is for that excess power
to be used against my interests, and the powerful almost invariably do
use power against the powerless.

Very few wealthy individuals exert power over the general population
to any extent whatsoever. If power is what you fear, then direct your
attack toward governments that have far more power, and moreover wield
it routinely against the general population.

=A0You will find that a great deal of time is taken up *managing*
all the various things that your wealth has brought to you. =A0You can
mitigate that to an extent by hiring people to manage your money and
assets - but even then you will be required to make a myriad decisions
every week - and also spend time ensuring that your managers are doing
their job satisfactorily and that nobody is taking advantage of you
(which they certainly will if it becomes known that you are not
keeping an eye on all your affairs).

I find it quite funny how you can refer to the wealthy fearing being
"taken advantage of", when taking advantage is what most of the
wealthiest are doing.

You are very much mistaken if you believe that it is all a one-way
street. The more you have (or are perceived to have), the more people
there will be trying to take it from you. There will also be people
trying to deliberately harm you because of jealousy. If you owned a
car worth over £100K, you would soon learn to be very fearful of
parking it in the average public place because of the very high
probability that it would suffer malicious vandalism.

Almost everyone in the UK has been capable of achieving sufficient
income to afford a foreign holiday once a year for some considerable
time.

The point about holidays is that one has the power to afford them *in
addition to* other normal cultural activies, not instead of them. I'm
not sure that "almost everyone" can - and indeed, where the vast
majority can afford something, the deprivation becomes even more harsh
on the minority who cannot, because there are less likely to be
socially acceptable alternatives where only a minority cannot afford
to participate in the mainstream activity.

As said, it is not all that helpful to discuss the small minority of
people at the extreme ends of the financial spectrum - they are
special cases that require special treatment. From what I have
experienced in the UK, even the average unemployed council estate
citizen has managed to find the means to get to Spain for a week or so
each year without impacting their ability to have a pint at the pub a
couple of times a week for the rest of the year. It is more likely to
be the businessman who cannot spare the time from his business to take
a decent holiday.

=A0Albeit that the present economic downturn might have seen a
temporary blip in that situation for a significant number of people.

I would say so, although I'm not so sure that it's going to be that
temporary.

We may indeed be at the start of a general lower standard of living
ratherr than a temporary hiccough. Which means a depression. If
inflation and our present high taxation continues into a depression
era, we will end up with riots and civil unrest that will force a
radical change. The government will have to re-learn that the
population must be given their bread and circuses - and both
commodities consist of far more than they once used to.

I believe that the level to which our social welfare state has risen
has played a very large part in causing the decline in social
interaction within the larger community.

No, it is the level to which market forces and inequality have risen,
that have played the largest part in causing that decline.

We will have to agree to disagree on that point. For me, the fact
that the government is taking my hard-earned money and giving it to
the 17 year old single mother next door gives me far more reason to
decide she doesn't need any further help from myself than the fact
that the CEO of Tesco is earning a 7 figure income. YMMV.

Oh come off it! =A0Given that poor households are the ones most likely
to have unemployed adults living in them, the only reason for dirty
bathrooms is that the person is too lazy to clean.

I didn't say the unemployed lacked the time to clean them. I said that
they were *harder* to clean, and harder to make *look* clean. In other
words, you will put more effort into cleaning older fittings, and they
will look comparatively dirtier even after having put that effort in -
I've seen plenty of bathrooms that look worse when clean, than mine
does when moderately dirty, and I can only assume that the vast
majority of people (including those who are forced to accept old
fittings) make a similar assessment as I do of bathroom quality.

Most rooms can be made to look nice if the effort is made without
needing to spend any significant amount of money.

And whilst you may assume that the unemployed poor by virtue of their
lifestyle have plenty of effort and willpower to spare, the reality is
likely to be quite the opposite, that increased financial stress,
increased consequential demands on physical and psychological effort
across the board with everyday activies, and fewer pleasant everyday
experiences, are likely to leave them sorely depleted of willingness
to exert effort.

I see. Which is a long-winded way of saying that they are lazy.

I know when I feel stressed, even if I otherwise have a surfeit of
time, I find myself *less* inclined to do unpleasant tasks or
difficult chores, not moreso.

There are plenty of things that I feel "disinclined" to do, but
nevertheless I still do them. Its how people who are *not* lazy
behave.

I have no reason to think other people
generally behave any differently - nobody I have ever known, has ever
said to me "cor, I feel extremely tired and stressed at the moment, I
think I'll go and do a few hours of unpleasant work". More often, they
either say that they do not want to do anything at all, or else they
say they want to engage in activities that they find recreational -
and indeed that is exactly how I think too.

So you go and watch the TV and leave the dirty dishes stacked in the
sink for yet another day. I know. It's called "laziness".

=A0Perhaps you should
consider the probability that it is the person's laziness that is
responsible for both the dirty bathroom *and* their poverty

I don't observe that. This seems to be an instance of how all this
imaginary work abounds in the economy, and how, since the recession, a
million people suddenly got lazier (for reasons that are never made
entirely apparent by the people who offer this line of reasoning).

Laziness might not be the reason they are out of work, but it *is* the
reason that they have a dirty bathroom - and if the bathroom indicates
that they are lazy then laziness *might* be the reason for the lack of
a job as well.

And I can assure you that expensive ornate fittings are often far more
difficult to clean than an ordinary chromed bath tap,

I accept that, but garishly ornate fittings are increasingly less
popular these days - especially in working households where money is
available but time is at a premium.

I did not state that they were prevalent in such places - I was
refuting the statement that cheap fittings are more difficult to clean
than expensive fittings.

Personally, I was recently looking at commercial-quality hands-free
taps for my bathroom sink (so as to completely do away with moving
parts and intricate details where muck tends to accumulate and which
are particularly difficult to clean), and next time I'm tempted to
have the tap and pipework wall-mounted instead of sink-mounted - so
that you do not get the unpleasant accumulation of water and scale
around the base of the taps, and wiping the sink clean can be done in
pretty much one swoop of the hand.

If you would really like such taps but cannot reasonably save the
money to buy them from a showroom, there are several places where you
could try to find perfectly good second-hand products. Then borrow
some tools and fit them yourself.

and that even
people living on benefits can get sufficient money to make basic
improvements and decorations to their home - in poorer households the
council will even do that for them completely free of charge.

I know several people who have struggled to get repairs done by
private landlords. Even so, it is one thing to throw up some wallpaper
or lash on some cheap paint, another to fit a high-quality kitchen to
a property in which you have no real security of tenure.

A kitchen is either fit for purpose or it is not. If not, the
landlord has a duty to fix it. It would appear that you have fallen
victim to the sort of marketing that you claim to abhor. There is no
reason whatsoever why a traditional kitchen should be more difficult
to work in than a modern "fitted" kitchen (which seem to be comprised
of overpriced and badly made glitzy chipboard and plastic units that
damage easily).

What, exactly did you have in mind when speaking of a "high quality"
kitchen? The kitchen appliances are quite correctly the tenant's
responsibility - and remain the tenant's property.

I've been to the homes of people who are earning enough to spend on a
restaurant meal once a week and a foreign holiday twice a year, but
are living in a filthy pig sty. =A0Conversely I have visited OAPs who
are struggling to get by on a state pension, but who have spotless
tidy houses. =A0Cleanliness in the UK has very little connection with
wealth.

I certainly agree there is no perfect correlation - some people will
always be content with dirt, and others will always try to polish mud
floors, meanwhile the standards of the vast majority of people are
sensitive to the physical and mental effort required to maintain those
standards. It wasn't all about cleanliness anyway - I also mentioned
aesthetic (and unfortunately no amount of cleaning makes a worn green
or brown bathroom suite look acceptable), and I don't know about you
but I really do prefer to use modern, quality bathrooms.

TBH the appearance of a functional room such as a bathroom is of very
little concern whatsoever, though a pleasant appearance is better than
a shoddy appearance. It is its functionality that affects the quality
of life however, and just about every bathroom in the UK has similar
functionality. If the difference was between having a hot shower
available and having a galvanised cold water bath in the living room
rather I would agree that it is a difference that would affect quality
of life. While I very much prefer the bathroom in the house I am
currently renting (which is big enough to hold a dance) to the house I
was renting last year (which was small and cramped), it is not
something that I could say affects my quality of life to any extent.
A shower takes just as long and gets me just as clean in both, and I
can't say that using the toilet is a noticeably different experience.

There are plenty of ways to make a shabby room look better that does
not involve spending a great deal of money. Just take a wander around
your local pound shops and charity shops to get lots of ideas of
things that can be put on walls and floors to cover up wear and tear
and make the room look brighter.

But honestly - just how much would the quality of your life improve if
you had a big sink?

If I was using the sink several times a day for cooker fittings, or
draining a high number of items on the draining board, it would make a
significant difference I think to have a sink area that was of a
commensurate size.

So *if* you were doing those things I would expect you to find a
practical solution. I doubt it would take mne a great deal of thought
to come up with an idea if I were actually in such a position.

=A0I find that with most limitations, I only have to
figure out a solution once, and then make trivial changes to my
work-habits to accomodate it with little or no disadvatage. =A0And if
such a change would, for you, make a significant improvement to the
quality of your life, I have little doubt that you would find a way to
get yourself a bigger sink (or a smaller grill pan!)

I'm not quite sure I understand your point.

My point is that the things that *do* make a significant difference to
your quality of life are capable of being fixed by even poor people,
with only a moderate amount of thought and effort.

--
Cynic