Bash The Rich Demonstration

[Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz]

Perhaps the rich just redistribute wealth from the poor to the rich? Where's the productivity here that is helping to grow the economy sustainably? Could do without this kind of Mr Rich.

Say you need a mortgage - you get one from a bank, the bank earns lots of money which goes into the pockets of rich bankers whilst you struggle on working down at Tesco, and then you end up geting repo'd, putting even more money in the pockets of Mr Rich Banker.

Then Mr Repo'd Tesco worker goes and bashes Mr Rich Banker for screwing him around.

Edited October 31, 2007 by gruffydd

[ukdaasfan]

Perhaps the rich just redistribute wealth from the poor to the rich? Where's the productivity here that is helping to grow the economy sustainably? Could do without this kind of Mr Rich.

Say you need a mortgage - you get one from a bank, the bank earns lots of money which goes into the pockets of rich bankers whilst you struggle on working down at Tesco, and then you end up geting repo'd, putting even more money in the pockets of Mr Rich Banker.

Then Mr Repo'd Tesco worker goes and bashes Mr Rich Banker for screwing him around.

Morale of the Story

1) Don't work in Tesco

2) Do work in a Bank

3) Don't borrow more than you can afford.

None of this is news.

Edited October 31, 2007 by ukdaasfan

[Andy Jones]

Some of you need to get out of the playground.

I part own and run a factory that provides jobs for 94 people. All of whom are hard working and pleasant people. But none of them took out a large business loan, spotted a market opportunity nor put their house up as backing for the business. They took no risk, made no innovation and generally forget about work outside of Mon-Fri 8-8.

So yes, I draw a salary 10 times the size of some of them.

For which I feel not the slightest embarasment. Rather I feel pride that I provide work for nearly 100 men and women.

Any one of which is free to take the same risks, same investment same life that I chose. But they don't. So I really can't see the problem.

ANDY

[Far Out Bear]

The Bash the Rich demonstration on 3 November isnt an end, but a beginning. It is the launch of

a new campaign about affordable housing for the working class, and against gentrification and the

people who make gentrification possible. Frome Limehouse to Leeds working class areas are being invaded by yuppies,

amenities sold off for peanuts and communities ripped apart. The gap between rich and poor has never been wider, with some working class children condemned to a life of penury, a life without hope.

Yuppies are moving into working class areas at an unprecedented rate, moving into new housing developments

located beside some of Britains poorest estates. Not only are they undesirable socially, they disrupt local economies by forcing up prices and destroy community centres like pubs. Pubs and shops are flogged off for more flats for these unwelcome incomers or turned into vile, expensive gastro pubs with all the soul of a rock.

Members of the middle class buy up houses and flats as investments for their children, when their offspring are little more than babies. For huge numbers of working class people, having a home of their own in only a pipedream.

For our parents, that was an achievable ambition: for us its an unlikely aspiration.

We at Class War have been watching these events develop with anger. It is high time that the people who attack our communities - property developers and estate agents - are shown the error of their ways. We hope you will join us in Notting Hill in November, and on other events as the campaign develops.

Edited to correct spelling

ooh bugger off you silly socialist

[steve99]

Fudge, your views are distorted and out of line with reality.

How can you be so simplistic by saying: 'bash the rich'

Wealth creation gives incentives to people to work hard and push back the boundaries of science and technology. Without reward for innovation, economies would stagnate (see Soviet Russia).

People always say: 'yeah but look at the widening gap between rich and poor'. They conveniently forget that there is no 'absolute' poverty in the UK and that those on the bottom rung now have material possessions and securities that their fore-fathers couldn't have imagined. This wealth is created off the back of a capitalist society where wealth 'filters down' through all levels of society.

People that are rich have more often than not earned the right to such wealth through hard work and enterprise or by using their wit and cunning. They in turn generate further wealth which again 'filters down' into the economy helping even those at the bottom.

I believe that we are lucky enough to live in a country that has some of the best opportunities to better oneself in the world. I genuinely believe that if one applies oneself one can create wealth. This is however not something that will come to us; we have to work hard to do so. It's amusing to see impoverished immigrants come here, use these opportunities and thrive whilst natives whinge about their circumstances!

I am from a 'working class' background' but have managed to become 'well off' and if I can do it so can anyone!!

Socialism = poverty and misery

capitalism = wealth creation and freedom

''People that are rich have more often than not earned the right to such wealth through hard work and enterprise or by using their wit and cunning. They in turn generate further wealth which again 'filters down' into the economy helping even those at the bottom. ''

I would like to agree but this is very much a flawed opinion, the vast majority of non-inherrited wealth has been gotten via greed, deception, dishonesty, luck and favour. The city workers making a fortune are not weath creators, they are just money filters, and being so close to the sourse of the money are in a position to rake a percentage off every transaction that occurs in the UK, other buisness people get there off the backs of the workers they use, often overseas slave labour, as per in china/bangladesh etc (eg the owners of big retail) real estate?? how does buying and selling realestate contribute wealth?, the deliberate policies of Politicians, Bankers and various types of big buisness have reduced the value of a workers efforts to bugger all when they cant get a decent place to live, this is deliberate in order to put pressure on workers to comply and be for ever in debt ''the free mans slavery''. There is no altruism at all amongst the rich and this talk about filter down is nonsense, its generaly a case of filter up, they would boil us down for soap if they could get away with it. Many people work ther ar*es off and get fk all out of life while the class of shysters you seem to admire large it up off the backs of others. There are a few genuine buisness people out there with the right attidue and they are inspiring but they number very few, the rest could be described as crony capitalists, just parasites.

[Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz]

Indeed - an intelligent point Steve99 - I suspect a great deal of 'financial services' wealth creation is of the filter up variety.

In general terms, the rentier class redistribute wealth from the poor to the wealthy.

Edited October 31, 2007 by gruffydd

[ukdaasfan]

''People that are rich have more often than not earned the right to such wealth through hard work and enterprise or by using their wit and cunning. They in turn generate further wealth which again 'filters down' into the economy helping even those at the bottom. ''

I would like to agree but this is very much a flawed opinion, the vast majority of non-inherrited wealth has been gotten via greed, deception, dishonesty, luck and favour. The city workers making a fortune are not weath creators, they are just money filters, and being so close to the sourse of the money are in a position to rake a percentage off every transaction that occurs in the UK, other buisness people get there off the backs of the workers they use, often overseas slave labour, as per in china/bangladesh etc (eg the owners of big retail) real estate?? how does buying and selling realestate contribute wealth?, the deliberate policies of Politicians, Bankers and various types of big buisness have reduced the value of a workers efforts to bugger all when they cant get a decent place to live, this is deliberate in order to put pressure on workers to comply and be for ever in debt ''the free mans slavery''. There is no altruism at all amongst the rich and this talk about filter down is nonsense, its generaly a case of filter up, they would boil us down for soap if they could get away with it. Many people work ther ar*es off and get fk all out of life while the class of shysters you seem to admire large it up off the backs of others. There are a few genuine buisness people out there with the right attidue and they are inspiring but they number very few, the rest could be described as crony capitalists, just parasites.

This kind off true. We have managed to outsource our Working Class to China where we can treste them like shit,

It's another reason why marking through notting hill is so pointless.

Shoudl be marching against the Communists Party of China, who allow this expolitation to happen adn get rich off it.

Course as a % of these people will the Communist, Socialist and Marxists .... hang on aren't we back to my first point.

The status Quo exists cause in the end it's what works the best....

We tinker at the edges and try and restrain it's worst excesses but in the end...

[IWantItNow]

While I agree with the bulk of your post, I do take a small exception to this part.

I honestly think that whole areas of our economic viewpoint have become incredibly warped.

The most important part of which is food. I truly believe that food should be 2 or even 3 times the price it is now. By having food so cheap it has totally skewed our principles from acquiring the basics of life - providing for a family - to accumulating stuff. Food has become such a cheap commodity that you can feed a family of four for a day quite easily on 1 hour of minimum wage work. The concept of poverty and struggle has ceased in this country to have the meaning it once did, and now is about the accumulation of goods rather than providing shelter and food for your family. Unless you have recently mortgaged yourself to the hilt, in which case you may genuinely become poor.

If by 'gentrification' the earlier posters mean flash cars on driveways and new sofas and lcds in the houses - I suggest they think about where that money has come from. It ain't coming from the 'gentry'.

Say what? Food is under priced?

What p**ses me off about this country more than most things is how shite the food is compared to the states. Everything is compromised to save money, it's ludicrous. If anything, for what you get here, food is overpriced.

[dogbox]

Then Mr Repo'd Tesco worker goes and bashes Mr Rich Banker for screwing him around.

C'mon people dont go for the lame easy targets, the Bankers.

Why did'nt you say "Mr rich socialist Ben Elton types, who spout redistribution (as this causes lefties to love them), yet hoarde more millions than the average Banker"

C'mon, why always the easy target?

[Andy Jones]

So if working in the City is so easy, lucrative and staffed by idle idiots, pray answer, why have you not done this?

Is it because your laughable CV wouldn't merit even an acknowledgment letter. That you wouldn't understand the interview questions. That you wouldn't have the first clue of how to attain or maintain the level of productivity required of even a junior trader.

I think we should be told...

You pretty much don't get a 6 figure salary without having a 6 cylinder brain. Sorry, but its true.

ANDY

Edited October 31, 2007 by Andy Jones

[Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz]

WHo said that CITY work is so easy and staffed by idle idiots - I cannae find the post??????????????????????

By the way, many of my family work in the city - in senior positions - and many of them really are a bit dense, though well schooled. Success appears to have more to do with aggression than intelligence.

Edited October 31, 2007 by gruffydd

[dryrot]

The Bash the Rich demonstration on 3 November isnt an end, but a beginning. It is the launch of

a new campaign about affordable housing for the working class, and against gentrification and the

people who make gentrification possible.

[deleted]

Seems a bit mean to bash the Notting Hill set now. Ar'nt they worried enough about the coming collapse in "value" of their homes?

[right_freds_dead]

''People that are rich have more often than not earned the right to such wealth through hard work and enterprise or by using their wit and cunning. They in turn generate further wealth which again 'filters down' into the economy helping even those at the bottom. ''

I would like to agree but this is very much a flawed opinion, the vast majority of non-inherrited wealth has been gotten via greed, deception, dishonesty, luck and favour. The city workers making a fortune are not weath creators, they are just money filters, and being so close to the sourse of the money are in a position to rake a percentage off every transaction that occurs in the UK, other buisness people get there off the backs of the workers they use, often overseas slave labour, as per in china/bangladesh etc (eg the owners of big retail) real estate?? how does buying and selling realestate contribute wealth?, the deliberate policies of Politicians, Bankers and various types of big buisness have reduced the value of a workers efforts to bugger all when they cant get a decent place to live, this is deliberate in order to put pressure on workers to comply and be for ever in debt ''the free mans slavery''. There is no altruism at all amongst the rich and this talk about filter down is nonsense, its generaly a case of filter up, they would boil us down for soap if they could get away with it. Many people work ther ar*es off and get fk all out of life while the class of shysters you seem to admire large it up off the backs of others. There are a few genuine buisness people out there with the right attidue and they are inspiring but they number very few, the rest could be described as crony capitalists, just parasites.

well put.

[roadtoruin]

WHo said that CITY work is so easy and staffed by idle idiots - I cannae find the post??????????????????????

By the way, many of my family work in the city - in senior positions - and many of them really are a bit dense, though well schooled. Success appears to have more to do with aggression than intelligence.

And even if it were easy, why do you think everyone would want to. I used to commute with many of those types whose conversation was largely moronic, shallow, materialistic - just like they come across when you see them interviewed in city bars (usually post-budget, moaning about higher taxes) or when they're tailgating you in their beamers. I know, gross generalisation, but many rich people I've met wouldn't give the poor the steam off their p!ss.

I'm not surprised at 'bash the rich' sentiment, it's understandable, the rich are bringing it on themselves.

[Guest Winnie]

Wow - so we have a whole mix of people don't we:

- Chippy lefties

- Chippy righties

- Chippy lefties with aristo background

- Chippy righties with working class background

- Nouveau riche but only one generation from the blackstuff

- Once riche, but still flying the flag

- Riche and aristos

- Riche and working class

..........so what's new since the Roman Empire?

The biggest thing we should be protesting about today is not what we are JEALOUS of, but what is right eh guys?

Perhaps the most displaced unit of people in our society are NuLabour. Someone needs to take the shotgun out of the boot and put them out of their chippy misery once and for all..........

[Wario]

Wow - so we have a whole mix of people don't we:

- Chippy lefties

- Chippy righties

- Chippy lefties with aristo background

- Chippy righties with working class background

put them out of their chippy misery once and for all..........

And me. I'm just a chippy.

[TeddyBear]

Haven't waded through the whole of this thread but if this is a demo against gentrification, why choose Notting Hill which gentrified years and years ago? Not many rich English can even afford it now, it's full of ex-pats and corporate lets.

If you're going to demonstrate, why not choose areas that are much more recent and where people are seeing their pubs for instance closed down today, like in Hackney, Hoxton, Deptford for instance.

Marching through Notting Hill is totally pointless isn't it? Could bemuse the hoardes of tourists on their way to Portobello if it's a Saturday though.

[RichB]

Say what? Food is under priced?

What p**ses me off about this country more than most things is how shite the food is compared to the states. Everything is compromised to save money, it's ludicrous. If anything, for what you get here, food is overpriced.

Yeah I think so. You can feed a family of four healthily for a day on an hours work at minimum wage.

When in history has that ever been possible before?

[Trixta]

So if working in the City is so easy, lucrative and staffed by idle idiots, pray answer, why have you not done this?

Is it because your laughable CV wouldn't merit even an acknowledgment letter. That you wouldn't understand the interview questions. That you wouldn't have the first clue of how to attain or maintain the level of productivity required of even a junior trader.

I think we should be told...

You pretty much don't get a 6 figure salary without having a 6 cylinder brain. Sorry, but its true.

ANDY

Best post on this forum to date. Sums it all up in one really.

[amy laze]

Fudge. I would love to hear the anarchist politics behind this march.

Or do you only have slogans, and 16 page arguments with your comrades on Urban 75.

[Bobajobbob]

way to completely miss the point

many people still can't afford a house despite working hard, earning good money and not living in a council house

as for the dissapearance of the working class you're talking boll*cks; there has been a big surge in benefit culture in this country it's true but we are by no means all middle class.

What proportion of your definition of working class actually work?

What porportion of your definition of middle class actually work?

What is the difference between the working "working class" and the working "middle class"?

As for the point about housing, your solution would be to bash those that have because you have not? Great.

[jp1]

Hey Fudge, why dont you redistribute some of your 'wealth'?

On **** you admit to be sitting on a nice fat STR fund - so you're 'rich' but in an 'honest' 'working class' way - claiming to have worked hard for your STR fund, when in fact HPI over the years has 'worked hard' to balloon it

[Fudge]

Fudge. I would love to hear the anarchist politics behind this march.

Or do you only have slogans, and 16 page arguments with your comrades on Urban 75.

Who are the people who are most adversely affected by unaffordable housing and gentrification?

The working class. So what is suprising about a small, politically aware group of this class wanting to protest

and demonstrate on these issues. What is different about this protest is that puts class at the centre of the argument, it raises class conciousness which the political parties do their best to deny and supress.

Housing is a class issue.

[ockham]

Who are the people who are most adversely affected by unaffordable housing and gentrification?

The working class. So what is suprising about a small, politically aware group of this class wanting to protest

and demonstrate on these issues. What is different about this protest is that puts class at the centre of the argument, it raises class conciousness which the political parties do their best to deny and supress.

Housing is a class issue.

The objections I've read to this so far suggest that

1. you are not, in fact, 'working class' and in fact went to Eton, Rugby, Harrow or one or another of the better sort of public school.

2. you speak in that fake Ben Elton accent redolent of Sid James and the older London taxi drivers (gor blimey missus, ows yer farver mate) , or any of the cast of East-enders, who in fact in real life have drama school accents not dissimilar to those of class (1) above. It must have escaped your notice that no one in London apart from taxi drivers actually speak like this anymore, cos dey all now spik lak gangstaz innit, bruv.

3. there is no such thing as the 'working class' of the Ealing comedy era.

You haven't answered any of these points, that I can see.

Edited November 1, 2007 by ockham

[Bilboid]

Fudge I think you need to wake up. Socialism failed, centralised planning doesn't work, and people like you who want to boss around the rest of us because you think you mean well are not wanted in power. Yuppies (whatever they are these days) don't want to move to scabby run down areas to gentrify them, they have to because our economy is doing well and there's not enough property in nice places.

Only someone who's had money and liberty all their life could hold such contempt for them.

Edited November 1, 2007 by Bilboid