There goes civilisation...

He said it, not me!

I agree. I only posed the question because I keep getting attacked by people who think that we're all obligated to "do our bit" for humanity. So I'm curious, what have they done?

I haven't attacked you. i'm responding to what I see as flaws in your line of argument, which seem to be a result of your current circumstances.

I think someone's entitled to try and argue that paying tax isn't "doing your bit" for humanity if someone has said it is, which you did.

I'm just not a product of Object.

I was trying to be a bit clever there Chris - I can't expect you to have seen any of Turgenev's plays.

I hope you don't justify your existence on the basis of paying a tax levied by the government. It's not a voluntary thing. You get paid a certain wage and you pay various percentages of it back in tax. Sorry but just because you don't consider you "use" it doesn't mean you're doing something charitable.

I'm a computer geek. I like to express things in quantifiable terms. So I say this: a family of 4 can live off my taxes for a year.

Let's say I do this: I get a much easier job, make a lot less money, pay a lot less tax, and have lots of time for volunteer work. I've always wanted to tutor kids in math and science... you Westerners are abysmal when it comes to these subjects. Come to think of it, you could do with some spelling and grammar lessons as well.

But if I do that, who's going to feed that family of 4?

[Edit] Mind you, I'm not saying I busted my ass in school and uni just so I could make enough money to feed a low-income family. I busted my ass because I wanted a comfortable life and a stable income. And as a happy coincidence, a family of 4 can survive because of it. Everybody's happy.

I'm a computer geek. I like to express things in quantifiable terms. So I say this: a family of 4 can live off my taxes for a year.

Let's say I do this: I get a much easier job, make a lot less money, pay a lot less tax, and have lots of time for volunteer work. I've always wanted to tutor kids in math and science... you Westerners are abysmal when it comes to these subjects. Come to think of it, you could do with some spelling and grammar lessons as well.

But if I do that, who's going to feed that family of 4?

The state will feed them. Or concerned members of their community. Or themselves. Etc.

You could get a much harder job that pays a lot less, tutoring kids in maths and science; or something.

Superior numeracy skills amongst Easterners owe a lot to the interface between working memory, and the simpler phonotactic structure of your number system. Lucky, if you enjoy maths ;)

CG; it's interesting to have the view from the inside, from someone who favors this economic system. But I'm not convinced. This isn't just an argument between pro and anti capitalists. There have been prominent capitalists, such as George Soros, arguing against these particular *forms *of capitalism for several years. Soros isn't arguing for socialism but he is arguing that deregulation - the so called 'light touch' - has led to these problems. As many commentators have pointed out - again not all of them left wing - the neo liberals have been campaigning against state intervention for decades and now they are happy to accept state intervention, in the form of effective nationalisation of AIG for example. That's what people call socialism for the rich.
And anyway if your boyfriend is working all hours of the day five days a week then he's just like millions of other people in this country except that they do it for minimum wage. It may be a tough patch for him but it's a tough *life *for others. I have more sympathy for the cleaners and security guards at Lehmans who have lost their jobs this week than for the people we saw on the front of the papers carrying out cardboard boxes.
People do make mistakes and that's what's curious about your argument; that people are fallible individually, and companies fallible collectively, is why they can not be left to their own devices, there has to be oversight and the only entity that can do that is government. Self regulation, let alone trusting in the apparently mystical properties of markets has not worked. Allowing investment banks to borrow £30 for every £1 they have is not human error; it's a disasterous political policy formulated by neo liberals such as Bush (or the people who tell Bush what his policies are with the aid of a piece of paper and a crayon).
Paying into a pension fund is not greed; it's the only way to make sure you can buy food when you retire. Allowing a CEO to take home $22 million in bonuses last year, as happended at Lehmans, is another matter. When the short term rewards are so gigantic it is bound to affect judegement. I'm pretty sure it would affect mine. Which again is why people who have so much to gain by being so greedy and so cavalier can not be left to just get on with it; governments have to regulate and legislate.
I don't imagine that the people who work in banking are all immoral any more than I think all nurses and doctors are saints. As people they may be loving, generous and kind to their friends. That's neither here not there when thinking about the system in which they operate, other than the rather sad feeling that they are wasting their lives and talents. As am I, probably, ferrying round tapes of crappy adverts all day. I know I am not writing from any kind of moral highground, not even a moral molehill.
You work in banking, your friends are bankers you see the people involved and know they're not bad people. Well, not all of them. But in sticking up for your peers I think you're being too kind to this relatively recent and, as it's turned out untenable, unrestrained and idealogically driven market insanity.

With the amazing jobs they will get with the brilliant maths and grammar skills...

er... I was talking about saving for an annuity that would leave you starving for the last twenty years of your life, inflation was just something I mentioned along the way to explain why you can't just put savings under the mattress. Specifically because you mentioned putting money into pension funds as a form of greed. I think you are currently living in a world of yuppiedom and have this notion that a pension is something a CFO gets to buy his yacht with when he retires. For most people it's an often meagre income to see out their days after working hard long hours all their lives.

Dude, I've been working 3 years and I completely ignored all the pension schemes my employers have sent me until the past 2 months. And only because my mother nagged me into paying attention. I don't know what the hell CFOs do with their pensions... I doubt they really need it anyway, if they had half a brain, they would've had enough saved up to live quite happily, pension scheme or no.

The state will feed them. Or concerned members of their community. Or themselves. Etc.

You could get a much harder job that pays a lot less, tutoring kids in maths and science; or something.

Superior numeracy skills amongst Easterners owe a lot to the interface between working memory, and the simpler phonotactic structure of your number system. Lucky, if you enjoy maths ;)

Um... where do you think the state gets money? It doesn't grow on trees.

Um... where do you think the state gets money? It doesn't grow on trees.

You're not the only person subsidising the state.

I don't see cg5154 having an epiphany here.. you're coming across like one of those 80s tory minister's kids. You obviously feel you pay too much tax but dude - saying that shit about a family of four living off your taxes for a year is really ugly. That's like saying I'm keeping a family in Chad alive for a month by buying a soul record for £2 in a charity shop. A rare soul record which I then sell for £50. You get the idea I'm sure, however opaque an example that was.

CG; it's interesting to have the view from the inside, from someone who favors this economic system. But I'm not convinced. This isn't just an argument between pro and anti capitalists. There have been prominent capitalists, such as George Soros, arguing against these particular *forms *of capitalism for several years. Soros isn't arguing for socialism but he is arguing that deregulation - the so called 'light touch' - has led to these problems. As many commentators have pointed out - again not all of them left wing - the neo liberals have been campaigning against state intervention for decades and now they are happy to accept state intervention, in the form of effective nationalisation of AIG for example. That's what people call socialism for the rich.
And anyway if your boyfriend is working all hours of the day five days a week then he's just like millions of other people in this country except that they do it for minimum wage. It may be a tough patch for him but it's a tough *life *for others. I have more sympathy for the cleaners and security guards at Lehmans who have lost their jobs this week than for the people we saw on the front of the papers carrying out cardboard boxes.
People do make mistakes and that's what's curious about your argument; that people are fallible individually, and companies fallible collectively, is why they can not be left to their own devices, there has to be oversight and the only entity that can do that is government. Self regulation, let alone trusting in the apparently mystical properties of markets has not worked. Allowing investment banks to borrow £30 for every £1 they have is not human error; it's a disasterous political policy formulated by neo liberals such as Bush (or the people who tell Bush what his policies are with the aid of a piece of paper and a crayon).
Paying into a pension fund is not greed; it's the only way to make sure you can buy food when you retire. Allowing a CEO to take home $22 million in bonuses last year, as happended at Lehmans, is another matter. When the short term rewards are so gigantic it is bound to affect judegement. I'm pretty sure it would affect mine. Which again is why people who have so much to gain by being so greedy and so cavalier can not be left to just get on with it; governments have to regulate and legislate.
I don't imagine that the people who work in banking are all immoral any more than I think all nurses and doctors are saints. As people they may be loving, generous and kind to their friends. That's neither here not there when thinking about the system in which they operate, other than the rather sad feeling that they are wasting their lives and talents. As am I, probably, ferrying round tapes of crappy adverts all day. I know I am not writing from any kind of moral highground, not even a moral molehill.
You work in banking, your friends are bankers you see the people involved and know they're not bad people. Well, not all of them. But in sticking up for your peers I think you're being too kind to this relatively recent and, as it's turned out untenable, unrestrained and idealogically driven market insanity.

Surely this intelligent, considered and balanced response has finally put this thread to bed.

"I don't imagine that the people who work in banking are all immoral any more than I think all nurses and doctors are saints. "

The above quote sums it all up

You're not the only person subsidising the state.

No, I'm not. But haven't people been complaining that there isn't enough money going into the welfare system? So if my money goes away... or, in a more extreme example, if the half a million French investment bankers in London all decide to go back to France (a bunch of them have, because they lost their jobs)... there's going to be even less money.

I'm keeping a family of 3 alive in the flat upstairs, by reining in my homicidal tendencies when their dog keeps pissing on our balcony and they insist on shouting and fighting every night at 2.30am in their bedroom with its super-amplifying laminate flooring, which is directly above where I (try to) sleep.

OK, maybe not

Oh yeah, and sex workers, they get it bad in these sorts of situations, looks like Hippy's Specialized might be up for sale soon . . . .

It's deductable, since I'm riding to visit "clients". :)

I don't see cg5154 having an epiphany here.. you're coming across like one of those 80s tory minister's kids. You obviously feel you pay too much tax but dude - saying that shit about a family of four living off your taxes for a year is really ugly. That's like saying I'm keeping a family in Chad alive for a month by buying a soul record for £2 in a charity shop. A rare soul record which I then sell for £50. You get the idea I'm sure, however opaque an example that was.

So let me get this straight. Unless I've voluntarily sacrificed myself in some way, I haven't contributed anything?

Anyway, now that Velorution and I are tied for the position of Most Despised Forumenger of the Year, I bid you all good night.

No, I'm not. But haven't people been complaining that there isn't enough money going into the welfare system? So if my money goes away... or, in a more extreme example, if the half a million French investment bankers in London all decide to go back to France (a bunch of them have, because they lost their jobs)... there's going to be even less money.

cg5154 I'm beginning to think that you're replying too fast for your own good here. That is the most half-baked point this thread has yet had, and there have been many along the rocky road. I really hope you see why I think that's half- or even quarter-baked.

that's hot. i dig dirty heathen immigrants who can talk the talk of the deep south.

Sounds like I fit your bill..

Hey, I have met CG, albeit briefly, and some of you would stop being so personally vindictive if you did likewise. This forum is full of people who work in the so-called creative industries, basically advertising, basically selling shit that no-one needs and fueling the kind of crappy consumerist society that in other posts they deplore and you are happy to go to 'drinkies' with them. I work, at one remove, for companies that I would never want to work for directly. Does that make me a hypocrite? Yes, I think it does. All my close friends work in the state run 'caring' sector and yes I do think they are contributing a lot more to society than I am or CG is. But I wouldn't have them look down their noses at me the way some of you have with CG, let alone make public the contents of a PM, so can some of you get off your fucking high horses.

No, I'm not. But haven't people been complaining that there isn't enough money going into the welfare system? So if my money goes away... or, in a more extreme example, if the half a million French investment bankers in London all decide to go back to France (a bunch of them have, because they lost their jobs)... there's going to be even less money.

The money could come from somewhere else (e.g. diverted from funding wars - simplistic, but true).

Also, these bankers that are leaving have had UK tax spent on them as much as any other resident that lives in a community where the streets are cleaned, emergency services are ready for action, and so on. So them going lessens the tax burden.

Going back to something pj(pj) said, there are more important jobs that need doing. Imagine if all cleaners downed tools tomorrow...

Alas, my dear Jimjams, all the opinions expressed heretofore have been, I'm afraid, mine and mine alone.

I don't see why you think my justifications are half-baked. It seems quite simple to me. Fewer people paying taxes = less money for the state = less money for whatever it is that the state subsidizes... wars, schools, roads, whatever.

The money could come from somewhere else (e.g. diverted from funding wars - simplistic, but true).

Also, these bankers that are leaving have had UK tax spent on them as much as any other resident that lives in a community where the streets are cleaned, emergency services are ready for action, and so on. So them going lessens the tax burden.

Going back to something pj(pj) said, there are more important jobs that need doing. Imagine if all cleaners downed tools tomorrow...

Yeah, but all the bankers leaving have paid a lot more in taxes than most of us will ever earn in a year. When you net the amounts, I'm pretty certain they'll come out in the positive. Especially since they all think the NHS is crap and prefer to use private health care or go back to France for medical treatment.

Well if I lose my job because of those idiot fixed income monkeys, I'll swing by your street and give it a good clean. Oh wait no I can't. The council probably won't give me a work permit. Damn.

Hey, I have met CG, albeit briefly, and some of you would stop being so personally vindictive if you did likewise. This forum is full of people who work in the so-called creative industries, basically advertising, basically selling shit that no-one needs and fueling the kind of crappy consumerist society that in other posts they deplore and you are happy to go to 'drinkies' with them. I work, at one remove, for companies that I would never want to work for directly. Does that make me a hypocrite? Yes, I think it does. All my close friends work in the state run 'caring' sector and yes I do think they are contributing a lot more to society than I am or CG is. But I wouldn't have them look down their noses at me the way some of you have with CG, let alone make public the contents of a PM, so can some of you get off your fucking high horses.

Will I can only speak for myself but I am in no way being personally vindictive. I'm not conscious of posting in language that has any malice to it at all. cg5154 has posted a ton of stuff here - voluntarily - that people are responding to, some people more personally than others. A lot of what she's saying is genuinely bewildering me.

Hey, I have met CG, albeit briefly, and some of you would stop being so personally vindictive if you did likewise. This forum is full of people who work in the so-called creative industries, basically advertising, basically selling shit that no-one needs and fueling the kind of crappy consumerist society that in other posts they deplore and you are happy to go to 'drinkies' with them. I work, at one remove, for companies that I would never want to work for directly. Does that make me a hypocrite? Yes, I think it does. All my close friends work in the state run 'caring' sector and yes I do think they are contributing a lot more to society than I am or CG is. But I wouldn't have them look down their noses at me the way some of you have with CG, let alone make public the contents of a PM, so can some of you get off your fucking high horses.

Awww thanks Will. I guess you'll be my fwiend, even if nobody else will.