Fixed that for you.

As to no poverty... You have experience in this area in the UK? Just askin'...

I assume that is why you are here? Too much free stuff over there was making you feel all self conscious and you were trying to avoid being comfortable???

Thanks goodness for National Healthcare, cause rioting can be very hard on ones' health.

Usually they don't actually burn our houses down, they just offer subprime rate mortgages to people that can't pay and then repossess when one can't keep up.

Otherwise it sounds about right.

I have been arguing this all evening with my husband- he says 'shoot the rioters, the police have no power, no respect is given them, these yobs don't want to work, they feel entitled to a life on the dole at others expense. Take all their entitlements away that will give them incentive.'

But he has never had to struggle financially.

I can't accept that people don't want to work if that is the key to a successful future. If so, why do kids at school still say 'when I grow up I want to be a doctor, or a fireman, or.... '

At what point do these children lose their aspirations- their dreams?
Perhaps I should accept it, that for the Chavs, the Yobs, whatever nasty names you want to call them, they aspire to remaining on the social.

I believe that all people are born much the same, innate intelligence and personality has nothing to do with class or race. So If I were born in a Chav family would I be destined to be the same?

Many of you on here claim that you were in similar circumstances and pulled your socks up, struggled and got out. I don't believe that such people do it entirely by themselves; there is always someone who at some time inspires the child and then there is luck. It seems that there just isn't enough inspiration or luck to go round. So why don't those who make it out inspire others? Have we become such an uncaring world? Are we Chavs and non-Chavs alike, all just filled with hate and greed?

In some respects nothing much has changed has it?

A big up for Mr Hoppy

Pah. The Norway massacre was just a few scores of people killed. That's nothing compared to [insert your choice of atrocity here].

can't make out if your joking, trolling, or being serious

having never claimed a penny from the state I have no idea what point your trying to make.

I think he's got a fair point about the entitlement. If you have a functioning family, people take their time to 1-give you security , 2-open your eyes in terms of what you can do, support you, 3-keep your ego in check. Aspirations of those who never had the support, some people's that is, might be bellow zero, to the point of hurting others in order to get stuff free, not work for it, since they might feel like they can and they are entitled.

The concept of entitlement has done disservice to loads of cultures, not just UK. Obesity, pamper yourself, buy your degree, feet up and wait to what you will receive..minorities oppressed in the past get paralised by the hurt feeling, too, by waiting for what's gov gonna get you, instead of investing in yourself. We have that trouble back home. Sometimes grudge, apathy and entitlement infects like a bad disease. It's a bad combo is there is lack of hope and education.

People inspire others all the time. Teachers teach, people write here, travel the world, share their experiences. But they have learned, either taught themselves or learned at home, you gotta always create a back up for yourself and your family. These kids never had it, and being selfish is all they know. Nobody even expects from them being moral. Loads of their families function on "you won't have what you won't steal from the system" notion. And loads of the parents are good ones and probably died in shame seeing their kids on tv, looting. Just shows what is going on between parents and kids these days. I hate the dishonorable scenario that we are witnessing at the moment, but it is a wake up call, and not only for UK. You gotta be cruel to be kind sometimes, and imposing boundaries mean the system cares for their future leaders, for those who are teens now. It makes them only rely on themselves, just like anyone else who has made it. Not giving them stuff for free because they have been hurt by the uncanny aspects of growing up without a proper family structure.

Success is in strategies, and sometimes those have to be pushed on people but letting them fend for themselves, learn how to handle cash, have priorities. Success stories are all over, books, films, adults, but I think we gotta quit being scared of "stigmatizing" certain social class with success stories, and see it is exposing them to success strategies so they can learn. Kids don't read these days, adults don't talk with them too much, figures they could respect aren't present or it's embarrassing to actually admit it, films are boring, unless it's a thriller or vampire crap of some sorts, where violence or injustice is theatrically romanticised.

Good strategies come from family and school and knowing, we are all on our own here. I have no idea where the system even gets the cash to pamper individuals who don't chip in. Just shows UK has means that other places do not have.

__________________
"L'homme ne peut pas remplacer son coeur avec sa tete, ni sa tete avec ses mains." J.H. Pestalozzi

“The only difference between a rut and a grave is a matter of depth.” S.P. Cadman

"Imagination is more important than knowledge." A. Einstein

This article sums up why the scum are rioting. No excuse but interesting reading.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...ogy-of-looting

At the other end of the authoritarian-liberal spectrum, you have Camila Batmanghelidjh's idea, movingly expressed in the Independent, that this is a natural human response to the brutality of poverty: "Walk on the estate stairwells with your baby in a buggy manoeuvring past the condoms, the needles, into the lift where the best outcome is that you will survive the urine stench and the worst is that you will be raped . . . It's not one occasional attack on dignity, it's a repeated humiliation, being continuously dispossessed in a society rich with possession. Young, intelligent citizens of the ghetto seek an explanation for why they are at the receiving end of bleak Britain, condemned to a darkness where their humanity is not even valued enough to be helped."
Between these poles is a more pragmatic reading: this is what happens when people don't have anything, when they have their noses constantly rubbed in stuff they can't afford, and they have no reason ever to believe that they will be able to afford it. Hiller takes up this idea: "Consumer society relies on your ability to participate in it.

So what we recognise as a consumer now was born out of shorter hours, higher wages and the availability of credit. If you're dealing with a lot of people who don't have the last two, that contract doesn't work. They seem to be targeting the stores selling goods they would normally consume. So perhaps they're rebelling against the system that denies its bounty to them because they can't afford it."

Sorry, I can't agree that there is not enough to go around.

Those that want to escape need to listen. Listen, learn and contribute....that is the one option. The other is to curl up and die...although it generally takes 40 to 60 years for the corpse to figure out that the brain is dead and have the manners to stop functioning so that it can be recycled.

Sorry that this may sound a little hard core but I am fully willing to extend any hand needed for those that want to better their lives. The rest, please try and make as little noise as possible in the gutter.

I believe fully in both capitalism and socialism (both in their pure forms of course, not the current government corrupted implementations) but to gain the benefits of either one has to contribute and belong to the society in question.

I care very deeply and believe that many other people do as well. But caring is a two way street. To care about somebody, they need to reciprocate that caring very quickly else it will dry up and be replaced by protectionism forthwith.

__________________
Living it up in Gersau.

Fancy that - i always thought you normally consume what you can afford.

I'd also normally consume an Aston Martin, but I'm not raiding the local dealership just yet.

So, like.... Mr Hoppy is more than welcome to join the EF.

From the Beeb:

Well duh, everybody knows it's a bad idea to transport electronic equipment in heavy rain.

Nice to see that Cameron is back from holiday and taking a hard line on these scum bags.

He looks well doesnt he! I hear he was earning a bit of pocket money serving in a cafe somewhere in Italy during his hols.

I heard a senior Police spokesman on the news say that the rain was the best Police Officer!

Nice to see the looter knows to transport a plasma screen vertically...

Good to see you got my order Porsch

Huffington: "...a young man injured during the London riots being robbed by men who supposedly came to his aid"

Except that the video doesn't show that the one guy who helps him is with the others or takes anything out of the bag.

if that was a plasma screen he wouldn't be able to pick it up let alone run with it, looks like an led screen to me, too thin to be anything else

His arms aren't as nice as mine