Our financial sytem is stuffed.We need a proper constitution and Govt banks that express increases in GDP debt free.

"Beach bum was sitting on the beach watching the successful company executive building Beach mansion. The bum approached the executive and asked him "why have you wasted your life to do what I have done all my life”?"

SCE, "oh I thought I'd just have a little place here for when the weather at my other beach houses isn't as good, or when I'm not at my place in Paris or Vienna. So what do you do when the surf here sucks and it's raining?"

response "Smoke dope, do nothing, try to pick up teenage ferals"

Not everyone wants to lead a life as empty of substance as this. I have mates who have never worked, have lived in beach communities surfing doing nothing much except grow some dope occasionally, when they can be bothered. They have a jaundiced view of travel and culture, because it is beyond them, so they deride it and sneer at it.

the same as happens here isn't it, the ones who don't have it, scorn it, the ones who do have it, realize the value of it and it's a reward for working hard and taking risks.

then there are those who say, so what if I've never improved myself, and p*ssed away everything I have earned on partying, cars, whatever and generally done bugger all with it - I deserve the same as everyone else, meaning he deserves the same as someone who has worked hard, improved themselves, taken risks and is now successful

no way, you are what you are and you are a product of your own life .. if you sucked at it(as rpg says), that's your problem.

you have no right to demand "everyone should be equal" and that I should willingly hand over to bludgers and ne'erdowells the fruits of my hard earned, and I'll fight to keep it that way.

Anyway, nothing will happen unless someone does it to get your votes, you've proved you're too bloody lazy and the best you can do is raise your hand for the next donation, courtesy of the taxpayers.

Thanks for your endorsement Ammonite.

Apropos of your comment, while capitalism is notoriously difficult to define, one authoritative voice who gave it a shot was Robert Heilbroner. He says "we can describe capitalism as a stratified society in which the accumulation of wealth fulfils two functions: the realization of prestige, with its freight of unconscious sexual and emotional needs, and the expression of power, with its own constellation of unconscious requirements and origins. When Marx calls capital "self-expanding value" he is underscoring the function of capital as an embodiment of power, for the essence of capital to Marx is its domination over labor; but when Veblen stresses the emulatery behaviour to which capital gives rise, he is explicitly stressing the resemblances between the symbolic properties of capital as wealth and the prestige objects of primitive societies. Both aspects of capital can be seen in the capitalist social formations, where the process of accumulating capital is pursued in part because it is the manner in which the dominant class expresses and renews its social control and in part because it is the typical means by which preeminence and distinction is achieved in the socioeconomic world" (The Nature and Logic of Capitalism 53).

Of course the puppets of the system think they are actuated by something sublime..

Squeers

>> Of course the puppets of the system think they are actuated by something sublime.. <<

If they thought otherwise, their usefulness to perpetual consumption would fail.

There is nothing wrong with someone choosing not to work. No problem!

The problem starts when that someone also expects to be supported in their chosen way of life.

If you are capable of working, then you should either work, or be cut off after you have failed to obtain work, despite the best efforts of the tax payer funded employment agencies.

Just remember, it is the 'dole bludger' who they are after, not the genuine unemployed.

If you are unemployed and 'actively seeking work' then you have nothing to fear. Unless of cause you have been presented with endless opportunities but you are just to fussy.

Otokonoko, you mention that you worked for 20 hours while at uni, but your friends only worked for 8 hours, yet both of you took home the same pay packet. Did you study full time? How much did you actually learn during those years? For I myself studied full time and I have to tell you we were overloaded with studies. People who worked the number of hours you did actually struggled in their studies, kept copying the work of others and nagged them for help. Sure, they got their degrees, but what is the point of getting a piece of paper without the knowledge behind it?