Inappropriate Names

I am totally in agreement with you. Virgin 'media on demand' should contain a rider in small print saying 'you may experience difficulties, but please be patient'. Yes often it is unavailable but it gets more dangerous when it is available and one pays for a movie on demand and it breaks down, freezes and then disappears of the screen.This has happened to me several times. The endless telephone calls to customer service, the waiting then talking to a human voice only to be advised that I should telephone the engineers department. Yes on many occasions I was given a refund or not charged, but who needs all that hastle. This Virgin on Demand has so many blips and hiccups that the problems ought to be solved before Virgin should legally be allowed to advertise again to the public.

Hmm, how about FreeServe. I know it's all but disappeared now that dial-up is generally only used by the handful of people who do nothing but send the odd e-mail, but it was never free, if you didn't read the small print you got a shock when the phone bill turned up!

peugeot the drive of your life,yeh in your dreams.

Helpdesks.

Human Resources.

Actually it sums the modern situation up all too well. Personnel is the old word, and I wish we could get back to a time when the personal contribution made by individual wage earners was rather more than as a mere resource with a number attached!

I am starting a new job in a tiny little company of more than a century’s standing, where no one is merely a resource or a number, but that is luck. I hope it will last another 25 years and then I forget the worry of being a mere resource statistic - infinitely disposable, and treated without any commitment to the human aspect. Victorian values have done well under Mr Blair.

George

quote:

Originally posted by GFFJ:
Human Resources.

Actually it sums the modern situation up all too well. Personnel is the old words and I wish we could get back to a time when the personal contribution made all up wage earners rather more than mere resource with a number attached!

I am starting a new job in a tiny little company of more than a century’s standing, where no one is merely a resource or a number, but in these globalised times of big is beautiful, but that is luck. I hope it will last another 25 years and then I forget the worry of being e mere resource statistic, infinitely disposable, and without any commitment to the human aspect.

George

Very true George and yet any company is only as good as its people and how well it treats them. I guess this is why there are so few truly great companies.

Mark

Dear Mark,

The world is full of progress! Not progess, necessarily in the right direction!

I have been trying for this very job for six months, and it has come to me. I value the working environment and the people I shall be with and far more than the ultimate amount I shall be paid. I worked there last summer, so I know it will be fine. I turned up for an interview on Monday and the boss was on the blower, so I stood outside the office door. He put the phone down and asked me to move a pallet of containers up to the production room, and said he would be ready for me by the time I was back! Interview took all of two minutes! I think that implies a real human undertsanding. But such positions are all too rare.

A large company attempted to buy, can I say, "us" out in the last couple of years ago. Then the staff would have been mere numbers resource for sure! But so would the owners!!

George

Progress in the wrong direction is regress surely!

The very best of luck to you George and I'm glad you've found a position that suits.

Hope to meet with you next weekend all being well.

Best regards

Mark

Dear Mark,

Surely you are right, but it is possible to describe a movement from A to B as progress! B might not be a better place than A.

I think we are told things are progress, when really it is capital taking it final step in strangling the proletariat, which I definitely count myself as being a part of!

Regression might be regarded as a revolutionary word to the owners of ruthless capital!

George

PS: Looking forward to meeting you at Munch's do!

Unfortunately more and more companies, bodies, institutions are run by accountants. My last position was at a place where the working colleagues and environment was very friendly but the work was intense, frantic and stressful (to the degree that I use wake up early automatically, also dream of problems at work which did not exist and dread going into work). Each month the powers that be from upstairs use to set targets, if our team reached that target then next month target was increased-ah the modern greed. No one got a raise as to wages from their own requests (no matter how valid their case was), however from precedents increase in wages were offered to employees who have found alternative employment and were about to leave. Very similar to suing insurance companies or defendants for personal injury, case has been proceeding for a long time and when trial time has finally arrived the case is settled 'at the doors of the court'. Because of the nature of this company, no one trusted the head manager and his cronies. In the days of dark satanic mills alot of employees (and children) were treated appallingly by their masters (there were some positive employers who took a different approach to their employees and usually made better profits)usually in the physical sense which was all driven by profit and greed. Ofcourse where I worked there was no such physical abuse but the negative approach by the company has created the same mistrust and sense of insecurity among the employees. That particular company had a large turnover of employees. Alot of employees have left but replacement employees were always found eventually because everyone needs a job. I used to be strong fan of capitalism, a right winger but now I feel like socialist!

Well I am gratified that such an innocent initial post has generated such anti-capitalist sentiments! My political leanings are I think no secret so I will not go into another long rant, tempting though it is! Glad you have found a job which seems to suit you well though, George

Steeve

quote:

Originally posted by 151:
peugeot the drive of your life,yeh in your dreams.

I take it you never owned a 205 1.9GTI? Makes the Golf look lazy!

Even better still the Turbo Technics version which is basically the 205 rally car set up for the road. I suspect they're probably the most fun you can have car wise for £1500 and £4000 respectively!!!

quote:

Well I am gratified that such an innocent initial post has generated such anti-capitalist sentiments!

Am I the only person who finds that ironic considering that we are on a forum for a small specialist brand exploiting a niech market? There would be no room for Naim in a planned economy.

The BBC really should be called the EBC.

There is quite a bit of middle ground between the capitalist extremism we are moving towards and the centrally planned command economy found in communist governed countries.

I am sure that for example, there is much to commend in the way Norway operates a capitalist system as compared to the US or the UK.

George

quote:

Originally posted by TomK:
The BBC really should be called the EBC.

I remember that. Emu's Broadcasting Company.

George

quote:

I am sure that for example, there is much to commend in the way Norway operates a capitalist system as compared to the US or the UK.

It would appear so, but Norway administers Svalbard as a tax haven in order to prop up its economy and I doubt would be as successful without that wealth generating tool. Norway also benefits from a small population and some fantastic natural resources. Also their government has been much more fiscally responsible than our own, having not only kept spending within its means, but has built up the so called "oil fund" reserving a portion of oil tax revenue for investment. That fund is now so massive Norway could comfortably live off the interest!

Something similar coud easily gave been done here in UK with the oil benison, but Norway has got a good deal right, and it is absolutely based round a capitalist system, and I had no idea that it also ran a tax haven!

For capitalism not eventually to strangle the system [in that more and more capital rests in the hands of the owners of the means of production at the expense of all others], it requires governing to equalise the wealth more fairly. This is the civilising influence on capitalism that is actually essential for the system to survive of itself.

Capitalism contains the seeds of its own destruction, unless it is actually moderated, just as a Nuclear reactor needs governing from outside to prevent a run away reaction.

The trouble comes when government becomes, as it appears in the US today, an issue which is decided by means of money as much as the quality of the candidates, or even the genuine choice of the electorate.

That was serious was it not?! George

Oh I would not wish to advocate anarchocapitalism in the domestic sphere! But states need to be pragmatic with the resources that they've got, and accept that the market is the entity which generates the wealth that in turn allows them to spend. If you constrict the market too much it does not generate wealth for you to tax and provide a welfare state etc... It is a balancing act, and I suspect there is no universal center of mass! As I mentioned before, Norway and the UK have very different ratios of population to resources, the UK could not sustain per capita public spending at the same levels as Norway. Without valuable resources to sell to external markets encouraging investment is the only way to keep the economy stable, and that means relatively lower taxation.

If you were what Marx would term a "capitalist" would you rather set up a new business in Norway and see about 90% of your profits end up in the tax system rather than your pocket, or Estonia and only see about 30% taken from you, or indeed Svalbard or the Isle of Man and see non of your profits taken from you?

All other things being equal it would be irrational to invest where your returns would be swallowed by the tax system, and if you weren't seeking to increase your capital you wouldn't be looking to invest it at all!

Dear Dom,

"If you were what Marx would term a "capitalist" would you rather set up a new business in Norway and see about 90% of your profits end up in the tax system rather than your pocket, or Estonia and only see about 30% taken from you, or indeed Svalbard or the Isle of Man and see non of your profits taken from you?"

According to that logic, no one would be in business in Norway, and yet they are, and doing very nicely. My Norwegian grandmother's cousin, Birger Rasmussen, was the chief shareholder in Braathen SAFE [now part of SAS, but for fifty years the main private sector airline in Norway], and my grandfather was the Chairman of the Norwegian CBI in the year 1973/4, so my back-ground is hardly one of being a "Red."

My point is not anti-captalist as such. I see it as having a similar dynamo effect to a Nuclear Reactor. One has to have a situation where a controlled reaction can take place, but my posts above about Human Resources make the point that I do not think all is is going terribly well in UK in its taming, control, and use of capital for a general good of trhe people! Capital should be the servant of society and not society the inevitable servant of capital.

We are going the way of the USA, which naturally I regard as a bad thing.

When we have a fifth of our population without adequate health insurance than we really will have succeeded in "progressing" to distopia, at least in my opinion.

I believe that Mr Blair was far worse than Mrs Thatcher in the respect of governing capital for the common good of all the people, as the electorate voted for her on the ticket she represented, and promissed. The working man in UK has no party to vote for now, to reverse the inevitable rise of brute capitalism we are witnessing.

George

quote:

Originally posted by djftw:

quote:

Originally posted by 151:
peugeot the drive of your life,yeh in your dreams.

I take it you never owned a 205 1.9GTI? Makes the Golf look lazy!

Even better still the Turbo Technics version which is basically the 205 rally car set up for the road. I suspect they're probably the most fun you can have car wise for £1500 and £4000 respectively!!!

a 205,drive of your life,lol

Very impressive George, far more so certainly than the rag tag collection of metal workers and asylum seeker coal miners I have for ancestors.

To Marx a "capitalist" was one who controlled the capital, not someone in favour of capitalism. I was not accusing you of being a "Red", and indeed wouldn't, a lot of my family lived through 50 years of Soviet occupation, and anyone who says the Soviets were any better than the Nazis is unbelievably ignorant. I would no sooner call someone a "Red" than compare them to Hitler.

I do like your Nuclear reactor analogy, but it rather misses the point that we are now in the days of global capitalism, and have been for a very long time. The capital cannot be used as a servant of society, as the society cannot control it unless it is a closed market. The internal market is not separate from the global market in any respect, to the extent that the government is the servant of capital. Indeed, I regard this as desirous, without exchange as a method of regulating interstate competition for resources, the only avenue available for a state to gain additional resources would be warfare / colonialism. Not to mention that a state that controlled the capital would be a tyrant.

As to the working man? Which working man? Class is one of my least favourate social constructs, as it almost entirely rests on self identification, but as you have set it in those terms... The working class that the Labour Party came into existence to represent is all but extinct. We now have a huge middle class, who have similar interests and broadly similar social attitudes, it is only natural that the mainstream parties in the UK are converging on the center ground.

Regards,


Dom

quote:

I take it you never owned a 205 1.9GTI? Makes the Golf look lazy!

Don't have a crash in one though(205).

quote:

Originally posted by 151:

quote:

Originally posted by djftw:

quote:

Originally posted by 151:
peugeot the drive of your life,yeh in your dreams.

I take it you never owned a 205 1.9GTI? Makes the Golf look lazy!

Even better still the Turbo Technics version which is basically the 205 rally car set up for the road. I suspect they're probably the most fun you can have car wise for £1500 and £4000 respectively!!!

a 205,drive of your life,lol

You should take a Turbo Technics 205 GTI for a spin, a friend of mine still has one. It will out accelerate almost anything, including quite a lot of sports cars and tops out at 145mph. It also corners quite well as it weighs only slightly more than the standard car, and shares none of the standard cars suspension. Its a lot rawer than most modern cars, think more TVR on a tight budget.

The only thing I can think of to complain about for something that costs so little to pick up second hand is the fact that if you are not a good driver you will probably die! Small, light, front wheel drive, no traction control and 300bhp is not something many people can handle!

It's far from being the best car I've driven, but it has been by far one of the most fun, and owning a £4000 car that overtakes £120,000 cars gives you an unbelievable feeling of proletariat smugness! if you only have £1500 to spend on a car you can do a hell of a lot worse than a standard 205GTI too!

djftw,i agree its a great fun car,but it aint no drive of your life.