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[TW]Fox;15596031 said:
Surely you can see that this is absolutely never going to happen?

After all it isn't purely financial reasons that most people who are, say, a lawyer are born to parents in similar professions than, say, <insert job title here, not falling into the trap of daring to suggest the titles I'm thinking of>.

It's a whole culture difference not just a financial difference.
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Of course it's a job that will never be finished, but any progress made towards equality is still progress.

And yes, of course there are other factors: the fact that intelligent or good looking people tend to give birth to intelligent or good looking children is one major one, given that intelligent people and good looking people have an easier lot in life. But if there are several factors contributing to social inequality, and we can chip away at one, why not do it? Wealth—and especially your parents' wealth—still plays a huge influence in how far you get in life—especially in these days of unpaid internships, inflated house prices, innumerable privately educated people, etc.
 
robmiller said:
Just investment in healthcare, social services, and education to the point that being born rich doesn't give you an unassailable advantage in terms of life expectancy, probable maximum education levels, and employment opportunities as it does now.
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Except it clearly doesn't give you an 'unassailable' advantage.
 
robmiller said:
The average house is worth £210,000; the inheritance tax threshold is well over 1.5 times that. So yes, you have to be at least moderately rich to even pay a penny of inheritance tax.
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And how many family homes do you know of that are worth 210k exactly?
A one bedroom flat in London is worth more than this for instance.

Any house in the South East will be worth more than this.


Inheritance tax is totally vile and frankly so are its promoters aka self-rigteous, clueless socialist have-nots.

I don't care how this comes across because frankly, anyone, rich or poor should have the right to give their children the benefit of the fruits of their labour.


Also, robmiller, I bet you've never seen a tax bill for a family estate have you? We're talking about being taxed into bankruptcy for doing NOTHING wrong. Or perhaps the tax bill for an ordinary home in the south east of England? An average family home here, for example the one you grew up in and had so many memories in being sold just to cover the tax bill(s).

Where does all this money go? Straight to nowhere.


Tax the "rich" (anyone earning more than 35k) to the bone and "redistribute it" is such a load of crap. All we're going to do is drive out yet more decent people and then drive our financial sector into disrepair and decay so it then moves abroad and we lose a large part of our GDP. Nice, at least we wont get any more headlines about them greedy bankers (who prop up our economy) as they will have ****** off elsewhere.


Get real mate, high-horsed socialism is the biggest fail ever.



OP,


Go to a tax solicitor ASAP.
 
chrisd said:
Except it clearly doesn't give you an 'unassailable' advantage.
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But it really does. Entering into any of the traditional professions is a relative nightmare if you're from a poor background; I know most about law, but I'm sure the same is true of others. Funding university, professional qualifications, and the countless unpaid internships you're expected to undertake (many of which will inevitably be in London) is essentially impossible without parental backing—which is why law and other professions are dominated overwhelmingly by the upper-middle classes. That's totally ignoring the other, non-material advantages you get: the way people judge your background, the contacts you make if you're privately educated, the security offered by the presence of parental support, etc.

It's a bigger risk and far more difficult to be successful in many, many professions if your background is not a wealthy one: that's unfair, and should be challenged.
 
I can understand why people do it—nobody likes to think that they just got lucky—but it's a shame that people are so arrogant as to see their own wealth and success as purely a product of their own hard work, and overlook the ways they've benefited from good fortune and from the help of other people.
 
I'm sorry but if you have the intelligence and ambition to suceed a poor background need not stand in your way. Sure, its hard work, but then if you are afraid of hard work and are not that bright you'll not make it in those career paths anyway?

You might not become a senior partner in a top London law firm but it's perfectly possible to be a qualified solicitor elsewhere in the country off the back of a comprehensive school education and A levels and University education paid for by student loan and (considerable if your family is 'low income') government grants. Money is not the barrier to that route - ability and motivation is.
 
[TW]Fox;15596117 said:
I'm sorry but if you have the intelligence and ambition to suceed a poor background need not stand in your way. Sure, its hard work, but then if you are afraid of hard work and are not that bright you'll not make it in those career paths anyway?

You might not become a senior partner in a top London law firm but it's perfectly possible to be a qualified solicitor elsewhere in the country off the back of a comprehensive school education and A levels and University education paid for by student loan and (considerable if your family is 'low income') government grants. Money is not the barrier to that route - ability and motivation is.
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You can't just choose to have intelligence, though, and while your background might not be an insurmountable problem you still have to work harder than someone from a more privileged background does.

Why do you seem okay with the idea that someone from a comprehensive school background can never become a senior partner in a top London law firm?
 
robmiller said:
Why do you seem okay with the idea that someone from a comprehensive school background can never become a senior partner in a top London law firm?
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I didn't actually say they could never. I bet there are a few of them out there.

Why am I ok about it? Well thats life isnt it? Imagine the problems we'd have in society if anyone could become a senior partner in a London law firm! We'd have 40 million lawyers, doctors and accountants!

And I'm not speaking from a position of fortune here - I'll never be a senior partner in a London law firm either. Neither of my parents are from that sort of background. But I'm happy to accept that..
 
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robmiller said:
But it really does. Entering into any of the traditional professions is a relative nightmare if you're from a poor background; I know most about law, but I'm sure the same is true of others. Funding university, professional qualifications, and the countless unpaid internships you're expected to undertake (many of which will inevitably be in London) is essentially impossible without parental backing—which is why law and other professions are dominated overwhelmingly by the upper-middle classes. That's totally ignoring the other, non-material advantages you get: the way people judge your background, the contacts you make if you're privately educated, the security offered by the presence of parental support, etc.

It's a bigger risk and far more difficult to be successful in many, many professions if your background is not a wealthy one: that's unfair, and should be challenged.
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Actually thanks to new modern attitudes here, if anything it works against you to be from a decent background.

Went to public school? Get ready to be given 1000s of guilt trips by idiots at uni about it. I've seen people like myself pretending to be people they are not due to this pressure to apologize for where one has come from. It's vile. Seeing these people dressing in cardigans putting on accents (commonizing themselves) to fit in and then giving pre-learned speeches about 'im so broke' and playing up any link to 'working class'/ 'tough starts' in their parents.


It's a joke. Fight the bourgeois man. Down with the middle class etc.... :rolleyes:

Positive discrimination is now the result. We used to joke about how certain sets of circumstances and appearances make it a walk-in to these top unis and professions.

BTW it's true too.
 
[TW]Fox;15596136 said:
I didn't actually say they could never. I bet there are a few of them out there.

Why am I ok about it? Well thats life isnt it? Imagine the problems we'd have in society if anyone could become a senior partner in a London law firm! We'd have 40 million lawyers, doctors and accountants!
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I never said that anyone could become one, just that state education (and other public services, but education is the one relevant to this) should be sufficiently good, and recruitment within companies sufficiently fair, that your background is mostly irrelevant to your career trajectory. That's definitely not the case at the moment, where you can get a better education and better employment opportunities if your parents are rich.

Improving schools is a bit of a tenuous target, but there are even small things that would help: things like government-funded work placement schemes—not just for the professions, but for the trades too. If we're going all out for a utopia then I'd have state-funded tertiary education and state grants for professional qualifications, too, so that debt never scares off someone from a poorer background from pursuing a career.
 
Voltar said:
Went to public school? Get ready to be given 1000s of guilt trips by idiots at uni about it. I've seen people like myself pretending to be people they are not due to this pressure to apologize for where one has come from. It's vile. Seeing these people dressing in cardigans putting on accents (commonizing themselves) to fit in and then giving pre-learned speeches about 'im so broke' and playing up any link to 'working class'/ 'tough starts' in their parents..
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Do you think you gained any advantages whatever from going to public school? Being honest, I mean. You don't think you received a better education than your average comprehensive school student? You don't think you've gained access to friends and contacts that your average comprehensive student will never have?
 
Money will ALWAYS buy a better education though - its just the way of the world and its lunacy to think it can be changed. Is there an equal chance that anyone in America can get a Havard education for example? No, of course not. Wherever you live, the more money you have the better chances you have in life. Thats just the way it is, we cannot and will change it and it has been like it since the dawn of time itself.
 
robmiller said:
Do you think you gained any advantages whatever from going to public school? Being honest, I mean. You don't think you received a better education than your average comprehensive school student? You don't think you've gained access to friends and contacts that your average comprehensive student will never have?
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I have received a fantastic education yes. I have learned to be an individual and be proud of myself and my opinions. It also made me passionate about learning.


The contacts part no. That one depends where you went and with whom. I don't have that part.
 
[TW]Fox;15596199 said:
Money will ALWAYS buy a better education though - its just the way of the world and its lunacy to think it can be changed. Is there an equal chance that anyone in America can get a Havard education for example? No, of course not. Wherever you live, the more money you have the better chances you have in life. Thats just the way it is, we cannot and will change it and it has been like it since the dawn of time itself.
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America is a pretty shoddy example. There's a pretty even chance that someone from a poor background in, say, Sweden could go to a top Swedish university—because Sweden funds tertiary education for anyone, including offering bursaries for living costs to all students.
 
Voltar said:
I have received a fantastic education yes. I have learned to be an individual and be proud of myself and my opinions. It also made me passionate about learning.

The contacts part no. That one depends where you went and with whom. I don't have that part.
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This pretty much mirrors me as well. I have no contacts I'd not have had if I were educated in the State system.
 
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