Low in empathy/guilt, with weak conscience, good liars, fraudsters, impervious to rules, punishments, materialistic?

Some characteristics shared by the people in question in your post would you say?

If so they are showing psychopathic tendencies. You may have heard of a recent study done that likened investment bankers to psychopaths but I think the net is wider than just that ilk.

For years now I have always got very annoyed when I see some CEO or Chairmen saying things like "The business made people redundant." or really dishing out any negative news hiding behind the company. The "business" didn't do any such thing. A person or persons decided to do it and a person or persons decided who was to lose their jobs. It is the same when politicians talk about a flexible labour force being a good thing. The "labour force" is people and "flexibility" means very little job security and often low wages to boot. To hide behind such terms as "the business" or "the labour force" is at the very least narcissistic (though of course narcissism is a symptom of psychopathy).

I am sure there are good business owners out there who have many a sleepless night if they are facing having to lay people off but there are far too many people out there today who show an astonishing lack of empathy with other peoples situations.

I used to think it was the ignorance of those who had never seen at first hand any tough situations in life but that doesn't cut it. Some have and others are intelligent enough to see what the reality is for a lot of people yet they still show an amazing lack of empathy. So the only conclusion is narcissism is a lot more common than people may think!

If you're gonna suck cock you really do need to be particular about whose cock you suck

None that he's informed me of anyway.

Might of had to bum a couple of his gaffers along the way, mind.

No bread for six weeks.
No takeaway for six wks.
4 miles down the railway lines daily.

Got a wedding Saturday.
New suit, new white shirt (just to show the tan off) and new electric blue silk tie.

They will be flocking.

How does one 'not particularly' suck a cock? Surely one is either sucking a cock, or one is not.

Can we please kept the bad language down please.

Bad language? Think that was a cock up on my part. You're cock on, though. Won't happen again, cock.

Like others here, I've certainly had a fair share of luck, good and bad.

The only thing I've ever received was unemployment, on occasions when I have been out of work. Although as mentioned earlier, that excludes education and health care.

My own experiences of being out of work were certainly not happy or somehow rolling in it, but the biggest impact, in my experience, is on your confidence and, indeed, your sense of dignity.

I'm fortunate enough, at present (I take nothing for granted) to have regular work that pays well - allowing me, for instance not only the best lifestyle I've had, but also to save. I have long-terms aims, and I invest my own, unpaid time in those, so I'd suggest that that reflects a preparedness to out in the time to 'get on'.

But one of the major lessons of my own experiences was that you can't just do it on your own - we none of us exist in splendiferous isolation, where work, for instance, is simply the matter of getting up and the morning and deciding that we will work today. The idea of everyone running their own business would be ridiculous, so therefore we understand that, for the majority, they do the jobs required by those people who do. And if, as over the last few years, the economy is in recession, then it is patent idiocy to pretend that everyone can simply go out and get that job.

But with that comes something elseThe Spirit Level[/i?

And can we, for the sake of this discussion at least, get past tribal politics and consider the issues?

I don't know.
If you have some experience on the subject, I'm all ears. ([sizenot mouth

rlThoughts of a 90-year-old WWII veteran on the current state of affairs.rl

Excellent piece of writing, his was the generation who gave us the NHS, a state pension, social care and social housing fit to live in, they cleared slums and made sure that the governments that followed the war didn't forget why they had been elected - they also gave us NATO, the United Nations and the beginnings of the EU to make sure that we didn't have to do what they had to do.

No wonder he sits there now and shakes his head as he sees all of us stand by and let politicians unravel all of their predecessors good work.

It's extremely moving as well.

And it almost makes you think that, with most of his generation now gone, that's one of things that makes the work of this government easier in its deconstruction of the social contract.

As I've said many times on here, as an electorate we get the politicians we deserve. Apathy among the electorate and people being unwilling to hold politicians to account breeds comtempt for the electorate. People need to stand up and be counted. I had a small temporary victory this week by some very pointed questions I wrote to local politicians / public "servants" pointing out their errors, etc. Basically, they had to reverse prices increases they'd foisted on the public, albeit only for a few weeks. Hold the filth to account if you want to stop them.

From that Guardian articleThe problem with society, today, is not lack of money or debt but lack of ideas, lack of commitment by our government to realise that its constituents are the people[/i

Someone should spray paint that in big fscking letters across the side of the Houses of Parliament. What a man.