NorthernGent
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Joined: 7/10/2006
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quote:
ORIGINAL: LadyEllen
Okay, okay, I'll bite. First of all though, please let me reassure our US friends that NG is a most unusual chap, even amongst we rather eccentric Brits. I thought I'd get that in, before agenda item (4) is introduced.
quote:
ORIGINAL: NorthernGent
Health warning for Scooter & co: this post may contain terrifying scenes of political views. If easily scared, do not proceed.
Not wishing to invoke my right to insult as things stand, I seriously, seriously doubt whether Scooter is scared of very much at all, if he's anything like the bikers I know......
A friend was getting her hair cut on Saturday so I offered her a lift. Turned up at the hairdressers and the place was called something Italian like Giovanni Di Biaggio's. Went in to have a mooch and a cup of tea while she had her hair done. Low and behold Giovanni the owner was actually in the shop so I thought I'd have a chat guessing he'd be new to the area.
Why would he be new to the area? We have a thriving Italian community in my town, some since WWII, many since a lot longer before then.
To cut a long story short, it turns out Giovanni Di Biaggio is actually Tommy Smith. He looks English, he speaks with a Mancunian accent, he is 100% English. Born and Bred. He couldn't be more English if he wandered around with a pair of Union Jack undercracks on.
I suspect he was trying to emulate the Giovanni from my town - genuine Italian stock, hairdresser to the stars, died a few years back, Madonna et al came to the funeral. If I were going to open a hairdressing shop, I'd do the same thing.
Its called marketing, NG. The principle is, to produce a product or service which appeals to the market. In this case, the use of an Italian image, inspiring thoughts of sophistication, alongside the use of the Giovanni name, satisfies in an excellent way, one of the Ps of marketing - the packaging, and also enables "Tommy" to charge more for his service, in what is a "me too" market where price distinction is otherwise difficult to achieve.
In any case, if he were from Italian stock, then why should he not have a Mancunian accent I wonder? (thats a Manchester accent to our US friends by the way, if they're still reading this - if you ever heard the guys from Oasis, they have a pretty good example of this accent). Having lived here for some time, the Italian community in my town dont have Italian accents, but theyre Italian alright.
Basically, Tommy has given himself an Italian name, put a few sparkling hairsprays in the window, decked the place out in cheap chrome, employed a few dolly birds to cut hair and the place is packed to the rafters with women queuing up for a hairdo at 60 quid a go (100$ish).
Yep. Good marketing strategy. Well done Tommy.
Meanwhile, 3 minutes walk away just off Deansgate, people are living out of cardboard boxes and begging for 20p for a cup of tea.
How can this be right? What is going on with our priorities?
First, we need to know the exact circumstances of Tommy, and the exact circumstances of the people in the Deansgate. As I have informed you before on other threads, I now own and run a business like Tommy, and I had no special hand up or advantage that anyone else didnt have. My family were factory fodder, no privilege, nothing.
The people in the Deansgate have it comparatively bad, for sure. But how did they get there? As children, they must have attended state schools as I did, and so had the same hand up and advantage as I. As adults they are entitled to the full range of social benefits, so how is it that they are in the situation they are now, when I (and maybe Tommy) have flourished in the same circumstances?
I'm not stepping on Termyn8tors toes here as we're in different countries so I'm sure he won't mind me starting a rival election campaign.
Top 5 campaiging issues:
1) The monarchy are gone. We will strip them of all of their possessions and use the proceeds to fund teachers and nurses to do their jobs to the best of their ability. The Royal Family will be given a two-up-two-down in a Salford council estate.
Fine idea. The GBP 100-00 for each teacher and nurse will do a lot of good. Meanwhile, the people in Deansgate will be pleased that they will be moved down the housing list, to provide accomodation to a family which already has a house.
I really dont understand your loathing of the monarchy NG. Is it something from a previous life perhaps? I dont love them or anything - I'm pretty neutral to them, but in the end, they perform a function for the UK. If the nation and even the government didnt think so, then they would remove them.
2) The war on terror is gone. If the mythical Islamo-fascists turn out to be anything more than the figment of an over-active imagination fuelled by too many vitamin C drinks then so be it. We're taking our chances.
Good idea. Those explosions on the London transport system - I knew it was an odd thing to have happened in England, and I'm so glad you've reassured me that all I need do is lay off the Koolaid and I'll be OK.
The whole thing may have been handled so badly that it has resulted in an increased risk, but for there to be an increased risk does mean there must have been a risk there, before the poor handling of the situation increased it.
3) The special relationship is gone. We'll reconsider our position when the current President leaves office. Until then, it's over.
With you on that one. How we can provide unqualified support for the neonut administration is quite beyond anyone to explain satisfactorarily. Until someone of better quality occupies the White House however, we must reassure the American people, that we remain loyal friends and that our withdrawal is intended as a friendly act in support of the vast majority of US citizens who realise that no self respecting nation could respect the likes of GWB.
4) Freedom to insult is gone. Freedom of speech remains. Any person of any background and community will be subject to criminal charges if he/she is found to be inciting tension.
This is a difficult one indeed. You see NG, almost every time you post here, you seem to incite tension in almost everyone else!
There are already laws which forbid speech, imagery, behaviour and publications which might incite hatred (as a broad term)- not just religious/racial/cultural, but also in relation to LGBT and disabled people.
How do you define insult please? For instance, if Jack Straw remarks that he would prefer Muslim women to remove their veils, and the Muslim women find that insulting, does Jack Straw get arrested? Does it also mean that anytime anyone does or says something which I choose to find insulting, regardless of whether I did or not, then they could be arrested? ie, purely on my impression of insult? Does this mean that Salman Rushdie would be arrested? What about people who accuse priests of paedophilia? They insult the church, so they should be arrested?
You know NG, our laws on incitement are pretty strong. In general they have been well constructed to be practical and give the protection intended. The freedom to insult must remain, for not every perceived slight is actually an intended insult.
5) Corporation Tax is raised and the proceeds will be used to fund regeneration of deprived areas in terms of housing, health and education. If business owners feel the need to take their business abroad then so be it - far better to do the right thing than let the lunatics run the asylum.
Great idea. Will the last person leaving the UK, please switch off the lights? Any that remain, please obtain a cardboard box and find yourself a pitch on Deansgate.
Do you realise what the rate of tax is on business profits? Here I am, with my house pledged to the bank, to provide finance for my business. If the business fails, I will be in the cardboard box on the Deansgate, if it succeeds in making a profit, then I will pay 45% on the profit, and then another 40% income tax on the nett. So if I make 100k this year, the government will already get 67k of that to spend on your aims. If thats not enough, then what is enough I wonder? In the meantime, I face ten years in gaol if I make a mistake on the tax return. How much more risk should I suffer for providing myself and my employees with good jobs? How much less benefit should I have from working hard and taking those risks? Its already gone as far as it is possible to go NG - push any further, and it wont be worth it and you will find unemployment and deprivation such as you decry, rising inexorably as small business owners opt for exile or social benefits from a decreasing pot of revenue.
I really dont think you understand NG, that the wealth to provide social benefits, health and education et al, is derived from economic activity. Remove economic activity and there will be no social benefits, health or education services. Strangely enough, even the Queen does not have sufficient wealth to provide the funds for our system as it is, for more than a day. We cannot spend more than we can generate through economic activity, and we cannot promote economic activity through taxing it into exile. Equally, you can regenerate all you like, you can spend vast sums in doing so, but if there is no economic activity it will all be for nothing. You can try to make economic activity happen, but the problem is that people will only buy and sell what is needed and what can be afforded and so even a planned economy will fail, because it will not produce sufficient economic activity to provide jobs for all. And most harshly of all, those who cannot and all too often will not compete in our economic activity, will find themselves in a cardboard box on the Deansgate.
Based on the above, you've missed the point of the post. My post is not discussing the merits and limititations of wealth creation.
I'm talking about a society where product and style means more than people's welfare. We moan and whinge about paying tax towards social provision but we don't mind paying 60 quid to get a hairdo (it's a hairdo for God's sake.....snip, snip.....£60 please....oh, bargain, thanks very much) just because the shop is shiney and full of dolly birds who consumers are aspiring to because they've over-indulged in too many magazines. I am not talking about entrepreneurial endeavour. I am talking about our society and the way we are prepared to pay way, way over the top for nothing because of a perceived level of social acceptance (because we have the media in our brains day after day telling us we need these things to be fulfilled).
In other words, we value over-priced, stylistic items because we live in a society that places higher value on consumerism to achieve social acceptance than it does social welfare.
It's time for a change to our political landscape. If the Conservatives and New Labour have nothing more to offer us than neo-liberal economics and a chaotic free-for-all culminating in a huge wealth gap, serious levels of alcohol and drug abuse, child poverty, crime, anti-social behaviour, teenage pregnancy and social deprivation then it's time to get rid and move on.
In the meantime, I'm going to set up shop down the road, call myself Marco Del Pierro, sell Marco's 'finest authentic Italian ice creams' and charge £50 for a cone, dollop of lancashire ice cream and a flake (monkey's blood added for an extra fiver). The proceeds will be donated to a local school. The new Irony Tax.
Oh, and I'll come back to your wealth creation points when I have more time. Don't underestimate my business sense just because I'm only 33 and value social welfare. After leaving University I have worked in varying levels of business and sat more business/finance related exams than you can shake a stick at. As said, I'll come back to these points.
< Message edited by NorthernGent -- 10/10/2006 5:28:56 AM >
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