Break the glass and hit the panic button Labour

[Kenj]

Ahhh but our rainwater tanks (plural) were at the back of the two baches my grandparents owned on the beach at Orewa. The little weatherboard house right at the top of the dunes, with the Army hut at the back for us kids. Oh it was heaven. Hours and hours to get there from home in whichever green tree suburb my parents were renovating the latest flip project, but oh once there it was heaven. Bonfires on the beach, watching and helping pull the nets in, screaming in mock horror at flapping fish, being brave enough to bite the tongue off pipis freshly plucked from the sand in the shallows. No poverty there, hard work for sure, the entire family working in the factory in Newmarket, or out on the road selling, doing well, until the import rules changed and Japan then China cut the bottom out of Made in New Zealand.

Gentle years, conditioned me beautifully to love gorgeous things, to know how to put up wallpaper, and to understand that things never stay the same, live in the present, because tomorrow brings surprises. It really is true, those childhood years create the adult to come, strengths and weaknesses both.

Gentle years is a good description. None of the pressures that young folk have these days. Looong gone are my days of home maintenance, but I never paid anyone to do anything I could legally do myself. paint, paper, concrete, moving internal walls..... it just goes on. All taught to me by my Dad, bless him!

[Oh_hunnihunni]

Yup, me too. My Dad saw no reason for me to grow up useless just because I was a girl. From self defence rabbit punches to wiring a lamp I am grateful for those lessons. Great for self esteem when the world goes to shit, lol...

[Lilith7]

I do wish that I didn't have to but it seems that some are still unaware of what the consequences have been for those now worst off. 

And if we have  a right wing govt after the eelction, then that doesn't give much hope for improvement in the near future.

Just as some are still unaware that how much resource a person has has no bearing on their ethics, morals or social conscience. There are greedy and lazy poor just as there are greedy and lazy wealthy. But the good done by rich philanthropists is such a valuable part of our society that if they were all deprived of their wealth, we would all suffer greatly. And even their profit-making activities are often considered essential. How many people stop to think how much having a cheap computer has enhanced our lives? How many people watch movies? Fly to places you could drive to, or just stay home instead? Eat takeaways? The want v need aspect of some of those things is debatable, but there would be very few people who don't do any of those and our ability to do them cheaply is because others got rich by taking the risks involved in the startups.

---

I particularly enjoyed the 'you've had six years' to come up with more doctors quip from Luxon.

Considering if the last Nat government had done anything about it the students they got into medical school would be graduating and practicing right now. We wouldn't need to come up with more...

Though it might be true most of those Nat ones would be working overseas in one of those countries enduring the same health crises we are.

---

I am glad I had a 50s 60s childhood. I think I was a whole lot happier and less stressed than the kids are today  for all their advantages, tech, and progressive opportunities. Sure we had disadvantages, it was a different community back then. But we had good schools, healthy food, a lot fewer people, less crime, and roast lamb on Sundays.

Yup, we boomers were a lucky generation.

Ah, the 60s. When we only had a rainwater tank and when that ran out in summer we had none. Bullied and ostracised at school for wearing inappropriate hand-me-downs and/or simple garments that were clearly home made when the other kids had witches britches. The only treats were at Christmas and included things re-made from the local dump which never really worked. Parents did their best but the hardship was insurmountable for a number of years. The best thing they did give us though was an ethic to work hard to do our best to take care of ourselves, and to give something back to society along the way. Both of which I have done all my life.

"Just as some are still unaware that how much resource a person has has no bearing on their ethics, morals or social conscience. There are greedy and lazy poor just as there are greedy and lazy wealthy. But the good done by rich philanthropists is such a valuable part of our society that if they were all deprived of their wealth, we would all suffer greatly."



Not so much as it happens...

While its true that absolute bastards come in all categories, there are nonetheless some differences between wealthy people & the rest of us - they're less likely to help than are those on lower incomes & that's been borne out more than once in various studies.

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor...%20credits

Study: Poor Are More Charitable Than The Wealthy

"You might assume that when it comes to giving, the rich are generally better at it than the rest of us. That's what Paul Piff, a psychologist at U.C. Berkeley, also thought. So he carried out a study and just published his findings in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Paul Piff, welcome to the program.

Mr. PAUL PIFF (Psychology Researcher, University of California, Berkeley): Thanks so much for having me, Guy.
RAZ: So that question, you know, who's more generous, the rich or the poor, how did you set out to answer it?
Mr. PIFF: Well, we started out by recruiting adults and had them fill out an online questionnaire that essentially asked them to tell us what their socio-economic status was.
Now, when we brought them into the lab, we said: You're going to play a game in which you're given 10 credits, which are going to be equal to cash at the end of the experiment, and we're interested in knowing how many of those credits you want to give, if any, to a partner that you'll never meet and who'll never meet you.
RAZ: Now, you knew, obviously, the socio-economic backgrounds of all these people. What did you find?
Mr. PIFF: So interestingly and possibly counter-intuitively, we found that people who were actually ranking themselves as relative high in their socio-economic status were less inclined to give points away than were people who ranked themselves as relatively lower in social class.
So essentially, people who have more, or who identify themselves as having more, were or tended to give less in this just very simple task of generosity toward a stranger.
RAZ: Was it on an order of magnitude? I mean, was it a significant difference?
Mr. PIFF: It was, absolutely. It was a statistically significant difference, and what we found was that the lower-class people, or the relatively lower-class individuals, were inclined to give away 44 percent more of their points or their credits.
RAZ: Forty-four percent more.
Mr. PIFF: Yeah.
RAZ: Why do you think that people who self-identified as richer were less generous than people who identified as poorer or middle class?
Mr. PIFF: Across these experiments, the main variable that we find that consistently explains this differential pattern of giving and helping and generosity among the upper and lower class is feelings of sensitivity and care for the welfare of other people and, essentially, the emotion that we call compassion.
So it's really compassionate feelings that exist among the lower class that's seen to provoke these higher levels of altruism and generosity toward other people.
RAZ: Were you surprised at what you found?
Mr. PIFF: You know, I had expected this pattern might pan out given the earlier that we've done on the effects of poverty on people's behavior toward others, but the findings that we had across experiments and across contexts in many ways speak against hundreds of years of economical thinking about how people would behave toward others when they're in need.
So I think it's really an interesting counter-intuitive pattern of results that really speaks against certain intuitions that we might have about the behavior of the wealthy or how the wealthy might act toward others.
RAZ: That's Paul Piff. He's a psychology researcher at U.C. Berkeley. His team's findings that the poor are more charitable than the rich were published in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Paul Piff, thanks so much.
Mr. PIFF: Thanks so much for having me, Guy."



https://www.psychologicalscience.org/new...ggest.html

"The rich are different - & not in a good way

Psychologist and social scientist Dacher Keltner says the rich really are different, and not in a good way: Their life experience makes them less empathetic, less altruistic, and generally more selfish.
“We have now done 12 separate studies measuring empathy in every way imaginable, social behavior in every way, and some work on compassion and it’s the same story,” he said. “Lower class people just show more empathy, more prosocial behavior, more compassion, no matter how you look at it.”

---

Ahhh but our rainwater tanks (plural) were at the back of the two baches my grandparents owned on the beach at Orewa. The little weatherboard house right at the top of the dunes, with the Army hut at the back for us kids. Oh it was heaven. Hours and hours to get there from home in whichever green tree suburb my parents were renovating the latest flip project, but oh once there it was heaven. Bonfires on the beach, watching and helping pull the nets in, screaming in mock horror at flapping fish, being brave enough to bite the tongue off pipis freshly plucked from the sand in the shallows. No poverty there, hard work for sure, the entire family working in the factory in Newmarket, or out on the road selling, doing well, until the import rules changed and Japan then China cut the bottom out of Made in New Zealand.

Gentle years, conditioned me beautifully to love gorgeous things, to know how to put up wallpaper, and to understand that things never stay the same, live in the present, because tomorrow brings surprises. It really is true, those childhood years create the adult to come, strengths and weaknesses both.

Gentle years is a good description. None of the pressures that young folk have these days. Looong gone are my days of home maintenance, but I never paid anyone to do anything I could legally do myself. paint, paper, concrete, moving internal walls..... it just goes on. All taught to me by my Dad, bless him!

I'm not so sure about that though - my kids ( & some of the grandkids) are fairly handy. In fact I used to say that if my kids couldn't fix something it was unfixable; they probably saved me a fortune over the years. 

We used to wade into the sea & feel pipi under our feet,grab them & bite off their tongues too - poor things, I feel bad about it now.

[SueDonim]

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor...%20credits

Study: Poor Are More Charitable Than The Wealthy




https://www.psychologicalscience.org/new...ggest.html

"The rich are different - & not in a good way

Psychologist and social scientist Dacher Keltner says the rich really are different, and not in a good way: Their life experience makes them less empathetic, less altruistic, and generally more selfish.
“We have now done 12 separate studies measuring empathy in every way imaginable, social behavior in every way, and some work on compassion and it’s the same story,” he said. “Lower class people just show more empathy, more prosocial behavior, more compassion, no matter how you look at it.”

For the first link I found this https://www.uky.edu/AS/PoliSci/Peffley/p...havior.pdf which I think might have been what Piff was talking about. The studies do have issues though - small samples of mainly American undergraduate students plus some people from paid university research/email groups. So while the results where interesting, they are far from being a cross section of society. And some of it also used self-reporting of social status, which is likely biased and not necessarily reflective of true financial position. If you try to extract it to NZ social structures across all ages, the results could be totally different.

I see that Piff has done quite a bit of work in this area though so it would interesting but time-consuming to look at more of his articles. I did get side-tracked into this one http://www.the-brights.net/morality/stat...(2012).pdf about compassion, generosity and religion.

The second link looked more promising but again it was a news item rather than the actual article, and my computer couldn't access the full version - something to do with security settings. On looking further I found this https://rascl.berkeley.edu/assets/files/...ualism.pdf which might be the actual article, and if so, I notice that the other authors are Piff and Kraus. It looks interesting, but right at the start I can see that it is also assuming that social class is related to wealth. In some contexts that might be so, but in the sense of how much money people have available to choose between spending, investing or giving I think that separating out categories of class is a mistake, especially in NZ. Some of the richest people are the ones you will see downtown in a torn T-shirt and old jandals, and some of those with the least ready cash are the ones who appear to be living lavish lifestyles. And not forgetting than there are more ways to give than just financially.

Both articles were also old. I had a look for what has been published recently and there is plenty to choose from, including this one https://journals.plos.org/plosone/articl...ne.0286273 that seems to have a good balance, and at least includes the UK as well as the US.

[Oh_hunnihunni]

I like that... There are also more ways to be happy than being wealthy.

But it sure helps.

[Lilith7]

https://www.npr.org/templates/story/stor...%20credits

Study: Poor Are More Charitable Than The Wealthy




https://www.psychologicalscience.org/new...ggest.html

"The rich are different - & not in a good way

Psychologist and social scientist Dacher Keltner says the rich really are different, and not in a good way: Their life experience makes them less empathetic, less altruistic, and generally more selfish.
“We have now done 12 separate studies measuring empathy in every way imaginable, social behavior in every way, and some work on compassion and it’s the same story,” he said. “Lower class people just show more empathy, more prosocial behavior, more compassion, no matter how you look at it.”

For the first link I found this https://www.uky.edu/AS/PoliSci/Peffley/p...havior.pdf which I think might have been what Piff was talking about. The studies do have issues though - small samples of mainly American undergraduate students plus some people from paid university research/email groups. So while the results where interesting, they are far from being a cross section of society. And some of it also used self-reporting of social status, which is likely biased and not necessarily reflective of true financial position. If you try to extract it to NZ social structures across all ages, the results could be totally different.

I see that Piff has done quite a bit of work in this area though so it would interesting but time-consuming to look at more of his articles. I did get side-tracked into this one http://www.the-brights.net/morality/stat...(2012).pdf about compassion, generosity and religion.

The second link looked more promising but again it was a news item rather than the actual article, and my computer couldn't access the full version - something to do with security settings. On looking further I found this https://rascl.berkeley.edu/assets/files/...ualism.pdf which might be the actual article, and if so, I notice that the other authors are Piff and Kraus. It looks interesting, but right at the start I can see that it is also assuming that social class is related to wealth. In some contexts that might be so, but in the sense of how much money people have available to choose between spending, investing or giving I think that separating out categories of class is a mistake, especially in NZ. Some of the richest people are the ones you will see downtown in a torn T-shirt and old jandals, and some of those with the least ready cash are the ones who appear to be living lavish lifestyles. And not forgetting than there are more ways to give than just financially.

Both articles were also old. I had a look for what has been published recently and there is plenty to choose from, including this one https://journals.plos.org/plosone/articl...ne.0286273 that seems to have a good balance, and at least includes the UK as well as the US.

Two more recent articles have similar results.


The UK.


https://www.theguardian.com/politics/202...greed-does


"You report that Rishi Sunak thinks the UK has “moved beyond” judging people on their money, in the wake of the publication of the Sunday Times rich list (Rishi Sunak: Britain has moved on from judging people for being rich, 19 May).
Our research, published this month and based on a nationally representative poll of 2,000 people, shows that the reality is slightly more complicated. While Britons are broadly supportive of people who have earned their wealth by, for example, setting up a business, they look on people who have inherited wealth much less favourably. They also question whether excessively high salaries in some sectors (including the City) are deserved.



It also found that people are worried about the consequences of wealth inequality. Asked about high net worth individuals (defined as people with net wealth of more than £10m), 69% are concerned that they exist while others live in poverty; 65% worry that there are unequal opportunities to accumulate wealth; 75% worry that they have too much influence on the political system; and 79% are concerned that they don’t contribute their fair share.
This concern translates into support for taxing the wealthy – 68% of Britons think that the government should be doing more to tax high net worth individuals. This view isn’t just limited to Guardian readers – the figures broadly hold up for Conservative voters. Something for Sunak to think hard about over the next 18 months."


2023
Greedy people have more money but are less satisfied with their lives



https://www.psypost.org/2023/02/greedy-p...tudy-67731

"A Dutch study published in [i]Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin[/i] suggests that greed may be good for our pockets but comes at a psychological cost. The findings revealed that greedy people tended to have higher household incomes but lower life satisfaction..

Greed can be described as a constant desire to acquire more of something, often to the detriment of others.

Psychology research has largely backed up this negative view of greed, showing that greed is associated with harmful behavior as well as dark personality traits. However, few studies have examined whether greed might be associated with positive outcomes for the individual. For example, an economic view suggests that greed can be advantageous when it comes to generating productivity and wealth.

The finding that greedy people are less satisfied with their lives might be explained by the fact that greedy people are perpetually dissatisfied with what they have and constantly chasing more. It could also be an indirect effect through less satisfying social relationships."

---

I like that... There are also more ways to be happy than being wealthy.

But it sure helps.

It just makes the wheels turn more smoothly

[Zurdo]

I'm sure there are good people in all walks of live - but I've never had someone in a flash car and nice clothes pull over to the side of the road and offer me a hand. Plenty have, but they were all just like me.

[Lilith7]

I'm sure there are good people in all walks of live - but I've never had someone in a flash car and nice clothes pull over to the side of the road and offer me a hand. Plenty have, but they were all just like me.

Me neither.

[Oh_hunnihunni]

I have. For instance - a couple of friends way way better off than me got together and bought my scooter for me. Sure, my pride wouldn't let me not pay it back. Slowly, lol, but it was their idea to gift it. Another couple I know offered me flights to their place in Boston for a white Christmas, people with big bank accounts can be incredibly generous to impecunious old ladies. Just a pity stiff necked pride wouldn't let me hop on that plane, lol. I still kick myself at times.

But you know just them offering was such a lovely gift. Not all rich folks are wankers. Just as not all poor folks are deserving. There are good and bad in both camps.

[Lilith7]

I have. For instance - a couple of friends way way better off than me got together and bought my scooter for me. Sure, my pride wouldn't let me not pay it back. Slowly, lol, but it was their idea to gift it. Another couple I know offered me flights to their place in Boston for a white Christmas, people with big bank accounts can be incredibly generous to impecunious old ladies. Just a pity stiff necked pride wouldn't let me hop on that plane, lol. I still kick myself at times.

But you know just them offering was such a lovely gift. Not all rich folks are wankers. Just as not all poor folks are deserving. There are good and bad in both camps.

Yes & I think that was borne out recently when a group of wealthy Kiwi people asked the govt to tax them at a higher rate.

If we all paid a bit more tax (not to a punitive level) then I think we could do far better than we have so far. But for some reason our politicians seem very wary of dismantling Neo Liberalism.

[Zurdo]

We need a good dictatorship, where a leader can say - ''Shut up, we are doing this, and you will thank us in 10 years.'' But they can only see as far ahead as the next election.

[Oh_hunnihunni]

Winston Churchill disliked democracy. But disliked the alternatives even more. Sensible man.

About philanthropy though... I used to love doing our Friday afternoon wander out to the Wallace collection at the Pah Homestead, and used to mentally thank that bastard every time I went through the doors. Now I feel faintly nauseous at the thought of how gullible we all were. Those of us who never had the faintest idea the man was such a rotten predator at heart.

As for those who knew, and kept silent, damn your eyes, your greedy hearts, and your arses.

[Lilith7]

We need a good dictatorship, where a leader can say - ''Shut up, we are doing this, and you will thank us in 10 years.'' But they can only see as far ahead as the next election.

That's the problem; more concerned with that next election than any future further away. I wonder just how bad our planet will be allowed to get, before we take seriously the bloody great mess we've made of it & try to fix it - if it isn't too late.

---

Winston Churchill disliked democracy. But disliked the alternatives even more. Sensible man.

About philanthropy though... I used to love doing our Friday afternoon wander out to the Wallace collection at the Pah Homestead, and used to mentally thank that bastard every time I went through the doors. Now I feel faintly nauseous at the thought of how gullible we all were. Those of us who never had the faintest idea the man was such a rotten predator at heart.

As for those who knew, and kept silent, damn your eyes, your greedy hearts, and your arses.

Perhaps not so much gullible  - more that swine was well thought of in some circles, which may have helped protected him to some extent.

I think he's in the right place now.

[Zurdo]

I think there have been and are some very good philantrothops (what is the plural?) and thank you very much. But some use it for other purposes...tax evasion etc, money laundering in a good way...like tobacco advertising was.

Just read about Al Capone opening a soup kitchen in the depression, a shelter and food bank for the unemployed and homeless. Of no benefit to himself, just helping others.

[Olive]

Now I feel faintly nauseous at the thought of how gullible we all were. Those of us who never had the faintest idea the man was such a rotten predator at heart.

As for those who knew, and kept silent, damn your eyes, your greedy hearts, and your arses.

I moved in art circles during the 90s when he was a regular collector of art.   We all knew that he also collected handsome young men, but it was not generally known how predatory he was.   The general opinion was that he was a bit pathetic, and because he was personally quite unpleasant he was avoided socially, apart from the art dealers who had to be polite because he was a regular customer.   He was known for having terrible taste in art and for haggling over prices.

[Lilith7]

I think there have been and are some very good philantrothops (what is the plural?) and thank you very much. But some use it for other purposes...tax evasion etc, money laundering in a good way...like tobacco advertising was.

Just read about Al Capone opening a soup kitchen in the depression, a shelter and food bank for the unemployed and homeless. Of no benefit to himself, just helping others.

Yeah - I knew about that some years ago & it surprised me too when I first found out. Strange creatures, we humans - good & bad.

---

Now I feel faintly nauseous at the thought of how gullible we all were. Those of us who never had the faintest idea the man was such a rotten predator at heart.

As for those who knew, and kept silent, damn your eyes, your greedy hearts, and your arses.

I moved in art circles during the 90s when he was a regular collector of art.   We all knew that he also collected handsome young men, but it was not generally known how predatory he was.   The general opinion was that he was a bit pathetic, and because he was personally quite unpleasant he was avoided socially, apart from the art dealers who had to be polite because he was a regular customer.   He was known for having terrible taste in art and for haggling over prices.

He sounds a  complete prickle.